PwC’s New OC Partner Eyes Top Market Spot
After a decade in Asia, Dean Yoost has been tapped to head up PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s Irvine office.
Yoost comes to Orange County by way of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Tokyo office, where he held various management positions.
He’s been a partner with PwC for 19 years, working at the firm’s offices in Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Beijing, where he served as managing partner of the China tax practice.
“Getting acquainted with the community is my top priority right now,” he said.
Yoost succeeds Steve Hamm, who served as OC managing partner for five years and now will focus solely on his position as head of the firm’s U.S. middle market advisory group. Hamm still will be based in OC.
Yoost takes over a changed operation. Like the rest of PwC, the local operation now is more focused on accounting after IBM Corp.’s buy of the firm’s consulting business earlier this year.
The goal, according to Yoost, is to make PwC No. 1 in OC, where it trails Deloitte & Touche LLP and Ernst & Young LLP.
Company officials said Yoost is expected to use his background in Asia to work with U.S. clients with Asian interests, as well as OC’s Asian business community. Yoost started PwC’s Japanese tax and corporate advisory practices.
Yoost also was elected last year to PwC’s 18-member global oversight board. He’s spent his 28-year career at PwC.
A native of Wisconsin, he graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in accounting and later earned a master’s of business administration and taxation.
Yoost is joined in OC by wife Mei Chiang.
,Chris Cziborr
