Built over generations
1915
William John Wieland establishes Lilyveil, a sheep and cattle grazing operation on the land outside Blackall in Western Queensland. It is the beginning of a family story that is still being written.
1938
Frederick Wieland works the land at Lilyveil, keeping the operation alive through the decades that follow his father's founding.
1980
William Wieland — Bill — named after his grandfather, joins the family at Lilyveil as a Partner in the rural enterprise. The third generation takes its place on the land.
1985
Bill enrols at university as a mature age student. The decision is born not from ambition alone, but from frustration — watching the rural sector poorly served by the accounting firms that were supposed to advise it.
1995
Bill graduates with a Bachelor of Accounting degree and launches Rural Solutions, specialising in accounting for primary producers. A decade of study alongside a life on the land has given him a genuine understanding of the people he intends to serve — the firm is his passion and expertise made into a business, built from the inside out.
1998
Bill creates the Wealth Formula: E=(A−S)T. Equity equals Assets minus Sensible debt, multiplied by Time. A simple equation. A profound discipline.
1999
The firm is renamed Accounting East. The four letters — E, A, S, T — are the four variables of Bill's formula. The name signals an expansion beyond the rural sector and into the broader business community. In the same year, Lilyveil is sold. The Wieland family's chapter on the land comes to a close — but the people of rural Australia remain central to the story that follows.
2000
Corinne Kirk (née Wieland) joins the firm. The second generation of the Wieland family at EGU begins. She is today Partner and Accountant.
2002
Ben Wieland joins the firm. The family is now working together across two generations — and the firm that Bill built has the people to carry it forward. He is today Partner and Wealth Manager.
2010
Ben launches the wealth management division. EGU begins its evolution into a fully integrated financial services firm — one that can serve clients across every dimension of their financial lives.
2014
The firm becomes EGU — the name East Group United, compressed into three letters. Three divisions united under one name: Principled Wealth Management, Practical Business Advisory, and Precise Accounting and Taxation.
2015
One hundred years since William John Wieland first worked the land at Lilyveil. The property is gone, but the primary producers of rural Australia — the families working the same kind of country the Wielands once worked — remain among EGU's most valued clients.
2018
EGU Financial Services is granted an Australian Financial Services Licence by the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
2020
Bill retires from the day-to-day operations of EGU, handing the running of the firm to Corinne and Ben. He remains close — a presence, a counsel, and a connection to everything that came before.
2025
EGU celebrates thirty years. Three decades. Three divisions. Two generations of a family, still working side by side.
William Wieland
Founder Emeritus
Bill's working life does not follow a straight line. It follows a principle.
He began his career at National Australia Bank, spending a decade learning how money moves and how businesses live or die by the decisions made around it. He then returned to the land — running sheep and cattle properties in Western Queensland, including Lilyveil, the property his grandfather William John Wieland had established in 1915. It was there, watching the accounting firms that were supposed to serve the rural sector fall consistently short, that he made a decision that would change the course of his family's story.
He enrolled at university as a mature age student. Not because it was easy. Because it was right.
He graduated with a Bachelor of Accounting degree and founded Rural Solutions in 1995 — a firm built specifically for the clients the industry had been neglecting. It grew, evolved, and eventually became EGU. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Accountants and a Registered Tax Agent with the Tax Practitioners Board.
In 2020, Bill handed the running of EGU to Corinne and Ben. He remains close to the firm — not because he has to, but because the work still matters to him and the people doing it are his family.
When not at EGU, Bill camps, and spends time with his grandson Charlie.
Bill Wieland
Founder Emeritus
Corinne Kirk (née Wieland)
Partner, Accountant
Corinne joined EGU in 2000 and has spent more than two decades managing the full scope of EGU's accounting and taxation work with a standard of accuracy that does not vary regardless of the complexity of the task or the pressure of the season.
She holds the designation of Fellow of the Institute of Public Accountants and is a Registered Tax Agent with the Tax Practitioners Board. She manages the full scope of EGU's accounting and taxation work — bookkeeping, financial statement preparation, and income tax returns — with a standard of accuracy that does not vary regardless of the complexity of the task or the pressure of the season.
Corinne has never tired of completing tax returns. That is not a throwaway observation — it is the clearest possible signal of someone who finds genuine satisfaction in work that most people dread. Her view of tax is straightforward: every client should meet their obligations fully, and pay not a dollar more than they are required to. Finding that line, precisely and reliably, is work she has never once found ordinary.
When not at EGU, Corinne travels, cooks, and entertains — usually at the same pace she brings to everything else.
Corinne Kirk (née Wieland)
Partner, Accountant
1300 102 542 | 0405 106 401
corinne@egu.au
Benjamin Wieland
Partner, Wealth Manager
Ben joined EGU in 2002 and has spent more than two decades building a genuine understanding of portfolio theory from the academic foundations up.
Today, alongside Corinne, Ben leads EGU — responsible not only for the quality of advice the firm delivers, but for the direction in which it travels.
He holds a Bachelor of Business with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning. It is a combination that is rarer than it sounds, and it shaped the way he thinks about wealth — not as an investment problem in isolation, but as a financial whole that requires both disciplines working together.
The qualification is the starting point, not the destination. What followed was a sustained study of how portfolios actually work — how asset classes interact, how genuine diversification differs from the illusion of it, and how the whole holds together when parts of it are under pressure. The influence of David Swensen — and in particular Unconventional Success (2005) — is not an incidental reference at EGU. It is the intellectual foundation of everything Ben builds. The horizon is generational.
Ben is a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Financial Advice Association Australia. He has served his local community through board membership of the New Farm and Districts Historical Association, among other community boards.
When not at EGU, Ben shoots clay pigeons, camps, and reads history.
Ben Wieland
Partner, Wealth Manager
1300 102 542 | 0423 710 820
ben@egu.au
Benjamin Widdup
Wealth Manager
Ben joined EGU in 2018 and holds a Bachelor of Commerce with a double major in Accounting and Financial Planning. While studying at Griffith University, he was the first financial planning student to write for the university's newsletter — an early sign of an instinct to understand things deeply and communicate them clearly.
Before financial planning, Ben worked as a personal trainer. The work was different in every practical sense — but the underlying instinct was the same. Understanding where someone is, where they want to get to, and what is standing between them and getting there.
In Ben's view, financial planning is not a technical exercise. It is the work of being genuinely curious about where another person is trying to go, and what is standing between them and getting there. The why comes before the what — every recommendation begins with understanding what the client is actually trying to achieve. Strategy follows from understanding. The advice is more precise for it.
He is a member of the Financial Advice Association Australia.
When not at EGU, Ben reads, cooks, and trains.
Ben Widdup
Wealth Manager
1300 102 542 | 0402 633 205
ben.widdup@egu.au