Five Minutes with Matthew Bartemucci

Late last year, Hood Sweeney elevated two accounting advisers to Director roles. Dion Carbone and Matthew Bartemucci were promoted from Associates reflecting their contribution to growing the business and to their clients.

Matthew Bartemucci is a chartered accountant and an Accredited Family Business Adviser with Family Business Association. He has more than 18 years of experience advising SME clients across an array of industries including Agribusiness and Food & Hospitality and in the Family Business sector.

No stranger to the dynamics of working in a high-performing team, Matthew had a long career playing SANFL football for Norwood. Get to know him a little better here:

What is your favourite part of your job as an Accounting & Business Adviser?
It’s definitely the people. Interacting with the team at Hood Sweeney and with our clients. We’re all working towards a common goal whether it’s a business purchase, a business sale or taxation issues, it’s assisting people that I really enjoy.

Summarise your journey to now.
After school, I deferred a Commerce degree at UniSA for a year to do a working gap year.

I did a traineeship in sports administration at Norwood Football Club for 12 months to earn some income and broaden my experience. I wanted to go into university a bit more mature so I could hit the ground running.

During my three-year Commerce degree, I continued to play football and worked during Uni holidays at an apple orchard in Kersbrook picking fruit in January/February and thinning out the trees at the end of the year.

I’ve never been afraid of working. In my final study year, I secured a position at EY beginning the following year as a Graduate Accountant. I was there for 12 years and started to wonder what was next. A chat with a peer at Hood Sweeney led to another chat and then to a job opportunity.

I joined Hood Sweeney in 2015 and was promoted to Director in Accounting & Business Advisory in 2022. I guess I had always aspired, if I had the right skills and opportunities, to be an owner in a business as I am now at Hood Sweeney.

So, what next?
I want to continue to learn and grow the service offerings and our market presence. I’d also like to start working with more medium sized businesses. I do a lot in the smaller business space but with the medium businesses come bigger complexities, great dynamics, and therefore more areas to advise on.

On the personal front, I’ve run one marathon and wouldn’t mind doing another. I’ll also keep mentoring and teaching youngsters – coaching football and junior lifesavers.

In Winter, you will find me on the footy field assisting the junior teams and in summer on the beach, either patrolling or providing water cover at Glenelg.

What advice would you give your younger self starting out?
I’d like to have known what I know now about interacting with people, and how to deal with people in all the situations.
When you’re young you tend to fire ahead and jump in with the answers: I’d like to tell myself to stop, step back and think first.

In short, I guess I’d tell myself ‘You don’t have to have all the answers right away’.