Our history
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 of frustration as much as ambition — 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 generational 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. 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, Accountant.
2002
Ben Wieland joins the firm. With Corinne already established in the accounting practice, the firm Bill built now has the people to carry it forward. He is today Partner, Wealth Manager.
2010
Ben founds the wealth management division. The firm 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: wealth management, accounting and taxation, and business advisory.
2015
One hundred years since William John Wieland first worked the land at Lilyveil. The property is gone. 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
Thirty years. Three divisions. A firm handed from the generation that founded it to the generation that runs it.
William Wieland
Founder Emeritus
Bill's working life does not follow a straight line. It follows a principle he has always held to: the right people, doing the right job, at the right time.
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.
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 1998 he devised the Wealth Formula — E=(A−S)T: Equity equals Assets minus Sensible debt, multiplied by Time — and the firm later took its name from its letters.
In 2020, Bill handed the running of EGU to Corinne and Ben. The work still matters to him, and the people doing it are his family.
In retirement, 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 the second generation of the Wieland family at the firm began with her. In the years since, she has helped shape EGU into the firm it has become.
Today, alongside Ben, Corinne leads EGU — responsible for the standard of work the firm delivers, and for the direction in which it travels.
She heads EGU Accounting and Taxation. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Public Accountants and a registered tax agent with the Tax Practitioners Board.
Her expertise was built at the desk, through more than two decades of work for clients. It shows in a command of accounting and tax that is both exacting and practical, and in an instinct for where the detail matters.
Her view of tax is clear: every client should meet their obligations in full, and pay not a dollar more than the law requires. Finding that line — precisely and reliably, for individuals, families and businesses alike — is the work at the centre of her practice. Every return and every set of accounts is held to the same standard of accuracy, whatever its complexity and whatever the pressure of the season.
Corinne also writes for EGU Insights, with the same clarity she brings to her client work.
When not at EGU, Corinne travels, cooks and entertains.
Benjamin Wieland
Partner, Wealth Manager
Ben joined EGU in 2002 and holds a Bachelor of Business with a double major in accounting and financial planning. He founded the firm's wealth management division in 2010, developed its investment framework and built the mandates through which it is applied.
Today, alongside Corinne, Ben leads EGU — responsible for the quality of advice the firm delivers, and for the direction in which it travels.
Ben's abiding interest is in how portfolios are built — the way asset classes work together, and what each contributes to the whole.
His conviction is grounded in the theory and evidence of portfolio construction. That understanding is what allows a strategy to be held steady, and clients to be seen through the periods that test it. Portfolio construction is the work of decades, not quarters. The horizon is generational.
He is a Justice of the Peace and a member of the Financial Advice Association Australia, and has served on several community boards.
When not at EGU, Ben spends time with his family, camps and shoots clay pigeons.
Benjamin Widdup
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 student in his discipline to write for the university's newsletter — an early sign of an instinct to understand a subject deeply and communicate it clearly.
As a Wealth Manager, Ben works with clients across the full scope of their financial affairs.
Before entering the profession, Ben worked as a personal trainer. The work was different in every practical sense, and the instinct was the same. In Ben's view, wealth management is more than a technical exercise. It is the work of being curious about where another person is trying to go and what stands in their way. The why comes before the what — every recommendation begins with understanding what the client is trying to achieve. Strategy follows from understanding. The advice is more precise for it.
When not at EGU, Ben reads, cooks and trains.
