Jessica Tenace

‘International secondment was always very high on my radar, and is one of the perks of working at a large global accounting firm. In 2017 I did a short-term secondment to the London office in the UK. It was certainly one of the highlights of my career as a young professional!’

‘When I returned from secondment, I certainly wasn’t ready to say goodbye to living overseas, and in late 2018 I asked Grant Thornton whether I could take a sabbatical for two years to move back to the UK, and have the opportunity to try out “life on the other side” (in industry). The Melbourne Audit partners were very supportive of my decision, and three months later I was living in London (again).’

After moving back to Australia in early 2021 and commencing as an Audit Manager at Grant Thornton, Jessica says she feels like she never left.

‘Surprisingly, within only a few weeks it had felt like I never left! Nearly 18 months later and I am now a Senior Manager in a workplace I am proud to be part of.’

While she was in London, Jessica was exposed to a variety of work – working in Group Financial reporting at two large private companies, one being a large global property investment firm, and the other a large global law firm.

‘I didn’t fully appreciate how much I had learnt during my earlier years at Grant Thornton until I went on sabbatical, particularly the exposure audit gave to me from a financial reporting perspective. In industry I was able to further that development, and work with key management and stakeholders from a different perspective.’ 

So how was the transition back to Grant Thornton?

‘From a professional perspective, I mainly kept in contact over emails, however I also kept in touch with my former and current GT colleagues through social media.

‘I came back to Australia for a wedding late in 2019 and managed to sneak in to an end of month drinks at the Melbourne office to catch up with people in person. I also went for a coffee catch up with my counselling manager and counselling partner at Grant Thornton before flying back to London.’

‘Before moving back to Australia permanently I caught up with my counselling manager at Grant Thornton over MS Teams in preparation for my return. It was pretty easy to reach out and catch up whenever I needed to which was great. I felt like I wasn’t forgotten during my time away.’

After having worked in industry for a while, Jessica was drawn back by the most important part of any firm – our people.

‘Given I took Sabbatical rather than resigned, my plan was always to return to Australia and return to Grant Thornton, and the key thing for me with returning to Grant Thornton was definitely the people.

‘Some of my closest friends are people I met through Grant Thornton, and the support given by the partners and managers (not only in my service line, but across service lines) makes it hard to compare to any other workplace.’