Deloitte chief in Glasgow underlines 'scale up' challenge

The Herald Scotland

24-05-2025

Mr Mitchell was commenting in his first interview since succeeding Angela Mitchell (no relation) as Deloitte's new senior partner in Glasgow. Ms Mitchell is the firm's senior partner for Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Mr Mitchell heads a team of 325 people who offer the full spectrum of service lines to business across a range of sectors in the city. Many staff work nationally although are technically based at the office on Queen Street.
Asked to comment on the general outlook for business in Scotland, Mr Mitchell told The Herald: 'I think it has been a challenging time for the whole economy. [There has been] lots of uncertainty – global macroeconomics make it challenging.
'There continues to be that challenge around scaling. How do we make it easy, affordable, [and] worthwhile to stay and really scale businesses in Scotland, which I think is important for these businesses but also for how busy city centres are and what opportunities there are for people for employment. I think it is really important that we continue to support those businesses and help them scale."
Referring to the success of Skyscanner, the travel technology specialist formed in Edinburgh that went on to be sold to Chinese company Ctrip for £1.4 billion in 2016, Mr Mitchell said the conversations people were having around the need to scale up more firms in Scotland and emulate that story are still taking place now.
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He said: 'I think back to meetings, gatherings and discussions 10 years ago and it was the same conversation we had at that point around scaling. How easy is it, and what do we need to do collectively [to make this happen]. And we have our own role to play in that, to help businesses grow and scale.'
Pressed for his thoughts on why firms continue to find it challenging to scale up in Scotland, Mr Mitchell said: 'It is going to be different for every business. Sometimes scaling in Scotland would not necessarily be the right answer, and as you look at where the markets now are for businesses, technology and social media means that customers could probably be anywhere. If you go back a good number of years your customers tended to be around where you were doing business. Now it can be anywhere.
'Some of the things that continue to be talked about or flagged are access to finance, access to talent, it is all the same things. The challenges are similar.'
Asked if some firms are denied the chance to scale up because they are acquired by companies based outside Scotland, Mr Mitchell said: 'Sometimes that is the right thing for the business. I guess it is then when those investors come in, how are we making Scotland still a competitive base for that business.
'It is good that a lot of time outside investment comes in – the key for us as an economy is then to make sure the environment they are buying into is competitive enough and attractive to stay there, even though the ownership might be from somewhere else. That then links back to the job creation and everything that flows off the back of that.'
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Mr Mitchell acknowledged that US tariffs have been one of many factors that have created uncertainty for businesses in Scotland this year. He expressed confidence that the depth of talent within Deloitte means there will always be someone within its team who will have the 'answer' to any questions thrown up by clients.
Meanwhile, Mr Mitchell expressed his hope to expand the Deloitte team in Glasgow, and highlighted the pipeline of talent emerging from the city's universities. 'We look to continue to grow,' he said. 'We have a good opportunity to continue to get high-calibre graduates from all walks of life into the business here. One of our key goals and responsibilities as partners is to make sure that we are developing those individuals and giving them a real, rich opportunity within Deloitte to learn new skills, grow, and go on to fulfil whatever they want to in their careers.
'What we find is that a lot of people will start with us and then look to take advantage of either international travel or move around different departments up and down the country. London continues to be a pull for a variety of reasons.
'We continue to recruit strong numbers out of the universities and [are] looking to invest in the team internally. It is the year-end coming up so hopefully we will have a good number of promotions coming through.'