Over 30 years with professional services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Samantha (“Sam”) Vidler has seen some big changes, and challenges.
Over that period, digitalisation has disrupted every aspect of business, red tape has wrapped itself ever-tighter around corporations and the COVID-19 pandemic came from left field and knocked everything off its trajectory.
Despite this, there are constant reminders that many of the fundamentals remain steady.
Mrs Vidler says, even though digitalisation and now AI are a vital part of doing business, plenty of privately run businesses still do very well making decisions based on gut instinct and experience.
And even though much is written about generational changes, graduates are still excited about the prospect of working with household name clients and helping to drive their success.
Mrs Vidler took over as PwC Queensland Managing Partner in Brisbane a little over a year ago when the firm was going through some big challenges.
It was a role she had not expected to take on in a career that has been defined by opportunistic pathways rather than career planning.
“I’m not the type of person that can tell you what I’ll be doing in three years’ time. But when somebody gives me a little nudge and says they think I would be great in a role I guess I’ve always had a ‘have a go’ attitude,” she says.
“Like most people I have that impostor syndrome but I’m very grateful to have had great mentors throughout my career who have given me encouragement when I needed it.”
Taking on the Manager Partner role has coincided with a period of “comprehensive reinvention” of the firm, with implementation of sweeping governance, business and cultural reforms.
The firm’s global CEO survey, released this month, points to a corporate world awash with change as technological, geopolitical, environmental and governance transformation disrupts all aspects of doing business.
Despite the big picture changes, as someone who grew up living a “sporty outdoor life” in semi-rural Victoria, many of Mrs Vidler’s most satisfying career moments have come through working with private businesses, and in the regions.
“I love working with private businesses. They feed us, house us, clothe us, transport us, they power us and keep us healthy, and they employ a huge amount of the population.
“I find their greatest strength is that they can be agile but their greatest challenge is to structure the business so it provides a legacy for the generations that come after.
“A lot of the success comes because the founders – the matriarchs and patriarchs of the family – have put their blood, sweat and tears into something and built it.
“But when the business gets to a certain size and sophistication it needs to be structured for the long term, and often around family members who may or may not be working in the business. Every business is different, and I find this dynamic part of the job really rewarding.”
The role of PwC in helping business stay on track and ride change came to her most starkly during a stint in Townsville in North Queensland.
Without the resources and people of a large state office, clients still expected the PwC partners to have all the answers, or at least access to those answers.
“That period really taught me about what it means to be a trusted business advisor. It is different in the regions because you are more of a one-stop-shop, and you cannot just rely on other specialists who are physically located in the office.
“You have to work hard all day every day to get people the right advice and expertise, even when that is not your area of specialisation. I think that experience really helped define what type of advisor I wanted to be.”
Mrs Vidler says, while there is plenty of commonality across businesses in every state, Queensland businesses have a reputation for “having real passion and just getting on with it”.
Over nearly three decades at the current edge of business, she has made plenty of observations:
On mentors
“I think you need to take the best parts of what mentors offer you but don’t think that one particular person can give you every bit of advice that is perfect for you.”
On role models
“The one that comes to mind is one of my clients and the way she supports other women and young people in her business. She is no nonsense, calls a spade a spade and operates with an absolute genuine intent and no malice. It’s always about bringing out the best in others.”
On red tape
“I think it (red tape) has grown immensely over time and business is becoming more complex. At the core of this is keeping business honest but a lot of this doesn’t create value for business and takes away the focus on providing products, services or support for the community.”
On digital technology
“I have one client that is a hugely successful business but still does many things like they did pre-digital. This is largely based on the gut instinct and experience of the founder after years of feeling the pulse of the business. Ultimately businesses do need to embrace digital technology to keep up, but it is not the answer to everything, or a substitute for experience.”
Lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic
“At one point in time I think we thought the world was going to stop – but it didn’t. We leant to change and adapted to new operating conditions at an incredible pace. While it was extremely difficult, the silver lining was seeing how quickly we can pivot in a crisis when we need to.”
On PwC’s market point of difference
“We’ve got something called the three Cs – curiosity collaboration and challenge. We bring together the best people and teams with the deep technical expertise and experience that our clients need. That includes giving them access to the latest global thought leadership. We have been very successful over a very long time and that doesn’t happen by chance.
For example, we have just released PwC’s 28th Annual Global CEO Survey, and our Australian Insights are quite interesting compared to their Global counterparts with 74 percent of local CEOs believing their business will survive the next decade without change, compared to 55 percent globally. Are our local CEOs too confident? Time will tell.”
On the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games
“This is a huge opportunity for Brisbane, Queensland and Australia, but particularly Brisbane, which I look forward to seeing shine on a global stage. We’ve got a great opportunity to learn from other hosts and deliver a lasting legacy. We’ve got some amazing sites here in Brisbane that could be activated to create an excellent games experience, but I think we need to look beyond the games and create legacy facilities that set us up for the future and keep us on the big stage.”
What next
With the first year as Managing Partner under her belt, Mrs Vidler is optimistic about what comes next.
“When I first came into the role, my priority was to bring everybody together and make sure they felt supported and no one was going to be left behind,” she said.
“We have a fabulous team here in Queensland and amazing clients who have been with us a long time and have stayed with us. It is important to keep going back to the roots of that we do and maintain a long-term view.”
One of the positive signs has been the quality of graduates attracted through the most recent recruitment drive.
“We had one of the best standards of graduate applications that we’ve seen in years come through last year which is absolutely fabulous,” Ms Vidler said.
“I had a whole bunch of new graduates start and I ran through the list of names of some of our clients we work with.
“There was genuine excitement on their faces to know they would be working with household names and iconic businesses, as well as some amazing lesser-known companies.”
As the first generation of her family to attend university, Mrs Vidler is grateful for the opportunities that have come her way from education and the support of those around her.
“I’m focussed on doing our absolute best for the businesses we are working with today and the ones we will keep working with tomorrow,” she said.
“With the right people and the right attitude, we can achieve extraordinary things.”
Click here for the PwC CEO survey results
Click here for more information on Sam Vidler
