James Tebbs of Grant Thornton UAE: “To develop resilience, take responsibility for your mistakes”
Don’t be afraid to fail — this is where you will learn the most. Fear of failure will stop you trying new things and new experiences
Recognize mistakes when they happen — I’ve made lots and I’m sure I will in the future
Take responsibility for them — this is very difficult, but even where others are involved recognize the part you played
Make sure you learn from them — figure out what you might do differently next time
Try not to repeat them!
In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.
I had the pleasure of interviewing James Tebbs, Partner & ME Forensic Leader, at Grant Thornton UAE. James is a highly experienced Forensic, anti-fraud and anti-financial crime professional with 19 years’ experience in professional practice in the UK and Middle East. Based in Dubai, he joined Grant Thornton after 18 years with PwC, both in the UK and the Middle East, latterly as ME regional head of financial crime. At Grant Thornton James leads the Middle East regional forensic team, which includes specialists covering financial crime, fraud risk assessment, fraud investigation, dispute resolution, corporate intelligence, digital forensics (including e-Discovery and data analytics) and cybercrime. His experience covers most industry sectors, particularly including financial services, government, construction, energy/oil and gas, healthcare, telecoms, family businesses, retail and consumer. He is a member of global forensic and financial crime leadership. James’s client experience includes a large number of fraud risk assessments, fraud investigations and dispute matters in the UK, Europe and across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.
Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?
I’m a Partner at GT and the leader of GT’s forensic practice in the UAE, which includes 12 professionals focused on fraud prevention, detection and investigation, financial crime, dispute resolution, cybercrime, forensic technology and corporate intelligence work. I’ve been a forensic specialist for the past 14 years and have worked on some of the largest forensic matters in the UK, Europe and the Middle East with clients in multiple sectors and industries.
I started my career with PwC as an external auditor in London, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2003. A couple of years after qualifying, one of my audit clients experienced a fraud, which first started my interest in fraud investigation, and I transferred to the forensic team soon afterwards. In 2012 I moved to Qatar to build PwC’s forensic practice there, and subsequently moved to Dubai in 2016 in a new role as PwC’s head of financial crime in the region. I thoroughly enjoyed my time with PwC and have very fond memories, but in 2018 when the opportunity came to help build out the GT forensic practice in the region, I jumped at the chance to go back to a broader forensic business which I am greatly enjoying.
Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family, including my two children, and playing golf and tennis when I can
Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?
I’m fortunate to have had a good range of interesting experiences throughout my career so far, both with GT and with my previous firm, one of the Big 4, in the Middle East and the UK. I’ve been lucky to work on some genuine ‘iconic’ headline-making projects, including the Lehman Brothers administration and investigations related to phone hacking and journalistic integrity in the UK, as well as large investigations and dispute resolution engagements in the Middle East. As a forensic accountant I am regularly involved in fraud prevention, detection and investigation, financial crime, dispute resolution, forensic technology and corporate intelligence work, and I really enjoy my work and find it all interesting!
I do particularly enjoy the challenge of fraud investigation work and some of my best personal experiences have come from helping clients investigate and uncover fraud, and to help them with recoveries. One of my most interesting stories comes from working with a large international bank based in the UK. I had the chance to work with people of very different backgrounds, skills, opinions and perspectives on a large fraud investigation where many tens of millions of pounds had been fraudulently taken from the bank through a lending scheme. This case had some great features — understanding the motivations of the people involved, the intricacy of the fraud and the way it was hidden, the genuine sense of achievement when peeling back the ‘layers of the onion’ to see what had happened, and the sense of satisfaction at resolving such a large case, and ultimately handing it over to the Police to take the necessary action. Actually the pivotal moment in that case was from one of the very smallest observations — a clearly forged document which we discovered by noticing the alignment of the staples! Very easy to miss, but in the context of that matter, it was very significant.
I learned many lessons from this, but one of the best was in working with such a diverse team. Our differing experiences and skills each played a part in resolving the case, and I’ve tried to reflect that variety in teams I’ve worked in ever since.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
At Grant Thornton we are a global network, with expertise in Advisory, Tax and Assurance. It’s always been very rewarding being part of very large organisations and being able to draw on global expertise, but one of the things I really value about GT in the UAE is the close nature of the firm. There is genuinely a family feel, and it’s easy to get to know everyone across the firm regardless of their specialism. That sets us apart, and it starts from the tone at the top, from the Partners and the CEO but also from our founder and Chairman who is actively involved across the full range of the firm’s work. Being able to contact my colleagues quickly and easily makes us more efficient and agile when responding to clients, and gives me the chance to access specific expertise fast.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
My family have always been very supportive of course, particularly when I am working away from home, or for long hours. They are understanding and supportive and provide a real break from the pressure when work is intense, and I believe strongly in the need for a good work life balance. But from a work perspective, I learned a lot from one particular senior partner when I was a junior forensic team member in London. He was great fun, and gave me a lot of freedom to learn as I worked through a variety of engagements. He was highly respected by his clients, balanced and fair, tough and honest when needed but with a good dose of humour and able to lighten the mood. He first introduced me to proper forensic investigations and really shaped my career to date in many ways. But to be honest I think as you progress through your career you need to learn different skills and attributes from lots of different people along the way, and try to learn from those to be the type of person, family member, colleague or consultant that you want to be.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?
Resilience for me is the ability to bounce back from difficult situations — to pick yourself up, learn the lesson and move forward. Actually it’s not about having a thick skin — I think resilient people recognize their mistakes and take responsibility for them, and use them as learning experiences without being knocked backwards. Everyone makes mistakes, everyone gets into difficulty from time to time and it’s about how you deal with that. I’d also say that resilience doesn’t have to involve handling everything by yourself — draw on the support of family, friends and colleagues where you need to in order to find the right way forward.
When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?
When I think of people who I admire that have shown resilience, it can be from dealing with a difficult client or colleague, dealing with tough project work that becomes very physically or emotionally demanding, or dealing with difficult personal circumstances. I’ve seen resilience from the most senior people to the most junior people, and it’s often those with the least experience who can be most impressive.
Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?
That’s a very difficult question to answer, and perhaps I’ve been lucky that I can’t think of an experience that really matches the question. Sometimes overcoming your own lack of confidence or uncertainty is an important resilience trait, and of course that can be harder than dealing with comments from other people. Like most people I doubt myself often, and hopefully manage to use that to push forwards and really think carefully about what I’m doing.
Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?
I’ll keep this professional! A while ago I did not get a promotion I was sure would come my way — like many people — and was sure I had earned. I took it very badly — a real case study in not being ‘resilient’ and I learned a lot about myself from it. Honestly speaking I didn’t handle that well at all, and I spent a lot of time pointing the finger in every direction, which I’m not proud of. A senior colleague at the time helped me work through that and gave me a sense of perspective, for which I’m very grateful, and I hope I’ve really learned from it and moved forwards. I genuinely hope I would do the same for someone else if the opportunity arose. With the passage of time I can say I’m glad in some ways that I went through it (I should be clear I’m not keen to do so again!) for the learning experience and the perspective on my career that it gave me.
Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?
I’d love to say that there was some movie-style moment where I triumphed against all odds, but in reality I didn’t and I don’t think that’s the type of experience that really shapes your future resilience. I don’t know that I was born with a specific ‘resilience gene’, so to speak, and to the extent that I am resilient now it’s been developed from my environment and experiences growing up and through my career, such as experiencing multiple different cultures, different personality types, working in different offices, and some of things we discussed before.
Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.
- Don’t be afraid to fail — this is where you will learn the most. Fear of failure will stop you trying new things and new experiences
- Recognize mistakes when they happen — I’ve made lots and I’m sure I will in the future
- Take responsibility for them — this is very difficult, but even where others are involved recognize the part you played
- Make sure you learn from them — figure out what you might do differently next time
- Try not to repeat them!
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
I’m deeply flattered! I think it’s fair to say that from my perspective, its small things done well and done often that make the biggest difference, rather than grandiose over-engineered plans. Those are the things that affect the people around you and therefore are likely to have the greatest influence, and they could be anything — simple gestures like good manners, a smile, and thank you are very underrated. I think it’s easy — at any level or age, young or old — to under appreciate the impact that small behaviours can have on the people around you. Honesty and integrity go a long way too….
We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)
I’m always happy to meet new people, they don’t need to be influential and famous, especially if they pay the bill for breakfast!
How can our readers follow you on social media?
- LinkedIn:
James Tebbs — https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-tebbs-15a853/
@Grant-Thornton-UAE — https://www.linkedin.com/company/grant-thornton-uae/?viewAsMember=true
#GUAE - Twitter:
@GTUAE — https://twitter.com/GTUAE
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
