Michael Tuohy Audit Partner

Michael grew up in Douglas in Co. Cork, the second youngest of six kids. He has four older sisters and a younger brother. Both parents were teachers – his mother was a primary teacher and his father a secondary teacher. “I was the first to go into the accountancy profession. Science was probably more of a focus in the house growing up. My two eldest sisters went into the medical profession, but I wasn’t particularly good at science, so business was an obvious alternative!”

He started his schooling in St Columbas, a local national school in Douglas, before moving to Christian Brothers College in Cork. Michael's enthusiasm for rugby was evident, even though his success on the field might not have matched his dedication! He remained an active player from his school years through university. His passion for rugby has remained and he is a regular fixture at Ireland games at Aviva Stadium and will be travelling to the World Cup later in September.

Michael pursued a BSc at Accountancy in UCC followed by a Master of Accounting at UCD, cementing his path toward obtaining an accounting qualification. “I enjoyed studying accountancy in school. And given the choice of degree it was a very natural step then to take.”

“I started my training contract with Mazars in 2004, joining the audit practice. Back then we didn’t have a financial services (FS) audit practice, so my audit experience would have been across multiple industries and working with all the audit partners who are still here to this day – Mark Kennedy, Tommy Doherty, Lorcan Colclough and Bernard Barron, who I learned a great deal from.

“In 2007, towards the end of my training contract, Mark Kennedy had started to focus on building out the FS audit team. I had worked closely with Mark in the last 12 months of my contract and I could see the beginnings of something that would obviously grow from strength to strength in the following years. I enjoyed working a lot with Mark. Once you gained his trust, he gave you a lot of autonomy and I would have progressed relatively quickly from qualifying in November 2007 to Audit Director in 2011 under Mark.”

Today, Michael heads up the firm’s FS audit practice. Over the years, the department has grown to six FS partners and a staff of 180. Michael has been a partner since 2015. “What I love about the job is getting to work with clients who, in all likelihood, would not have worked with a firm outside the Big 4 before. Notable clients include Wells Fargo Elavon Bank of America, Canada Life and Metlife. We have really created another option in the market to the large incumbents and that’s something we are very proud of. Seeing the growth and the increased depth of knowledge of the team is very rewarding. Diversifying the team offering into actuarial and quants is also something that we are very proud of.”

Michael has been happily married since 2011 to Lisa who is a primary teacher. They have three children – Adam 11, Sarah 9 and Simon 5. He keeps himself busy at weekends with the usual kids’ activities, but despite his sports enthusiasm, he hasn’t made any of the coaching grades in any of the kid’s clubs. “But do help out somewhat on the admin side with Naomh Olaf GAA Club.”