Cahal dowds biography for kids

When Colin Rutherford, Graeme Manson and Cahal Dowds set up their own accountancy practice in direct competition with the Big Six, they were inevitably seen as &#;young Turks&#;. They were all still in their twenties and aiming for a slice of the corporate finance market which the biggest firms saw as their own territory.

Ten years on, Rutherford Manson Dowds has grown from three friends operating out of a basement in Edinburgh&#;s Alva Street, to a thirteen-partner firm with a turnover (projected for this year) of around u7m. What&#;s more, RMD came ninth in the Sunday Times&#; league table of UK corporate finance advisers last year.

Managing partner Colin Rutherford is now spearheading an assault on the London and south-east market, but to stop RMD&#;s competitors in Scotland getting too complacent, the firm has just poached two key partners from Ernst & Young&#;s Glasgow office (Accountancy Age, 7 November).

Such a rapid rise is unusual enough in the world of accountancy, an