We are seeking a senior Forensic Investigations practitioner to join our client in Sydney at Senior Director level. The ideal candidate will be a Chartered Accountant (CA ANZ) or CPA Australia or equivalent with at least 10 years of relevant experience, the most recent 3+ years at Director or equivalent senior-leadership level. The successful candidate will lead the most complex multi-jurisdictional misconduct, fraud and asset-tracing engagements, support Royal Commissions and Commissions of Inquiry as forensic adviser, carry a meaningful named-account pipeline across Australia and the Trans-Tasman region, and contribute to the practice's strategy as an emerging Partner-track operator.

Confidential Client. Applying to this position means that you are interested to have an initial confidential discussion about how we can help you to identify and join a new forensic investigations practice. With your authorisation we will exclusively run the entire application and recruitment process for you, keeping you apprised at every step. With over 30 years' combined experience of helping the most talented investigations practitioners to make safe exits to launch rewarding new careers, we have the experience, network and ability to help you.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead high-stakes, often privileged misconduct, fraud and asset-tracing engagements, typically running AUD 750k - 4m, with full responsibility for case strategy, interview programmes, evidence development and client outcome.
• Shape investigative hypotheses on the most complex fact patterns and direct structured interviews of executives, board members and external counterparties.
• Direct asset-tracing and recovery engagements involving capital-movement analysis, beneficial-ownership unwinding across multi-jurisdictional structures, and integration with civil-recovery counsel on Mareva and freezing-order applications under the Federal Court Rules 2011.
• Lead board- and audit-committee-instructed special investigations under formal privileged retainer, ensuring privilege architecture, evidence-handling protocols and chain-of-custody discipline withstand subsequent challenge.
• Lead Royal Commission and Commission-of-Inquiry support work as forensic adviser to Counsel Assisting and inquiry counsel - across the post-Hayne, Aged Care, Disability, Robodebt and Defence-and-Veterans patterns and successors.
• Develop and own a sustained pipeline of named accounts at General Counsel, CFO, Chief Compliance Officer and Audit Committee Chair level, and at relevant law firm partner level; originate or co-originate AUD 1.5m+ annually in qualified investigations opportunities.
• Convert reactive case work into multi-year retainer engagements covering investigative readiness, internal-investigation playbook design, escalation pathways and whistleblower-channel reviews.
• Set methodology and tooling-strategy direction within the investigations sub-practice; directly supervise, mentor and advocate for Directors and Senior Managers - championing their advancement at promotion rounds, sponsoring sustained upskilling on emerging methodology and AI tooling, and shaping their external profile-building.

Required Qualifications and Skills:

• Chartered Accountant (CA ANZ) preferred, or CPA Australia, or equivalent professional accounting qualification (ACA / ICAEW, ACCA, CPA US, HKICPA, ISCA).
• At least 10 years of relevant experience in forensic investigations, fraud examinations or audit-committee-led work, with the most recent 3+ years at Director or equivalent senior-leadership level.
• Demonstrable track record of leading bet-the-company audit-committee investigations, sensitive board-instructed reviews, and multi-jurisdictional asset-tracing matters with full case-strategy responsibility.
• Direct experience operating with General Counsel, CFOs, Audit Committee Chairs, regulators and external counsel.
• Working knowledge at supervisory-policy depth of the Australian investigations framework: the Criminal Code (Cth) cross-border bribery framework and AFP / state-police interfaces, the Corporations Act 2001 director-duties framework at the investigation level, Privacy Act 1988 and the Australian Privacy Principles for evidence-gathering, and Federal Court Rules 2011 for civil-recovery applications.
• Practical authority on Royal Commission and Commission-of-Inquiry support work, with familiarity across the post-Hayne, Aged Care, Disability, Robodebt and Defence-and-Veterans patterns.
• Familiarity with industry-standard investigations tooling, including transactional analytics platforms (such as CaseWare IDEA or MindBridge), entity / relationship-mapping tools (such as IBM i2 Analyst's Notebook), document-review platforms (such as Relativity or Nuix) at investigation depth, and visualisation tools (such as Power BI or Tableau).
• Demonstrable history of converting investigations engagement relationships into multi-year retainer or advisory work.
• Established relationships with law firm partners in litigation, disputes, white-collar crime, regulatory enforcement and internal-investigations practices who refer and instruct forensic investigations work; sustained named-account level engagement is the strongest evidence.
• High-agency operating style, calm and credible under board-level and privileged-investigation pressure, with the methodological discipline to ensure findings are evidence-based, structured and defensible.

Preferred Experience:

• CFE (Certified Fraud Examiner, ACFE) - the recognised primary investigations credential at this level.
• CFF (Certified in Financial Forensics, AICPA) for practitioners whose investigations frequently cross into financial-accounting forensics.
• CA ANZ specialist designation in Forensic Accounting.
• Postgraduate qualification: Master of Accounting, Master of Finance, MBA, or LLM with investigations / regulatory / criminal-justice relevance.
• Royal Commission or Commission-of-Inquiry advisor experience.
• Published investigations-focused writing.
• Growth-mindset operating posture and visible engagement with the AI developments reshaping forensic investigations: candidates who track tooling shifts (such as AI-assisted document review at investigation depth, ML-driven transactional-analytics enrichment, or LLM-aided fact-pattern synthesis under Federal Court evidentiary expectations), share that knowledge with the Director and Manager bench under their supervision, and have a track record of building team-upskilling programmes on emerging methodologies.

Compensation:

Competitive package commensurate with seniority and experience, including base, performance-based bonus, long-term incentives and (where applicable) partner-track equity participation.

Next Steps:

This opportunity is open to Australian citizens, permanent residents and qualified candidates with relevant Australian work-rights status who match the above criteria. Please apply to receive prompt contact from an experienced and specialist forensic investigations recruitment consultant.

Search & Counsel is a trading style of Feltan Associates Pte Ltd; an international Executive Search, Recruitment and Consulting business based in Singapore, licensed and regulated by the Singapore Ministry of Manpower to conduct recruitment services for clients. UEN: 202225620G. EA Licence 23S1672. All rights reserved.