Jonathan Szoke joined BDO at the start of 2025 to set up an ESG due diligence offering. It’s been a long journey for the South African, who started out working on a game reserve as a conservationist.
How did your working life start?
I studied nature conservation – a blend of ecology, biodiversity, sustainability, people management and business management. My first job was in the southern Kalahari with South African National Parks, but I couldn’t see a career trajectory.
In 2006 I joined NCC Environmental Services, a medium-sized, privately owned company, and had many roles with them over a 15-year period. I began as assistant reserve manager, then moved into construction environmental management, implementing environmental impact assessments actions with developers. The projects got bigger and bigger as South Africa was going through a real boom in energy and infrastructure – power lines, power stations, pipelines, dams, ports and terminals.
Inevitably, I guess, the government ran out of money and projects changed to international funding and the World Bank. I moved to the head office as the business broadened out from environmental management to what we now know as ESG (environmental, social and governance).
What prompted the move into ESG advisory work?
My wife worked in financial due diligence and was headhunted by KPMG in the UK. It seemed a good opportunity, but I was very conscious of how different things were in the UK to South Africa.
Arcadis, an engineering-focused consultancy, was recruiting to its London due diligence department and wanted someone who understood real asset development and ESG, for things like petrol stations, student accommodation, power stations, roads. I understood the practical implications for those, and the investor reporting requirements and how to bridge those two worlds. It was close to what I had been doing, although through a different lens.
I was continuously doing diligence reports, acting on the buy-side, mostly for large private equity houses, but also for some corporates. It was a crash course in UK and EU ESG regulations. I enjoyed the direct approach of private equity, and the pace they operated at resonated with me. Still, it was a steep learning curve understanding their approach to value creation and their risk appetite.
‘Our approach positions ESG as a value item, including the impact on quality of earnings net debt’
Why did you move to KPMG?
In 2022, through my wife, I was introduced to James Holley, who had just joined KPMG from Bridgepoint as partner to set up an ESG due diligence team, and I decided to join. We worked almost exclusively on private equity deals on the buy-side initially, and built a team. Our services evolved and included exit readiness and sell-side.
What was the opportunity with BDO?
I was offered the chance of building an ESG due diligence service within BDO’s transaction services team. They had built a sustainability and ESG offering that worked across the business, were nimble and keen to grow and I joined as director in January 2025. We are 100% ESG due diligence-focused, have a small team of dedicated full-time staff and access to other ESG resource within BDO.
Deal volumes ebb and flow – I’d rather we had a small, busy team. Most of the opportunities have come through our FDD team, who are very supportive, allowing us to pitch to their established clients where we think we can add value. Our approach positions ESG as a value item, including the impact on quality of earnings net debt, integrating with the FDD team. We are also supporting other areas of our deals business and we hope to get ESG due diligence mandates independently of our FDD teams.
What recent deals stand out?
We advised Limerston Capital on Cypher, a cyber security platform. They hadn’t implemented ESG on a deal-by-deal basis for their acquisitions, so it was great to help shape their thinking, what was valuable to them, the integration considerations and the risks and opportunities for ESG improvement within the client and supplier base, as well as the workforce ESG implications.
Where do you see opportunities for the future?
BDO has a great reputation for IPOs, and though the markets have been pretty horrendous, we hope they wake up and we can support with ESG services for listings. Enquiries are picking up, which is promising. And hopefully mandatory work will broaden out to ESG value-add mandates for a listing processes.
