PwC boss: Britain will never have its own Elon Musk

From his office overlooking the Thames, Marco Amitrano has a unique vantage point on how British business is faring. 

As senior partner at Britain’s biggest accountancy firm, PwC, he oversees more than 23,000 staff, providing services – notably audits – to more than 19,000 clients, from regional start-ups to a quarter of FTSE 100 companies and government departments.

Speaking from the international group’s global headquarters in central London, he says Britain has many strengths, but we are ambivalent about successful people.

He says he finds it hard to imagine a British version of the SpaceX and Tesla tycoon Elon Musk, pictured inset.

‘I don’t think we are capable of creating a trillionaire, if I’m honest,’ he says, in a slight estuary English accent. He says of Musk: ‘I admire his achievements, but I don’t like everything he says. He is somebody who wants to be controversial.

‘Let’s assume it is for good reason, for progressive change. I don’t think our country can cope with someone like that.’

If the UK can’t handle entrepreneurs like Musk, how can we achieve the growth politicians and the public crave?

Amitrano’s prescription is to market ourselves better, invest in the innovation that leads to growth and ensure we have a high-quality workforce, skilled in artificial intelligence. More capital, he says, needs to be available to firms wanting to scale up.

 ‘We have innovated better, I would say, than anybody else in the world, including the Americans, but we haven’t provided the scale-up capital,’ he says.

There are cultural challenges too. He adds: ‘We don’t particularly celebrate success like others do. We like to throw stones, to question it. There are some positives to that. We are grounded, we ask questions, and we don’t just accept a narrative.’

The UK is still seen as a good place to do business, but we are at risk of losing status, he says.

In PwC’s survey of global chief executives this year, the UK came second only to the US as a destination for investment.

But tax increases levelled at firms and wealthy individuals, along with new employee rights, have, he says, raised too many questions about the UK in the minds of overseas investors.

‘The good news is we are still number two,’ he says. ‘Less good news, we are not a clear number two any more.

‘When I talk to wealthy individuals, from a personal perspective they want to be in the UK.

‘But they are being given cause to re-think that too often because of the financial implications, and we need to look at that.’

Has upheaval in government and the defenestration of Sir Keir Starmer made it worse?

‘Obviously political turmoil can create the feeling of an unstable environment. Here, it does affect investment decisions,’ he says, while arguing PwC’s approach is apolitical.

One of its advisers is Labour elder statesman Alan Milburn, who is working on a report for ministers on the one million young people not in education, employment or training, known as Neets.

PwC is a big employer of young people as trainee accountants, so it is a subject close to his heart.

Bosses like him must step up to the challenge, he says, adding: ‘Chief executives have to lead, and not delegate it to HR. That would move the dial, because what the chief executive does, everybody follows. If the rhetoric and intent doesn’t come from the top then it doesn’t happen. I think Alan will call for that.’

Amitrano, 56, has been with PwC his entire career and his progress embodies the power of work to change lives.

His Italian father Giovanni was one of ten children and at the age of 12 had to go to work scraping out the inside of wine casks after his own father went missing in the Second World War.

‘He did that so the extended family could eat,’ says Amitrano.

‘My father believed there was always something you could do to help yourself in any situation.’

‘It might be work harder, or it might be to move. He instilled that in me and my sister. I came into this environment with a hard-work ethic. Once that is in you, it never stops.’

Giovanni went on to be a singer and waiter on a cruise liner, and met Marco’s English mother in Australia, where she had been working as a beautician.

The couple settled in Luton, where Marco and his sister had a ‘very happy’ childhood. He went on to do a degree in electronic engineering at Newcastle University, where he met his wife Liz. They now have two children.
Marco Amitrano factfile

Lives: Buckinghamshire

Family: Married with two children

Education: Newcastle University and Columbia Business School, New York

Favourite drink: Espresso

Favourite author: Prolific American crime writer Michael Connelly

Little-known fact: PwC co-founder Edwin Waterhouse was the brother of Alfred, the architect of London’s Natural History Museum

The audit profession is regularly rocked by high-profile scandals. In common with its rivals, PwC has had a number of hefty fines in the past decade, including over its audit of defunct store chain BHS.

PwC is also under investigation over its audit of WH Smith by the Financial Reporting Council after an accounting scandal at the travel retailer’s US arm.

And last week the watchdog fined PwC and one of its partners more than £3million for ‘serious and numerous breaches’ in its audit of defence contractor Babcock – three years after a separate £5million penalty over audits of the same company.

While Amitrano declines to discuss individual cases, he insists: ‘Businesses failing, or well-concealed fraud is not necessarily the fault of the auditor. We have high-quality audits.’

 He adds of investigations: ‘We co-operate 100 per cent.’

A really big scandal could even put an accounting firm out of business, leaving large clients with a slimmer choice of auditor.

‘We must remember the professional services sector is a fundamental and very material part of this economy,’ he says, adding of his smaller rivals Deloitte, EY and KPMG: ‘In the Big Four we employ thousands of people and pay more than £1 billion in tax.

‘That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be held to account, but I would also be cautious about throwing too many stones – maybe with unintended consequences.’

It was not until a couple of years before his election as senior PwC partner that he dared aspire to the role, he recalls. He says: ‘I spoke to a mentor of mine, who is long retired. I asked him, “how do you signal your desire to be senior partner?” And he said to me, “you will feel the hand on your shoulder”.

‘And I felt it, probably two years before I got the job.’

‘It starts with a feeling, the way people talk to you, the messaging that gets to you.’

Amitrano’s career is an example of social mobility in action, and his warnings are clear. If the UK carries on weighing employers down with red tape and alienating investors with new taxes, we will lose ground to rivals.

Maybe Britain doesn’t need to create a version of Elon Musk, but it does need to back its own businesses and give young people a fair chance.