Tara Weiner took over as managing partner of Deloitte LLP’s Greater Philadelphia region in June 2005. It was the beginning of a new fiscal year, and for Deloitte’s Philadelphia operations, it was a new beginning on an even larger scale.
Weiner wanted Deloitte’s Philadelphia office to assert itself as a major player among the tax and financial consulting firm’s regional offices. With nearly 1,200 employees at the time, Weiner felt the Philadelphia office had the raw materials to become a regional force. But it needed a defined direction and strategy for how to get there.
“The firm has various marketplaces, and Greater Philadelphia is a huge metropolitan area, but sometimes people think it is dwarfed against a New York or Washington, D.C.,” Weiner says. “We made a decision that this was a key marketplace around which we could enhance our focus, and at the same time, Philadelphia had come into its own in terms of being able to define its platforms around the industries that comprise the region’s assets and strengths. It really was a very good time but challenging because there was a lot of change and focus enhancements that we needed to do.”
Weiner and her leadership team needed to build a vision for Deloitte’s future in the region, develop metrics for measuring success against the vision, get employees on board at all levels of the firm and groom leaders who could help promote and sustain the new vision and strategy.
“We really took a look at the assets of the firm, the assets of the region, and really began this journey that we’re on now,” she says. “From that time, we’ve grown to nearly 1,700 employees today, and we’ve consolidated our two offices and brought everyone under one roof so they could leverage each other’s strengths. It was a big challenge from the standpoint of big opportunity. We needed to invest in and optimize the opportunities in the region and in the firm.”