Carrington is a veteran of the firm, having worked across its Sydney, Perth and Melbourne offices, and has spent the last few years serving on Atkin’s management team. In the current economic climate, it’s a testing time to be taking up the top job, but Carrington is pragmatic about the situation.

“I don’t underestimate the challenges and I will be looking at them very closely — I suspect, much like everybody else in a role similar to my own,” he said.

“I think probably at any time there will be challenges and they'’ll depend upon both the internal and the external circumstances. This is certainly a challenging time, but I wouldn’t describe it as difficult because I just think that these things come along and you need to be able to deal with them.”

See The Whole Truth on page 34 for more on John Carrington, his love of fly fishing and his plans for Blake Dawson.