How family restaurant failure and private school chance shaped Grant Thornton's Yorkshire boss

"It is something I have always carried with me,” he says as he talks to The Yorkshire Post in the Sheffield offices of professional services giant Grant Thornton, where he has recently been appointed Practice Lead for Yorkshire and the North East.

"It has probably given me a bit of drive for my career and some people would say it has made me tight,” the self-effacing Dickinson smiles.

“I would say I’m cautious with money. In my own personal circumstances I’m not a risktaker with money because what happened is all still in there."

His new job means he is responsible for leading Grant Thornton’s near-400 employees in the region, with the majority based in Leeds and Sheffield.

Dickinson, who initially joined the accountancy firm in 2020 as an associate partner for international tax and transaction services from EY, says he loves being able to guide the Yorkshire team in his new job.

“If I think about all the background stuff in my life and the things I have learnt and done, it all just makes sense for me to do this role,” he reflects.

That background is undoubtedly a varied one, also involving two private schools and a jet-setting career before a return to Yorkshire.

He says his dad Ernie’s restaurant, which was called Flags in its final iteration, had initially been successful before things went wrong.

"Quite a few things conspired against it with the early 90s recession combined with fewer people going away to Scarborough on holiday,” he says. "It went bust and the house my parents had bought and they were really proud of got repossessed.

"I was about 10 and it is something I always look back on for many reasons. We ended up in a housing association property which was a real safety net that helped us.”

Dickinson’s academic ability saw him move up a year at primary school and he became one of the 75,000 children who entered Margaret Thatcher’s Assisted Places Schemes which allowed bright state school pupils to go to private schools that would have otherwise be unaffordable for their families.

He credits his dad and his mum Joy for their support and guidance in encouraging his academic abilities without putting pressure on him at what was a difficult time for them. “Despite all that bad stuff, they kept a level head about what is important.”

He initially attended Scarborough College and after the family moved to York for a fresh start went onto St Peter’s.

Ernie had a heart attack connected to the stress of the restaurant situation at the age of just 42 – the same age that Dickinson is now. In York, Ernie went back to his previous profession of taxi driving while Joy worked in York Council’s training centre helping people who had left school with limited qualifications to restart education.

Dickinson says his father, who died in 2013 aged 64 after contracting cancer, helped make light of the financial differences between their family and most of his classmates.

"We had an FSO car from Yugoslavia and when he came to pick me up from school he put a hammer and sickle flag on it. That was deliberate and a way of saying ‘We are going to own this situation’. That helped me a lot. But I also had determination to grab this golden opportunity.”

He went onto the University of Nottingham to study economics and then got onto the tax graduate trainee programme with EY in Leeds. Dickinson moved to London in 2006 for what was supposed to be an 18-month secondment to the company’s international tax team helping multi-national clients deal with their tax obligations.

But he ended up staying in London and in 2012 moved to Singapore for three years to establish a UK tax desk for EY serving the Asia-Pacific region.

He returned to the UK in 2015 with his wife Katie, who happens to be a fellow Assisted Places student from St Peter’s and also worked in the financial world. At that point she was pregnant with their first child and they soon made the decision to return to Yorkshire.

"We are both from up here and so are my wife’s family. We were having a child and renting a really expensive flat in London. From a career perspective, I thought I would like to take all the stuff I have learnt and move back home and try and build a team and make a difference back up North, helping businesses from Yorkshire that were investing overseas as well as helping businesses to invest up here.”

EY agreed for him to move back up to Leeds to grow an international tax advisory team based in this region. "I wanted to show you didn’t necessarily have to move to London to do that type of work.”

Dickinson says he loved his 18 years at EY but was ready for a change when the chance to join Grant Thornton came up.

"I think it was the right time. GT got in touch with me and I got a really good feeling about the size of the firm, the global network and international nature of the work. That suited me, combined with the commitment to the region. You are sat in the only office a Big Seven or Eight firm has in Sheffield.”

He says an initial focus in his first few months of his new role has been encouraging increased communications between Grant Thornton’s different specialist teams so they can offer clients the broadest possible range of suitable services.

Dickinson says he loved his time in London and would never discourage colleagues from moving there but also wants it to be possible for staff to build successful careers in Yorkshire if that works best for them.

"I have had some great opportunities in life. I want people in this firm to have the opportunities best fitted for them so they can work and grow in the best way for them.”

Dickinson says Yorkshire and the North East has huge economic potential in the coming years.

"I do think there is a huge opportunity to grasp the Green Industrial Revolution opportunity. Yorkshire and the North was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution. There are so many people here with brilliant skills and brilliant potential that if that is harnessed in the right way, it could be fantastic."