“The hallmark of accounting achievement is to become a partner in a Big 8 firm.” That proclamation, featured in Bentley marketing materials of 1969, made an impression on the young Bill Freda. After studying at Bentley and completing an internship with one of the “8,” he embraced the definition of success as his own.
Freda’s semester-long accounting internship at the Deloitte predecessor firm Touche Ross was “a wonderful experience,” he says. “I came back to Bentley and said, ‘That’s what I want to be.’”
Indeed, Freda would accept a job with Touche Ross after graduation. There he has stayed for the past 37 years, through the firm’s evolution to Deloitte & Touche, and then simply “Deloitte.”
Today, Freda is vice chairman and senior partner for Deloitte LLP. He is based in New York City but travels the world, maintaining key client relationships as well as serving as a strategic liaison to the marketplace and professional and community organizations. His tenure at Deloitte also includes positions as managing partner. In that role, Freda led client initiatives first in the Northeast – the company’s largest U.S. region in terms of clients and staff – and later on a national scale.
People Business
The decades have not dulled Freda’s passion for the profession.
“It’s challenging, stimulating,” he says of working with some of the world’s largest and most complex organizations. “I like getting up in the morning, looking at The Wall Street Journal, and seeing my clients on the front page. I feel incredibly privileged to serve companies that are leaders in their respective industries.”
Beyond the balance sheet, Freda enjoys the relationship side of the job. “Though I’m an auditor by training, we’re in the people business. The only way to get things done is to be able to get along and work effectively with a variety of people.”
A Strong Foundation
Freda reserves similar enthusiasm for his alma mater.
“I loved every second of my college experience: the academic and the social, and trying to balance it all,” he says of a Bentley that, at the time, enrolled 3,000 students. “We had tremendous professors who befriended you, mentored you. They wanted you to succeed.”
He joined the Board of Trustees in 2005 and currently chairs the Audit Committee.
“I love coming back and seeing the energy and enthusiasm of the students,” says Freda, who lives in Berkley Heights, N.J., with wife Angela (a fellow 1974 graduate). “It’s also great to see where the university has been and where it’s going. The current leadership has done so much — improved the educational program and the university’s reputation — they’ve really made things happen.”
The movers and shakers include Freda himself. In 2007, he organized a campaign among Deloitte’s 400-plus Bentley graduates to support the library renovation. The facility’s hugely popular Deloitte Café speaks to the success of the effort, which raised $500,000 from alumni and the Deloitte Foundation.
“It was a way for the firm to show its commitment to education and developing top talent, and an opportunity for us, as alumni, to give back to our school,” he says. “I’m very proud of Bentley and grateful for what it has helped me achieve. And it’s ingrained in me to give back to where you came from.”