I asked him what was distracting him and he said that he was having trouble with his chief financial officer. I was explaining this particular client’s very complex income tax return to him when I noticed that he didn’t seem to paying much attention, which, as he usually took a keen interest in his taxes, was highly unusual. It was while dealing with the CEO of a large public company in the late 1970s that I accidentally fell into the field that eventually became known as executive coaching. I was also proud of the fact that as a result of my writing, speaking and broadcasting activity, I acquired as personal financial planning clients a number of senior executives of corporations which were not Touche clients, such as John Labatt Ltd. At one point I was out of the country for five weeks (Anne and our sons came with me), so you can just imagine the amount of covering the Toronto partners did for me.įrom a practice standpoint I still had all my personal financial planning clients from my Coopers days and, of course, picked up many more off the Touche roster, especially very senior executives and successful entrepreneurs. Over the ten-year period in which I was involved in this activity, the support and co-operation of my partners was unbelievable. I became Chairman of both the Ontario and the Canadian Institutes. When it came to the Institutes, I basically did it all. All of this provided the firm with free publicity worth millions of dollars, at a time when CA firms were not allowed to advertise. I also did a great deal of public speaking all over Canada and internationally in such places as New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Bermuda, Nassau, and Grand Cayman, again always being identified as a “Touche Ross partner”. ĭuring my time with Touche I also appeared on television about two hundred times, again always being identified with the firm. While at Touche I had over two hundred columns published, all of which had the by-line “Lyman MacInnis is a partner with Touche Ross.” I also had a twice-daily commentary on CFRB in Toronto and was a frequent guest on regular shows on the station, always being identified as “a partner with Touche Ross”. With the help and co-operation of my Touche partners I delivered in spades on both counts and, other than serving on a few Touche committees (marketing, sales, PR, and business development, for which I was particularly suited and thoroughly enjoyed), they never pressured me to get involved in the actual management of the firm. What I did promise was that I’d put the name Touche Ross in places where it had never been before, and that I'd ably represent them in Institute affairs, both in Ontario and nationally. I made this clear during the discussions leading up to my joining them. I became a Senior Partner on September 1, 1975, and resigned effective August 31, 1990.Īs was the case when I was with Coopers & Lybrand, I had no interest in being involved in the management of the firm. I spent fifteen years with Touche Ross (Deloitte & Touche, after a merger with Deloitte, Haskins & Sells shortly before I left), which was more than twice as long as I spent with any other organization.
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