Chairman of the Management Board (Vorsitzender der Geschäftsleitung) / Managing Partner / CEO, Rödl & Partner
CEO Connect – #8 Brexit – der unerwartete Glücksfall für Rödl & Partner?
Christian Rödl im Gespräch:
"Vor 15 Jahren haben wir unser Büro in Birmingham eröffnet.
Eineinhalb Jahrzehnte also, in denen wir Jahr für Jahr kräftig gewachsen sind.
Zeit, einen Blick hinter die Kulissen zu werfen.
In diesem Beitrag erzählt Hans-Peter, der Leiter unseres Büros in Birmingham:
wie er es geschafft hat, ein Team mit über 150 Mitarbeitern aufzubauen,
wie er die Zukunft von Rödl & Partner in Großbritannien einschätzt,
und was sprachliche Vielfalt mit einer erfolgreichen Expansion zu tun hat.
Bereit für diesen Deep Dive in unser UK-Geschäft?"
Folgen Sie Prof. Dr. Chri...
About Dr. Rödl
In a 2024 video, Christian Rödl recounted his earliest memory of the firm, dating to the 1970s, when his father, then an employee of another firm, began advising his own clients from their home in Nuremberg. Rödl described this as the foundation of a company that now employs nearly 6,000 people worldwide. He noted that while the core services of legal, tax, and audit advice remain, the firm has added more facets and specialization, and has grown alongside its clients' internationalization. Rödl expressed pride in the workforce and stated that leading the company is a daily task he enjoys. In a 2014 interview, Rödl described Rödl & Partner as a diverse company with a broad range of consulting services, organized across multiple levels including local offices and country services. He emphasized the need for consultants, auditors, and other professionals to fill various positions within the firm's structure.
Transcript (16 segments)
C
Christian0:05
Hanspeter, it's great that we can talk to each other. You're responsible for the UK for us. What does that mean concretely? What do you do with clients? Why do clients come to us?
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Hanspeter Rödl0:15
First of all, thank you very much for inviting me here today, Christian. I'm very pleased. My responsibility in Great Britain is essentially business development. We now have a very strong team in Great Britain. The office has been there for 15 years. We started small, with some ups and downs. We now have a team of 150 people, and my main task is essentially business development and ensuring that we deliver what clients expect from us. This office is now really a larger office, also a very successful office. We are proud of all our colleagues, our office in Birmingham. And my main task is essentially to ensure that we deliver, and it's going very well.
C
Christian1:02
May I ask, what are the topics that clients are currently approaching us with? Auditing is clear, but now in the advisory areas, as one would expect...
H
Hanspeter Rödl1:16
Brexit. When Brexit was originally documented and announced, there were great concerns that we might even have to withdraw from Great Britain because we would no longer have demand. But it turns out that Brexit, as cynical as that may sound, has been a great gain for us as consultants, especially in the area of VAT. Everything that happens in the area of VAT, we have now doubled our department, essentially almost tripled our revenue, and have been able to record growth that we would never have expected. Brexit is for us — you're not supposed to say this out loud — but essentially a stroke of luck.
C
Christian1:53
Now you've said it. So this growth you're talking about also requires more personnel, more people that we need to win for Rödl & Partner in the UK. How do we approach that? What makes us so attractive for young colleagues in the UK?
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Hanspeter Rödl2:14
Actually, this case constellation is typically a German parent with an English subsidiary, and this constellation is essentially a great stroke of luck for us because it's a challenge, and colleagues perceive it as a great opportunity, as a challenge, if you will, to be able to work on it. And we have the great luck that we now have very reputable clients in Great Britain — we won't name names — but we can score points here. And when young colleagues come to us, also from university, they naturally ask, 'Who is Rödl & Partner?' And Rödl & Partner may not be a typical household name in Great Britain compared to other competitors that we also have in Germany, but we can then show: look, we have this client and that client and that client, and there's this challenge and that challenge. Can you imagine working on that? And it's actually a draw for us. Yes, you can say that.
C
Christian3:18
We are a global company with our own offices in 49 countries. What role does international cooperation play in our activities in the UK with Germany? That's clear, okay, but do you also have a lot of contact with other countries?
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Hanspeter Rödl3:37
Yes, yes. I'll give two examples. One is the topic of the Republic of Ireland. In the Republic of Ireland, we don't have our own Rödl & Partner office yet, but in a way we do, because I am a British professional, and we are authorized to work in the Republic of Ireland with our professional qualification. And we have essentially already claimed the cooperation partner we have there, and accordingly we can — and we do — offer services also for the Republic of Ireland. We work very closely with the local cooperation partner, and the clients appreciate that very much. The lady who works there doesn't speak German.
C
Christian4:20
You've now mentioned language skills. You speak quite good German as a Swabian, better than I do as a Franconian. How important is it at all in a country like the UK that we have German-speaking colleagues? Everyone speaks English, after all.
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Hanspeter Rödl4:40
Actually, the topic of language in England is fundamentally underestimated. The moment conversations move into specialist topics — I don't want to say slip, but move into — you notice with many clients and also colleagues at other consulting firms, we don't just have Rödl & Partner on the German side, we also have other consulting firms on the German side, and then you notice very quickly that people reach their limits. And it's all the more important, especially when terms are not unambiguous, that it's incredibly important that you actually speak fluent English. I wouldn't say — I've been working in England for over 30 years, and I still wouldn't say that my English is fluent, but actually, when it comes to terminology, the devil is in the detail. And I'm also glad to say that we have now appointed a partner who actually speaks fluent English, fluent French, and is also a British chartered accountant. She is a British chartered accountant, and that is an incredible help, especially in the area of BPO.
C
Christian5:59
You mentioned BPO — Business Process Outsourcing. What do we do concretely with our BPO service in the UK? But that also applies to our other countries.
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Hanspeter Rödl6:08
So BPO is essentially all-encompassing: tax consulting, financial accounting — that covers monthly reporting, essentially the entire area that one might have previously described as bookkeeping, payroll accounting, tax compliance topics — essentially this entire complex of topics that is distinct from auditing on the one hand and advisory on the other. And in this context, we offer everything. And we have a great leadership team, if you can say that, a great lead in Poland. Through the new colleague, we are now also very strongly connected there, and it pays off.
C
Christian6:48
Hanspeter, where do we stand in the UK at the end of 2025? It seems likely that the current administration will not win this election. The administration that will presumably come to power will be more Europe-friendly. I remember our bet on the Brexit referendum — you lost that one, narrowly. You were 100% certain and insisted that there would be no Brexit. Now I ask you, in light of this, will the UK perhaps try to rejoin the EU?
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Hanspeter Rödl7:31
That's not for me to comment on.
C
Christian7:32
Well, it was great that we could talk, Hanspeter. Thank you.
H
Hanspeter Rödl7:36
Thank you. I thank you. Thank you very much.