Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, the largest accounting firm operating in Orange County, has a new managing partner.
Robert Lucenti has taken over for Rick Rayson as managing partner of the accounting firm’s Costa Mesa office.
Rayson, who led Deloitte’s OC office for three years, has been promoted to regional managing partner for audit and enterprise risk services for the firm’s offices in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada.
He now sits on Deloitte’s national executive committee and board of directors.
In his new role, Rayson is overseeing 1,000 employees and splitting his time between Orange County and Los Angeles.
Rayson reports to Deloitte’s chairman and chief executive of audit and enterprise risk services, Nick Tommasino, in New York.
“Clearly with the challenges there will also be great opportunities,” Rayson said.
Lucenti, who has been a partner at Deloitte’s Los Angeles office for 17 years, now will oversee the firm’s OC workers, daily operations and its audit, internal audit, tax, consulting and valuation practice areas.
In the past three years, he’s become more involved with accounting work in OC and has worked closely with Rayson, Lucenti said.
“I’ve known Rick Rayson for some time,” he said. “I couldn’t ask to follow a better guy.”
He said he wants to deepen Deloitte’s roots here attracting clients and by getting involved with universities, business groups and charities.
“I will get out as much as I can,” Lucenti said.
Deloitte is the biggest accounting firm here with 811 employees, according to the Business Journal’s most recent list of accounting firms.
Unlike the other Big Four firms, Deloitte didn’t break off its business consulting practice into a separate company. About 250 consultants are included in its local headcount.
Deloitte’s primary rivals here are other global players such as Ernst & Young LLP in Irvine, KPMG LLP in Costa Mesa, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in Irvine and Grant Thornton LLP in Irvine.
The firm’s local clients include clothing maker Quiksilver Inc. in Huntington Beach and retailer Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. of Anaheim.
Lucenti said he sees Deloitte keeping busy with audit, tax and consulting work as more companies rework their businesses to adapt to a slower economy.
Higher fuel, materials, labor and insurance costs and a tight credit market could push more companies to redo their business plans to cut costs, which requires accounting work, Lucenti said.
“We’re going through a time where the economy is struggling a bit so obviously cost containment is going to be at the top of clients’ minds as they navigate through a slowdown,” Lucenti said.
Growing regulatory complexity should generate work for Deloitte and other accounting firms, he said.
“One of the biggest challenges the accounting industry has is trying to keep our clients compliant while also trying to add value within the guidelines that have been given to us,” Lucenti said.
Increased scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act have pushed publicly traded companies to spend more money on their accounting practices, he said.
“It’s about understanding what regulatory bodies want and how that landscape will continue to affect the way we do audits and how all of that is moving forward,” Lucenti said.
The firm also is keeping an eye out for developments in the International Accounting Standards Board’s International Financial Reporting Standards and whether local public companies will have to adhere to its accounting standards (see related story page 5).
Companies that already conform to generally accepted accounting principles could need guidance in navigating its rules, Lucenti said.
Lucenti is set to work out of Costa Mesa and relocate his wife and three children from Manhattan Beach to Newport Beach or possibly Huntington Beach, he said.
The Philadelphia native said he jumped at the chance to move to OC because the county is known for its businesses, diverse cultures, good schools and safe environment, he said.
“When you get promoted in a firm like ours and they come to you and say the choice is Orange County, you’re overjoyed,” he said. “We’re very excited to live here.”
