Richard has 20 years legal experience working both externally and in-house. For the last eight years he has focused on advising professional services organisations, serving as:

• Legal Counsel for Ernst & Young in Hong Kong,
• New Zealand Legal Counsel for engineering consultancy Aurecon, and as
• General Counsel for the New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA).

Prior to 2006, Richard worked as a commercial litigation lawyer for global law firms Kennedys (Hong Kong) and Ashurst (Australia).

During the last five years with NZICA, Richard has played a lead role on issues affecting the New Zealand accounting profession, including the management of complaints against auditors of collapsed finance companies, the development and implementation of auditor oversight for FMC audits and the merger of NZICA with Australian counterpart ICAA to form Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand.

Richard continues to assist NZICA with regulatory projects and acts as prosecutor in its Disciplinary Tribunal.