Zoë Hodge becomes head of consultancy at Johnston Carmichael

Johnston Carmichael has appointed Zoë Hodge as a partner and head of its consulting division. She brings more than two decades of experience to the role.

As a member of Moore Global, accounting and advisory firm Johnston Carmichael hosts more than 900 professionals across Scotland, the North of England and London. The business delivers specialist sector insight and expertise to its clients, and has been experiencing rapid growth in recent times.

The firm’s headcount has spiked from 800 people to more than 1,000 across the UK over the last five years, with key appointments including the firm’s first chief information officer and chief people officer. At the same time, turnover has also grown from £51.4 million in 2020 to £67.9 million in 2023. As the company’s new leadership looks to push ahead with this momentum, it has confirmed another key appointment, in the shape of Zoë Hodge.

Arriving as a partner in Johnston Carmichael’s Edinburgh office, Hodge also becomes the firm’s head of consultancy, and will work to bolster its advisory offering to clients. This sees her take the lead of a 20-strong team alongside fellow Partner Ewen Fleming – who leads the company’s London office, as well as its financial services practice.

Lynne Walker, CEO at Johnston Carmichael, said of the news, “Zoë’s energy and passion for executing change is exactly the positive force for good we encourage within Johnston Carmichael. Ewen and the wider consulting team have built a fantastic reputation for our consulting offering through their continued, high-quality delivery of services, and Zoë’s appointment will diversify the added value we bring to our clients.”

Bringing more than 20 years of knowhow onboard, Hodge boasts a track record of designing and delivering complex business change programmes with a focus on revenue growth, efficiency savings, and improved customer experience. Most recently, she spent 13 years with abrdn, where she was latterly head of global information provision. Prior to this, Hodge also spent close to a decade with Accenture, where she worked as a manager in financial services.

Importantly, this kind of work will help inform her decisions to design and implement new change strategies for clients, converting strategic goals into tangible actions and outcomes. Looking ahead, a release from the firm added to that end that Hodge will “serve the broad range of Johnston Carmichael clients across a wide variety of sectors.”

Speaking on her new career chapter, Hodge herself added, “Johnston Carmichael is a much-respected firm and I am really looking forward to building on the strong roots established by Ewen and the senior leadership team over recent years. My biggest driver is enabling positive change and that has been a fundamental element in previous leadership roles. Joining the team at an exciting period of change and growth, I am excited to explore new opportunities to aid this.”