Belfast-based independent chartered accountancy firm Harbinson Mulholland has appointed Colm McMullan as a new partner.
An avid football supporter and lifelong Man Utd fan, he has been with the company since he was a university graduate, and is now stepping up from director to partner.
Senior partner Darren McDowell said: “Colm is just one of several team members who’ve been with us since they graduated. We have a very settled, stable, and loyal team of staff and that’s something we’re very committed to maintaining.”
Colm hasn’t spent his entire career within the walls of the Harbinson Mulholland office, having spent two years on secondment to one of Northern Ireland’s emerging high tech knowledge companies - an experience that gave him valuable knowledge of the other side of the business fence.
It’s also industry experience that has helped him become one of the north’s leading professional advisers for young and growing knowledge economy companies. He works regularly with Catalyst and its client companies and is a judge in the organisation’s annual INVENT competition.
“I’ve been blessed to be working alongside so many people I genuinely admire and the biggest change for me is that you don’t just work ‘in’ the business, but also ‘on’ the business”, said Colm.
“The strategic direction of the organisation is part of what you do, staff matters are another part of the job, so it’s an interesting shift in my role that I’ve already stepped into over the last year.”
Colm heads up a nine-strong tax team at Harbinson Mulholland, working on tax matters for both personal and corporate clients, but with a specialisation in a number of areas including employee share schemes, a growth area particularly amongst tech companies in Northern Ireland and increasingly seen as a means of boosting staff retention and loyalty in a competitive jobs marketplace.
In addition, he’s carved a niche for himself as an expert in the complex UK tax implications of global share schemes implemented by Northern Ireland-based subsidiaries of bigger US-based operations.
Colm and his team are well versed in areas like Employee Management Incentives, R&D tax and grant schemes and the Patent Box, designed by HMRC to encourage companies to keep and commercialise intellectual property within the UK through a lower rate of corporation tax.
“We have a solid advisory side to everything that we do,” says Colm. “It’s all about providing the right advice at the right time to our client companies.
He recently advised on the acquisition of a laser skin care clinic, a transaction which brings with it several tax and VAT implications.
“We’ll do the same as the big four accountancy firms will do, but we’ll do it in a personalised and dedicated way,” he adds.
“Our staff stability helps with that. When our clients start working with someone at Harbinson Mulholland, they’re likely to keep on working with them. We’re big enough to cope, but small enough to care.”
To mark the occasion Colm was joined by his colleagues and family to celebrate him joining the partnership at a lunch in the National Stadium and Windsor Park with special guest Paul McVeigh, an ex-Premier League footballer who hails from Northern Ireland and is now a performance psychologist.
“I’m fortunate to be working with people who know their stuff, who are trustworthy and who are good craic as well. We’ve got a strong family ethos here at Harbinson Mulholland and that’s something that isn’t going to change,” said Colm.