For the past 18 months, since the start of the pandemic and various lockdown measures across the world, one big challenge Julie Hood set herself has been on hold.

It’s not career progression. She was promoted to the role of strategy and transactions leader for the EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) region at EY in July 2020.

It’s not been transactions either. “Transaction levels have been incredible this year across the EMEIA region – deal values globally surpassed last year’s total after less than eight months.”

EY’s strategy and transactions business, which employs 10,000 people (650 partners) in 100 countries, has achieved growth of 14.6% this year.

It’s not building EY’s team of advisers. Recruitment of technology and sector experts has continued apace, and co- steering EY’s diversity drive has been a major focus for New Zealander Hood.

It’s a different experience she has put on hold. To celebrate a ‘big’ birthday, she signed up to crew two legs of the eight-leg Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Just before Christmas 2019, she set sail with the team of the Qingdao yacht from Fremantle, Western Australia, around the bottom of the country and up its east coast.

“We didn’t see land for 21 days, which was one thing. Dealing with four-hour shifts on, then off, for 21 days is another. Then there were eight-metre swells. You realise how insignificant we are when Mother Nature really wants to play. It was physically and mentally challenging, but also completely exhilarating. We were with people from all walks of life. Any weaknesses in the team are laid bare when the only thing that is keeping the boat upright and heading in the right direction is the skill and dedication of your team and how well you work with it. I really did get to understand the value of teamwork – you can’t sail by yourself. For someone who’s used to being so independent, that was a tremendous experience.”

She completed that first leg. However, come March 2020, as lockdowns swept across the world, the sailing boats were docked in the Philippines, and the race was put on hold. It’s due to restart in February 2022 and Hood will take part in her long-awaited challenge, the last leg of the race from New York to London.

The race is raising money for UNICEF, something she’s tremendously proud of, but that doesn’t mean it’s a non-competitive race: “Our boat is leading at the moment, so hopefully I’ll be part of the team bringing it home!”

Starting line

Getting to her current position at EY was also a route less travelled. Hood’s journey to a senior role in M&A had an improbable start. At 16, she left school and started an apprenticeship with Auckland-based Hoadley Budge Olphert – one of the leading architecture firms in New Zealand.

“I was a very practical individual. I wanted to both learn and apply a trade at the same time. And I was incredibly fortunate – it was an amazing opportunity.” Training in 3D simulation of buildings and construction, for example, was by NASA software specialists using the very latest NASA computer graphics systems.

Having completed her apprenticeship, she moved to Australia and joined Deakin University in Melbourne – not to do a degree, but to help build a new university campus as the Australian government embarked on a programme accelerating the delivery of higher education through leading architecture and construction. “I was leading the construction of award-winning buildings, leveraging and training architects in using the latest software. I had to be incredibly resilient, and ensure the projects were on time and on budget.”

It was then that her move to corporate finance transactions started – although that would only be obvious with hindsight. She took a distance-learning degree in management and marketing while working at the university, then became head of operations. Still in her 20s, she was asked to step out of that role to lead the integration of the further education institutions that were being consolidated – not just the buildings, but all the academics, other staff and physical assets.

“It took me out of physical construction to management of a big integration process,” she says. “It took two years and was arguably one of the most successful integrations of a ‘forced marriage’. We identified the assets we needed to divest, and sold some campuses to international schools. That involved some tough negotiations. I had to bring together very diverse stakeholders. After that, I decided I couldn’t go back to what I was doing with architecture and construction.”

She also learned that debate and rigour are good things: “I appreciate healthy conflict and change. When it’s not forced upon you (which it wasn’t in this case), change is sometimes easier than when you can see it coming. In that situation, everyone knew technology disruption was coming, but it took major disruption in some cases to force it to happen.”

UK inbound

Having finished the project in Australia, Hood moved to London in 2001. She completed an MBA in strategy at Melbourne Business School to augment her CV and spent a year at City University as head of operations, before getting a contract working on PwC’s carve-out of PwC Consulting. It was originally mooted as an IPO, but instead it was sold to IBM in 2003 for a reported $3.5bn.

EY had sounded her out about joining the firm’s risk assurance practice, which she did, as senior manager, as soon as the project with PwC was completed. Just two months after starting, she found her way into transactions, joining the fledgling post-merger integration practice.

Having been instrumental in successfully growing this practice in the UK, she returned to Melbourne in 2015 to replicate it for the Oceania region – Australia and New Zealand. A year later, she was promoted to partner and began leading the strategy and transactions practice. That made her responsible for due diligence, valuations and restructuring.

There were lots of government privatisations going on at the time: telecommunications infrastructure, the port authorities and forests. Aside from that, in 2016, her team advised on the Australian end of Anheuser-Busch InBev’s £78.4bn acquisition of SABMiller – Foster’s Group. They also advised Schweppes Australia, which had been acquired by Asahi in 2009.

It was yet another challenge that Hood relished: “It really was incredibly exciting. We were investing in Asia. Our head of Asia Pacific created a shadow board, which I joined. We were looking at the role that Asia was playing in the world – in particular, the role China would play. We also further integrated our Oceania services with Japan, which was and is an incredibly important source of outbound investment for the world, and deals in particular. Sitting on that board was great exposure for my professional development.”

And back again

From there, a bigger opportunity was put in front of her – to be global deputy vice chair for transactions. But it meant another journey for Hood and her young family; it was not a job she could do from Australia. She could move to New York or London. She chose the latter. And after four years in that role, she took on her current one.

Across the EMEIA region, Hood leads a team of nearly 10,000 professionals with an increasingly diverse range of skills. When it comes to recruitment, she says EY is looking for strategic digital thinkers: “Technology is so key. We’re recruiting design engineers, analysts and computer scientists. But they need to be able to design and work with clients through the cycle of a deal. We don’t want them to be stuck in the back office just crunching data – we want them to use the data analytics.”

Specialisms are also key to recruitment, especially in technology, life sciences and healthcare, online consumer, advanced manufacturing and engineering, and renewables. Professionals with experience in environmental, social and governance are also in demand at EY.

These sectors reflect the pipeline of deals. In terms of geography, she says the UK and US are seeing a great deal of investment. She expects M&A activity in France and Germany, which is lagging behind the UK and US at present, to pick up over the next 12 months. In India and the Middle East, EY is seeing much activity in renewables, infrastructure and consumers.

“We’ve been very busy with UK and US deals,” she says. “The UK market is very attractive to inbound investment, as are France and Germany – although we’ve not quite seen the same level of activity there. Technology is driving a lot of transactions across many sectors.”

Diversity is also a passion for Hood. “We need a more diverse workforce – not just appearance, but diverse experiences and skills. That means we have to get better at demystifying corporate finance, to encourage people from different backgrounds to embark on a career in transactions. We need a variety of skills and capabilities around the room to help our clients get the best outcome.”

As part of that drive, EY has been running a Corporate Finance ‘Woman of the Year’ programme for young advisers. “That’s helping us attract some incredible talent,“ Hood says. “I don’t think it’s about where you come from – it’s about what you’ve been exposed to and what you learn from that.

“I’ve had exposure to a lot of different cultures. By default, I’ve always had a mindset of respecting difference and distinctness. But a lot of cultures have similar nuances, and when you’re doing cross-border deals, it’s often complex processes and the regulatory implications that can get in the way, not the cultural aspects.

“No matter the culture, listening is a big part of negotiation. I don’t always get it right, but that’s the part I try very hard to.”