Fiona Byrne Irish Examiner interview

In her role as Lead Partner of the Cork office at Forvis Mazars, Fiona Byrne brings over twenty years of experience, having led the James Byrne & Company practice up to when it joined Forvis Mazars in 2024. As managing partner for James Byrne & Co, she guided the practice through economic turbulence and the unique circumstances of the global pandemic. “We had a lengthy lead-in time of two years before joining Forvis Mazars and got to know each other quite well. This merger has really been many years in the making as we continued to build James Byrne & Co over the years with a great office team and a full roster of clients. We actually had worked with Forvis Mazars on various things, so had a solid relationship there. One of their team members had worked with me during my early days with KPMG, and my father had a relationship with one of their tax people going back twenty years. Given those well-established connections, merging both firms felt like a natural progression.”

With a family business background – her father founded James Byrne & Co in 1978 – finding a rewarding career in the financial sphere was always on the cards for Fiona. After nearly a decade with KPMG, she returned to the family firm in 2009 during Ireland’s economic meltdown, a time of both challenge and opportunity: “I knew from a very early age that my path would always be in the family business. I remember as a five-year-old walking through the office and people giving me fifty pence, and later on, when I was twelve, helping out in the dusty attic filing room. I still remember being up there when the news broke that Veronica Guerin had been shot.”

Having established a reputation for innovative accounting and taxation solutions over the years, James Byrne & Co had built a diverse client base across a wide arc of sectors, including SMEs, agriculture, healthcare, construction, property management, manufacturing and hospitality. Now part of Forvis Mazars, the Cork office offers an expanded range of audit, tax, advisory and consulting services, supported by the partner appointments of Stephen Gahan in the tax division and David Swinburne in financial advisory.

As an industry advocate, Fiona has represented independent accountancy practices as a member of Chartered Accountants Ireland’s Cork branch and regularly contributes to Irish Taxation forums. She holds a degree in Law and Accounting from the University of Limerick and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2004, a Tax Consultant in 2006, and a Chartered Tax Advisor in 2010. She is a Fellow of Chartered Accountants Ireland (FCCA) and a member of the Irish Taxation Institute.

With over 900 staff across offices in Dublin, Galway, Cork and Limerick, Forvis Mazars serves a wide range of clients, including international corporates, SMEs, financial institutions and public bodies. Given Cork’s business expansion and population growth, the future is already shaping up to be very busy in the Cork office. “We are very growth-orientated and are already expanding our service lines. There’s certainly an element of good fortune in how both firms’ expertise came together at the right time.” As an established business leader, Fiona firmly believes in the value of external perspectives from industry peers and that strong client relationships are crucial to every successful business. Given the broad geographical reach of the Forvis Mazars Irish office network: “We are confident that whatever client problem comes to us, there is somebody within the organisation who has a solution.” Looking to the future, the firm aims to leverage these resources and expertise, backed by a strong reputation in the Irish market.

“Forvis Mazars is still a partnership and everything is partner-led, in many ways like a supercharged SME accountant, with all the extra services around it,” she explains. “Tom O’Brien, our managing partner, is very client-focused – very much of the same mindset we had at James Byrne & Co.”

The merger has also opened new doors for staff development: “Staff now have the opportunity to benefit from extra learning and develop additional career niches, given the wider scope the enlarged operation encourages. Smaller firms always had to work harder against the Big Four, but being part of Forvis Mazars has made attracting graduates from MTU, UCC and beyond much easier.” Even as the firm grows, Fiona emphasises the importance of maintaining personal connections: “Graduates are often surprised at the level of access they have to partners and the experience that comes with that. Keeping that close, supportive environment, not just with our clients, but with our staff as well, will always be important as we move forward.”

This article first appeared in the Irish Examiner on Friday 2 May 2025.