Revenue at BDO Luxembourg has increased by 53% over the past five years, while its headcount has jumped by 30%. But the professional services provider is pushing for much more growth, , CEO of BDO Luxembourg, said in an interview last week.

Lam, who was managing partner in September 2024, said the firm was thinking both more globally and more locally.

Targeting alternative funds and local players

The private market fund sector will be one of the “levers of growth in the coming years,” he stated. “No secret there, I think alternative assets will continue to grow in Luxembourg.” BDO can serve the alternative funds either on the audit side or can offer tax compliance, fund administration, consulting and payroll services. Lam recently joined BDO’s global private capital committee, as worldwide leaders recognise that Luxembourg “plays a key part in this sector.”

Local Luxembourg businesses, another target area, are “getting more sophisticated. Maybe the small accounting firms out there are not well equipped” to provide more advanced services, such as in ESG, digitalisation and AI. Beyond basic accounting, which still needs to be handled professionally, local outfits need advice on how “to navigate the challenges of the future.” Its business services and outsourcing unit, for instance, has “a local team looking after local businesses,” including several native Luxembourgers.

Company culture

The firm sells work-life balance, which Lam argued was better struck at BDO than its larger rivals, to future and current employees. It likewise stresses training and development opportunities (as do its competitors). But perhaps size is the key point: “We are 700 people. I’m not spitting in the soup, I think the larger players are also very good... but the fact of the matter is that we are a bit smaller. It’s a more family-like sort of atmosphere.”

“I think we have been fairly low key, very modest, and we were sometimes afraid to be visible out there.” That’s “a mindset we want to slowly change and really open ourselves more to the market. We are indeed very proud of what we have achieved so far, but we really want to continue to grow. There are wonderful and amazing opportunities out there, but we need the right mindset, we need the right people, to go and grab these opportunities.”

Thinking more globally

The international group is pushing for local affiliates to work more closely together to pool resources and go after juicier chunks of business. This has manifested itself with a joint venture with BDO Belgium called BDO Belux, which aims to capture clients in the “area at the borders of Luxembourg and Belgium where neither of us were really targeting.”

The affiliates are cooperating on technology too. “I must admit that our Belgian colleagues over the last few years have made a lot of investments into acquiring companies in the AI and digitalisation fields,” which the Luxembourg operation has started to take advantage of. During the interview, Lam also cited projects with counterparts in France, Germany and the Netherlands.

Growth targets

“We have fairly ambitious goals.” He would like to see “healthy double-digit growth” annually for the next few years, which Paperjam understood to be a rate matching or exceeding the .

“To accompany the [growth], we indeed foresee a doubling of our workforce in the medium- to long-term horizon,” which Paperjam understood to mean roughly 10 years.

Even with large-scale recruitment, the firm will have to reconsider “our way of working” and “see how we can become more efficient.”

Proud of his people

Lam used the words “proud” and “pride” repeatedly during the interview. He is plainly proud of his team. “We can’t say enough about our people. Clearly this is so, so, so important for us, because if there’s one limiting factor to our growth, it’s people.”

“So this is really the message that we want to put out there: we really value [the team] and we need the people to be able to grow.”