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Words: Cameron Cooper

As a CEO who has more than doubled the share price of global content and technology company Thomson Reuters since taking the reins in 2020, Steve Hasker CA could be excused for gloating. However, that’s not the style of the former McKinsey executive, who learned his trade as a chartered accountant in Melbourne.

For Hasker, the notion of humility is front of mind as he leads the multinational corporation from its headquarters in Canada. Cuts to executive perks early in his tenure set the tone, as did his penchant for catching the streetcar or subway to the office when he’s working in Toronto or New York.

“I’ve been lucky enough to work extensively across the globe, including in India, China, Europe and Latin America, but I do think my Australian roots and the Australian [sense of] humility are important to me,” Hasker says.

This approach tends to result in more listening and less talking, as well as greater collaboration and open-mindedness when making decisions. “Those things come with humility,” remarks Hasker, who adds that it should not be confused with a lack of assertiveness or action.

A little self-effacement is arguably more important than ever in an AI-disrupted and tech-driven world, according to Hasker.

“What I mean by that is if someone walks into your office and says, ‘I know what AI’s going to do to the accounting or legal professions’, I think they’re wrong. I don’t think any of us quite know yet.”

From CA to CEO

While his days working at PwC are in the past, Hasker continues to apply the lessons of that formative career period in Australia.

He believes the insistence on intellectual rigour that comes with the CA designation has served him well during his climb up the corporate ladder. “I can’t think of a better place to start in terms of the grounding, and the expertise, the support, the mentoring, the coaching and the collegiality.”

Now leading more than 26,000 people globally at Thomson Reuters after stints at McKinsey, private equity firm TPG Capital, media-measurement business Nielsen and entertainment business Creative Artists Agency, Hasker has brought a data-driven operator’s mindset to the table at the Canadian business, shaped by years advising entities on digital media and financial strategies. The result? A sharp product focus. Fast execution. Strategic investment in technologies and AI, and more disciplined capital deployment.

Given his career twists and turns, it’s not surprising Hasker is not an advocate of rigid career paths. His ‘North Star’ has been to prioritise opportunities to learn and grow – not job titles or compensation – when weighing up new jobs or projects.

He says: “The question I’ve always asked is, ‘Do I think I can learn more doing that new role than what I’m doing today?’ And if the answer is a strong ‘yes’, I almost always take that opportunity. It’s served me very well.”

Another career reflection for Hasker is that leaders shouldn’t underestimate the people factor in a professional services sector where the ranks are typically dominated by type-A personalities who are data-driven, fact-driven and task-driven.

“It’s easy to focus on the task – whether that’s completing a spreadsheet or an analysis or a tax return or an audit – and forget about the people,” Hasker says. “But it’s the people who teach you, who promote you, who pay you, and create opportunities and friendships.”

It's all about momentum

Hasker credits Dave Calhoun – his boss and mentor at Nielsen who had earlier served under the legendary Jack Welch at General Electric for almost three decades – for passing on one of his other most critical leadership lessons: the importance of creating momentum in a business.

Soon after being head-hunted from McKinsey, Hasker presented Calhoun with a long-term strategic plan for Nielsen’s media business and received a candid response.

“He said, ‘Steve, this sounds fine to me, but I am less interested in the perfect strategy three or five years from now and I’m more interested in what you’re going to do today to give us a bit more momentum tomorrow’.”

As part of a turnaround of Nielsen’s fortunes, Calhoun wanted to focus on immediate actions that delivered results and won over partners, customers and other stakeholders. “That’s more important than crafting the perfect strategy,” Hasker says.

The lesson helped him make the migration from consulting roles – in which the focus is often on solving intellectual problems – to operational roles in which leaders have to concentrate on immediate results and show people that they are on a successful team.

“It’s the people who teach you, who promote you, who pay you, and create opportunities and friendships.”

The ‘build, partner, buy’ strategy

While the iconic Reuters brand often captures the headlines, the sum of Thomson Reuters’ parts is much more than its famous news service. More than 90% of the company’s revenue comes from software and services provided to tax, accounting, legal and corporate professionals.

Platforms such as Checkpoint and generative AI assistant CoCounsel are key offerings Hasker’s teams are constantly evaluating and upgrading, as professional services try to keep up with technology and productivity goals.

Thomson Reuters is driving AI transformation for customers through its ‘build, partner, buy’ strategy, including investing in and acquiring AI companies. It has spent about US$500 million on building AI-driven products since 2023, plus billions buying companies to add agentic AI assistants, e-invoicing solutions and tax automation software to the company’s offerings.

The move is all part of a commitment to be at the forefront of delivering professional-grade AI to clients. Hasker says on the back of the recent announcement of US$150 million of second-round funding through its Thomson Reuters Ventures initiative, the company will be able to turbocharge its partnering approach. Meanwhile, it has about US$12.5 billion in “dry powder” to make AI acquisitions up to 2028.

The clear message is that, in the face of significant disruption for the accounting and legal professions, the emphasis needs to switch from a fear that AI will take people’s jobs to appreciating its role in transforming work flows and productivity.

Spotlight on New Zealand and Australia

Acknowledging his Down Under heritage, Hasker says Australia and New Zealand continue to be key markets, despite their lack of scale compared with North America. That is because the two Southern Hemisphere markets are served “by the most sophisticated lawyers, tax and accounting and audit professionals on the planet”.

“You only have to look at the big four firms and the number of Australians and Kiwis who’ve been successful across the globe, including in the US,” Hasker says.

“So, if we’re going to be as good as we aspire to be and we’re going to truly lead the world in terms of the provision of content-driven technology to the tax, accounting and audit professions, and the legal profession, we’d better get it right in Australia and we’d better be the preeminent firm serving those professions in Australia,” Hasker says.

Part of the mix are new tax solutions, called Ready to Advise and Ready to Review, that use agentic AI technology which can accomplish specific goals with limited human supervision. These AI agents automate tax and advisory workflows – saving time typically spent on manual tasks for professionals and speeding up services for clients.

Technology is also easing another pain point for accounting and audit professionals – the cost and complexity of risk and regulatory compliance. Hasker says it is not feasible for firms to keep adding internal resources to cope with the burden.

“Technology has to play a role and it has to alleviate that need for talent. Where someone needs professional-grade AI – in other words, highly accurate, trusted and data-protected AI, there will be specialised providers like Thomson Reuters. Where it’s more of a general-purpose search, there’s a great role for the generic foundation model chatbots to play.”

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All systems go

Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report 2025, reveals that organisations with ‘visible AI strategies’ are twice as likely as those with more informal approaches to experience revenue growth as a result of AI adoption. They are also 3.5 times more likely to experience critical AI benefits. Despite this, just 22% state that their businesses have ‘a visible, defined AI strategy’.

Steve Hasker CA says it is apparent that, for now, most firms’ uptake of AI is “all over the map”. However, with professional work increasingly being shaped by AI, those who integrate it into their operations will be the winners.

The report drives home the point that accounting firms and others should not miss out on potential financial gains from AI. Globally, survey respondents predict that professionals using AI will each save five hours weekly within the next year, unlocking an average of US$19,000 in annual value per person.

Pressure on regulators

Hasker acknowledges that the role of regulators will be crucial to the smooth implementation of AI, commenting that they are “playing catch-up” at a time when there is so much AI innovation and investment – as was the case in the early days of the internet and social media.

“The regulators have a lot of work to do and they should start with protection of copyright,” Hasker says. “And they should ensure that where AI is used in the production of an output that it is labelled as such.”

Hasker knows he and his team will be judged on safeguarding tax, auditing and legal data. That means there will be a pressing need for “professional-grade, AI-driven applications”.

“What that really translates to is that these applications cannot be incorrect,” Hasker says. “They cannot ‘hallucinate’ and they must observe data privacy and protection requirements.”

He believes Thomson Reuters has an edge in this respect. Its AI tools are trained on vast volumes of accurate datasets that “in some cases have been developed for centuries”. Hasker says the other crucial component is that Thomson Reuters provides an “ironclad guarantee” that when lawyers and accounting professionals use its applications, their data and information will not be part of Thomson Reuters’ AI output. In contrast, models such as ChatGPT come with significant risks.

“And heaven forbid if you include some information that is proprietary to your firm, or proprietary to a client – it’s sort of game over.”

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By the numbers

According to Thomson Reuters’ Future of Professionals Report 2025:

• 53% of professionals say their organisations are already seeing ROI as a direct or indirect result of their AI adoption.

• Improved efficiency and productivity are the most common benefits of using AI.

• 3 in 10 professionals say their organisations are moving too slowly on AI adoption.

• 4 in 10 organisations are adopting AI without a strategy.

• 88% of professionals favour having profession-specific AI assistants, highlighting the growing importance of AI in professional work.