Tech sector layoffs have been making headlines for months. Will today’s economic conditions affect the accountancy sector, as well? Three members discuss their views on what the future holds for professionals in finance Garrett McCarthy  Partner Hugh McCarthy & Associates Firms like mine have faced staff recruitment and retention issues for years. Practice is always a challenging environment to hire and retain staff, but it has been particularly bad over the last 12 months.  Given the never-ending regulatory changes and additional burdens on clients, I cannot see any reduction in the demand for staff any time soon. The problems stem from staff affordability, high salary expectations and constant pressure on working arrangements. Are they sustainable, and will clients fund them? This is where I see uncertainty rising over the next two years.  In terms of business, 2023 looks very positive, and feedback from our clients is positive, which is great. Our issues are internal: filling roles and recruiting and retaining new staff at all levels is a huge challenge. The people just aren’t out there, and when they are, the opportunities for them are endless, making it very difficult for small and medium firms to recruit.  As a firm, we must be laser-focused on margin for the foreseeable future, with cost increases across our main areas under pressure. Salaries, recruitment, retention and other staff-related costs are going up significantly. IT and compliance costs are a close second and they are also rising. Clients are very resistant to increasing fees which is the crux of the problem.  I would be bullish for the year ahead, we have a great team which we are looking to grow when we can, and our clients are fantastic. We have problems as an industry, but doesn’t everyone? Most importantly, we have the work, which is never a bad thing. Neil Hughes  Managing Partner Baker Tilly Over the past few months, the tech sector in Ireland has been experiencing a reset. Many of the world’s leading tech companies, with EMEA HQs here in Ireland, have begun ‘right-sizing’ as we have finally waved goodbye to the global pandemic. After taking on additional staff during the pandemic, these multinationals are now rescaling resources back to their pre-pandemic size, often with very difficult consequences for their people, especially those who have recently joined.  First, it is important to understand what is happening. Decisions in the multinational tech sector are primarily driven by investor sentiment. Investors in tech stocks are now finding alternatives to global equity markets during this era of rising interest rates in the form of safer deposit accounts and bond markets. Large equity players, such as the global tech giants, are resorting to crude cost-cutting to ensure that they remain as attractive as possible in terms of their key profitability metrics to fortify their share price as much as they can while the economic landscape evolves.       As this is the key reason for the deep cuts being made, it is unlikely that the accounting and finance sector will feel any direct negative impact because of the reset. Instead, there is a possibility that the additional people that come into the job market in the coming weeks and months will help ease the acute resource pressures currently being felt by firms in professional practice.  Although there may not be many direct finance graduates coming out of the tech firms, our profession has long moved past being a discipline for commerce or finance graduates only. Those graduates with strong analytical skills and a positive attitude can undoubtedly pivot and excel in the accountancy profession. If the profession can evolve to find a place for those who have not come through the traditional channels for the Chartered Accountants qualification, the outlook for our firm and the wider accountancy sector is very bright.  The pandemic has proven that there will be no let-up in demand for quality financial and business advice. We need to be ready to provide the brightest and best minds to meet the requirements of our clients. Ornaith Giblin  Consultant  Barden    While it is estimated that there have been 140,000 tech layoffs globally since March 2022, the impact on Ireland has been estimated to be closer to 2,000. Most layoffs to date have been focused on operations with little to no impact on finance teams, and any fallout is likely to have a limited effect on the accountancy profession in Ireland. We have not seen any material risk for accountants across the tech sector from a job security point of view.  As accountants are employed across all industries, we don’t foresee a series of events that would lead to a similar level of uncertainty. Overall, Irish unemployment numbers are at 4.3 percent in December 2022, nearly the lowest for over 20 years.  We have seen the demand for accountants far exceeding the supply in the last 18 months, more than in any other period of time. The tech sector no doubt has contributed to that, and demand will be slightly denuded as a result, but we still expect the current significant imbalance that exists in the Irish market between the supply and demand of accountants to continue.  From an industry perspective, the availability of talent will be a concern in the coming years. Despite the perception of headwinds, current demand is far outstripping the supply of accountants from the previous peak of Q2 2008.  From an individual accountant’s perspective, the outlook in the short- to medium-term is positive. While the sector is not impervious to macroeconomic factors, we would see the current strong demand for accountants continuing through 2023. 

Fostering a culture of equity, inclusion and belonging for members from minority ethnic groups is the aim of the Institute’s new Ethnicity Network Group An inclusive culture that promotes and supports diverse perspectives can stimulate innovation and improve performance for organisations in all sectors. This is according to Deborah Somorin, Manager, People Advisory Services at EY Ireland, and Chair of the recently launched Ethnicity Network Group at Chartered Accountants Ireland. The Ethnicity Network Group has been established to develop a more inclusive profession by helping organisations to foster a culture of equity, inclusion and belonging for employees from minority ethnic groups. “I always look to the research to work out value and significance and it really struck me to discover the very concrete benefits for organisations that are ethnically diverse,” Somorin explains.  “According to McKinsey, these organisations are 36 percent more likely to outperform their peers financially, because inclusive culture helps to attract and retain talent.” A voice and platform The Ethnicity Network Group will organise a programme of events, provide training and resources for organisations, and develop a mentoring programme to support members and students from Traveller, Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic groups.  Its aim is to encourage and facilitate the discussion of issues relevant to people in these minority groups and give them the voice and platform to identify solutions.  “It’s really about expanding the conversation around diversity, to further strengthen the cultural intelligence within our profession and beyond, and to continually challenge biases in the highest and best way,” says Somorin. “If you look at the top-performing organisations in the McKinsey research, they don’t just hire for diversity, they also invest in the cultural initiatives needed to integrate people of all backgrounds and ethnicities into their organisations.  “They focus on training and mentoring, which is a really important part of creating and supporting an inclusive culture, and all of this helps to attract and retain the best talent.” Creating awareness The Ethnicity Network Group was formed in late 2022, supported by Shauna Greely, former President of Chartered Accountants Ireland and current Chair of the Institute’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. In addition to Somorin in the role of Chair, Ethnicity Network Group members include: Vice-Chair Rutendo Chiyangwa; Khadijat Lawal; Aisling McCaffrey; Lloyd Mufema; Reabetswe Moutlana; Mwale Tembo; and Seun Olayanju. “Creating awareness is a big part of what we want to do. We are all different and it’s really about being open to learning and asking questions,” explains Khadijat Lawal. “We want to support members and students from Traveller, Black, Asian and other Minority Ethnic groups, but also to open up the conversation in the wider profession, to integrate and celebrate, because—while we are different—there are also so many similarities between us.” A Financial Accounting and Advisory Services Senior at Grant Thornton Ireland, Lawal has had different experiences at work and in education, not all of them positive. “I’m used to being in environments where I am either the only Black person, or one of the few Black people in the room. Sometimes, I have felt that I couldn’t fully be myself, that I couldn’t share parts of my culture and who I am,” she says. Lawal joined Grant Thornton in 2019 as a trainee. “One of the first things I noticed was colleagues of different ethnic minorities,” she says. “They were eating their own food and speaking their own language. That communicated to me that my difference would be welcomed here.” And Lawal noticed this commitment to true diversity and inclusion (D&I) in other areas too. “My manager at the time was always so curious about where I was from, and about my differences,” she says.  “I am from Nigeria and Yoruba is my native language. This manager looked up how to say ‘thank you’ in Yoruba for me. I found that so endearing because he didn’t have to do it.  “It just shows how much it really matters that we feel we can be curious about one another, but also kind and genuine. “The Ethnicity Network Group is about getting that message out there and helping people to have these conversations in the right way.” Positive energy Aisling McCaffrey is Director of Sustainability and Financial Services Advisory, Grant Thornton Ireland. She was invited to join the Ethnicity Network Group by Lawal, her colleague at the firm. “I was delighted to be asked. When we had our launch in December at the EY office on Harcourt Street, you could just feel this amazing, positive energy in the room,” says McCaffrey. The launch felt especially timely, because, says Caffrey, “diversity of thought really matters now. It’s a reflection of a changing dynamic in Ireland, and it’s hugely important”. Fostering a sense of belonging, and creating a supportive, inclusive culture, is essential for all employees in the modern workplace. “The way people view work, and what they want from an organisation, changed a lot during the pandemic,” says McCaffrey. “The lockdowns, social distancing and remote working gave people a lot of food for thought in terms of: ‘What do I want to do?’ What do I want from my work? What do I value?’ “People now really want to be part of an organisation that recognises them, not just in terms of what they can deliver, but also what they bring to the organisation as an individual. “We want to promote a sense of belonging and inclusion, we want to celebrate diversity—but it’s also really important that the Ethnicity Network Group can generate measurable outputs in time.  “For me, that’s where the potential for an Ethnicity Pay Gap Report comes into play, because while it’s all well and good for an organisation to say that they have an inclusive, equitable environment, we need to see that reflected in pay and leadership.” Member survey The launch of the Ethnicity Network Group in December followed a survey of over 1,300 members and students of Chartered Accountants Ireland conducted by Coyne Research. The findings revealed that, for 40 percent of members who claimed to have witnessed or heard discrimination against others, it was based on ethnicity.  Two-in-three of the students surveyed reported the same. “Changing this is really about action: ‘What can you do to bring about change?’” says McCaffrey. “People are generally self-aware and often you will find—especially in a work environment—that they are not sure how to approach questions or conversations around cultural difference. “They are concerned that they might offend someone if they say the wrong thing. So, it’s about being able to create a safe space and a learning environment that benefits everyone.  “It’s about understanding that, if someone says the wrong thing, you feel comfortable enough giving them feedback and they feel comfortable enough accepting it.” Importance of training For Somorin, the level and quality of the D&I training available to employees in any organisation is of the utmost importance. “If it is approached as a tokenistic tick box exercise, it’s going to feed into how importantly people view it,” she says.  “I’ll give you just one example of why this matters. For Irish people, where you come is a really big thing—if you’re from the Carlow clan or the Mayo clan—it is a huge part of people’s identity here. “But, if you don’t look stereotypically Irish, people will frequently ask you where you are from, and when you tell them you’re from Ireland, the next question will often be: ‘But, where are you really from? Where are your grandparents from, your great grandparents?’ “It comes from trying to place your clan, I think, and even though there is rarely any malice behind it, you do need to educate yourself as to how that can make someone feel. “When you are facing the same question over and over, it can invalidate your own sense of identity as an Irish person. It can make you feel ‘other’ or singled out.” Rules of engagement In organisations that have a truly inclusive culture, and an appropriate level of training, Somorin believes that people will organically begin to develop an awareness of the impact questions like this can have. She calls this learning the ‘rules of engagement’. “For me personally, this is a big selling point at EY. These things are made very clear even down to the performance evaluation process,” she says.  “We’re constantly encouraged to take a step back and ask ourselves, ‘if someone did or said something in a different way, but it led to the desired outcome, can we really view it as a negative?’ “Not everyone has grown up in a diverse environment and not everyone inherently understands how they should behave and what they should or shouldn’t say or ask. And it’s okay not to be perfect. What really matters is that we are all open to learning.” 

Cormac O’Shea, Chief Financial Officer with Telegraph Media Group in the UK, talks us through the international career path that took him from Cork to Sydney and on to London  Corkman Cormac O’Shea combined his passion for maths with his early experience working for the family business to pursue a career as a Chartered Accountant and soon found himself cutting his teeth in the media sector in Australia before relocating to London where he is now Chief Financial Officer with Telegraph Media Group (TMG). As the publisher of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, The Telegraph Magazine, Telegraph.co.uk and the Telegraph app, TMG operates a subscription-first business.  Here, O’Shea tells Accountancy Ireland about what led him to accountancy and how he has since forged a successful career in international media over two decades. Tell us about your career starting out. What made you decide on accountancy? I was always interested in business. My parents ran O’Shea’s Pharmacy in Blackpool on the northside of Cork city and I began helping out really young, from about the age of 10, alongside my two sisters.  That sparked an interest for me in how businesses ‘work’; what it means to run a business hands-on, dealing with customers and managing the finances.  I remember I really enjoyed dealing with the customers face-to-face (under strict supervision from my parents!). Then, at school, I enjoyed maths and physics, and applying that interest in numbers to accounting.  So, on the one hand, I had this interest in business and, on the other, numeracy.  Accountancy was attractive for those reasons. I like dealing with numbers and I like understanding how businesses invest and turn a profit. After the Leaving Cert, I moved on to University College Cork (UCC) and graduated with a degree in commerce in 1994. You left Ireland at a fairly early stage in your career, relocating to Australia in 1998 to live and work in Sydney? What prompted the move? It was my personal life that took me to Australia initially. My wife Jane, who was then my girlfriend, secured a position over there doing post-doctoral work with the Australian Government after her PhD.  That said, I already had itchy feet and, actually, the mobility of accountancy as a career was a big draw for me.  I realised that, as a Chartered Accountant, I could work anywhere in the English-speaking world and Australia just looked very attractive.  I moved over there with Jane safe in the knowledge that I could also develop my career there. My Chartered Accountant (CA) qualification, combined with my BComm from UCC, gave me an element of certainty from a career perspective.  I would say that, overall, my career journey has been fairly consistent. I’ve continued to work in financial roles and, given my interest in travel, I have been able to visit different countries and work in different cultures. What was your first job in Sydney and how did your career evolve from there? I got a job contracting with an advertising agency for a short while after I arrived, which was quite interesting. Like many Irish Chartered Accountants in Sydney, I took on contracting work where I could, and travelled the rest of the time. About a year in, I got a call from a company called APN News & Media, the Australian subsidiary of Independent News & Media.  I met with Vincent Crowley, a fellow Irish Chartered Accountants and the then CFO of APN, and he explained how the business operated across newspapers, radio and outdoor advertising. I was always interested in journalism and news media, so APN seemed like a good option for me career-wise.  Also, Australia had been a growing economy for many years with very active population growth and that was the case even 20 years ago when I moved over there. At that time, the population was about 19 million.  Now, it’s up to 26 million and rising. For me, this kind of fast-growth, multicultural society is a fascinating place to live and work. Tell us about your interest in the media? What is it about the sector that appeals to you from a professional point of view? I came from a family with a theatrical background. I have always enjoyed that mix of creativity and business, which is what makes the media interesting to me.  Media is a creative business. It combines entertainment, engagement and information—and it’s consumer-driven. You have to market your content to the consumer. From Sydney, you moved temporarily to New Zealand, then back to Sydney and on to London. What was it that kept you moving? The move from Australia to New Zealand came about because APN bought an Auckland company called Wilson & Horton.  I worked on the acquisition and then moved into a corporate finance role, which involved raising equity and debt, and debt management for the business. That experience was great. It gave me exposure to people at the top of the organisation. I was reporting directly to the CFO at APN and putting together presentations, meeting with banks and shareholders. I was offered the opportunity to become CFO of the Outdoor division, based in Sydney. Up to that point, I hadn’t managed a team of more than two or three people, so it was a big step up. I think luck plays a major role in how our lives and careers progress and this was a really lucky break for me, because my CFO at the time had a lot of faith in me. With his support, I was effectively able to launch my own career as a CFO.  After that, I moved to be the CFO of the Australian Radio Network to work with fellow Irishman Ciaran Davis. I enjoyed working in radio, because it is woven into the fabric of our day. Podcasting has become incredibly popular, and I see it as a return to the most traditional form of audio listening. In the modern environment, it happens to be on-demand.  Traditional radio broadcasting required you to turn the dial at exactly the right time. Podcasting overcomes that. Following my radio stint, I headed closer to home in 2013 to join Clear Channel International, a London-based outdoor advertising business, as CFO of its international division.  It was an elevated role with a different business and the timing was perfect for my wife and I.  By that time, we had lived in Australia for 15 years, but family life is very important to me, and you really miss it when you’re so far from home for that long. Living in London, I can be in Cork in three hours door-to-door. You joined Telegraph Media Group in September 2021 in the role of Chief Financial Officer. What was it about the position that appealed to you? It is a fantastic brand that is recognised worldwide, and I am a great believer in the power of quality brands. I’m genuinely interested in news media and the role it plays in society, and I want to work in an industry that interests me.  I am particularly interested in subscription news media and TMG is leading the charge in this space. The businesses I have worked with have always embraced transformation, particularly driven by digital change. Transformation creates interesting challenges for the CFO because you need to be very focused on the allocation of resources, and on supporting the business in the areas in which it needs to grow, while also managing existing elements. One of the big learnings that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic was the importance of trusted sources of information for citizens. The professional news media is crucial for society. Looking back now, do you have any regrets about your decision to become a Chartered Accountant? It’s one of the best decisions I ever made. I have no doubt about that. The qualification is effectively a ‘passport for life’. It has given me a technical qualification that is respected all over the world.  The brand of Chartered Accountants Ireland has been respected wherever I have worked.  In both Sydney and London, we have very active local societies of the Chartered Accountants Ireland family. There is a sense of fellowship among members. What career advice would you give your younger self based on what you know now? We all develop relationships with the people we work with, and some endure. My advice to younger professionals would be to protect and nurture these relationships and make an active effort to build and maintain a network around you as your career progresses. I should stress here that I’m not necessarily talking about the power of your network in any commercial sense. It has to come from a place of friendship. The concept of culture in the working world is something I have really come to value over the years.  The finance function in any organisation is a professional service run by well-qualified people. You have to build a good culture within your team and that means treating people well and with respect. Help other people and thank them when they help you. Irish people have a good reputation internationally. We are regarded as being sociable and being good communicators. I would advise other Chartered Accountants to take this on board when it comes to their careers. Never be afraid of it.  Of course, be thankful for where you are and what you already have, but always be ready to grasp opportunities.

A truly diverse and inclusive workplace can boost business by promoting innovation and enhancing reputation, says Sandra Healy, founder and CEO of Inclusio Employers who treat diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) as a “tick box” exercise are missing a valuable opportunity to improve, not only their organisational culture, but also their ability to attract and retain talent and improve business performance and profitability. So says Sandra Healy, founder and CEO of Inclusio, the Irish tech start-up behind a first-of-its-kind platform offering a scientific, data-led approach to measuring DE&I in the workplace. Founded in 2016, Inclusio is now on the path to global growth amid plans to expand overseas and increase its Dublin headcount from 35 to 120 by 2025. The global expansion will be financed by the company’s Enterprise Ireland and VC backed €6.2 million investment. In addition to her role at the helm of Inclusio, Healy is a member of the Diversity and Inclusion Leadership Council for An Garda Síochána and a former member of the Expert Advisory Group for Ireland’s Citizens Assembly on Gender Equality. An organisational psychologist, her interest in promoting and supporting DE&I, and her inspiration for Inclusio, came about as a result of her experience working for two decades in global telecoms. “One of the values I hold dearest is fairness and I could see through my work that not everyone is treated fairly or equally at work,” Healy explains.  “That’s a problem for the individual who is not treated equitably, but it is also a problem for the organisation and, beyond that, for society as a whole.” Better outcomes  Ultimately, Healy believes that true DE&I can deliver better outcomes across the board.  “For organisations, the benefits of hiring a diverse workforce include access to a greater range of skillsets, experiences, and perspectives that reflect the reality of the society around us,” she says. “This provides a better understanding of their customers, and their customers’ needs—which improves commercial performance and boosts the bottom line.” Other benefits include greater creativity and innovation, improved talent attraction, engagement and retention, and a better reputation in the marketplace. “By intentionally creating a diverse workforce and a socially responsible organisation that takes DE&I seriously, you are opening the door to new markets, customers, business partners, and employees,” says Healy. “There are so many benefits—and you don’t have to go it alone. There are plenty of organisations providing advice and support to help employers get their approach to DE&I right, creating a better environment within the company and supporting a positive culture.” Inclusive hiring Creating an equitable hiring process is often the first step to building an inclusive work environment. There can be barriers to equitable hiring, however, sometimes including deeply held beliefs and behaviours.  “These barriers may be rooted in stereotypes, prejudice, or unconscious or implicit bias, which may lead to discriminatory beliefs and actions,” explains Healy.  “Only by identifying and understanding them, can we begin to dismantle beliefs that lead to discriminatory actions and attitudes.” The DCU Centre of Excellence for Diversity and Inclusion, founded by Healy, lists some the main barriers to equitable hiring as: 1. Stereotypes A stereotype is an oversimplified or exaggerated belief or sentiment about a group; a broad generalisation that doesn’t allow for individual differences. Stereotypes can be positive or negative and can apply to any group on the basis of race, ethnicity, age, disability, religion, gender, and other categories. 2. Prejudice Prejudice is a predetermined opinion or attitude about a group and its members. Prejudices are often negative and accompanied by a belief in an “in group” and an “out group”, the latter being the target of the prejudice. 3. Unconscious or implicit bias This is a form of prejudice or belief we are largely unaware of, which is held about members of a group. It can also be described as the positions we hold, filters we form, or conclusions we reach by means outside our active thought. Hence, unconscious or implicit biases often seem automatic. Unlike stereotypes and prejudices, these biases may not even enter our awareness, but they can drive discriminatory actions. 4. Discrimination This behaviour involves, or results in, people being treated unfairly, unequally or differently, because of their identity or the group or groups they belong to. Discrimination often starts through stereotypes, prejudices, and bias. Discriminatory behaviour can range from subtle actions to hate crimes.  Conscious steps All of these concepts work together to perpetuate inequity, so it is crucial that employers take deliberate, conscious, and considered steps to establish hiring practices that are as inclusive as possible. “As a first step, I would advise employers to evaluate and challenge the language you use in your job ads. Ask yourself, ‘what cohort am I appealing to, and who is missing?’” says Healy. She advises employers to design and develop interview processes that are inclusive, non-judgmental and respectful, creating equitable opportunity for all candidates. “All your approaches should be multidimensional—working to address biases and discrimination in all aspects of the hiring process,” she says. “Then, moving beyond the hiring process, you have to intentionally embed DE&I into the culture of your organisation and stress its importance through inclusive leadership and best practice.” As Healy sees it, culture lives “collectively” in the behaviours and lived experiences of each and every individual within an organisation.   “If you want to have a culture that is truly supportive of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion—and consistently so—you have to educate your people managers,” she says. “It should really be the case that, no matter what part of your organisation an individual works in, or who they report to, their experience is consistent with that of everyone else. Your DE&I policies and practices must be ‘lived’. “Your people managers are the custodians of that lived experience, and the culture of your organisation. They must be crystal clear about your DE&I policy and practice,” says Healy. “They must know how to have good conversations to make sure people are supported and get what they need. Ultimately, you want to focus on what every member of your workforce can do, not what they can’t do, and how they can contribute to, and enhance, your organisation.”  So, how can employers gauge whether or not they are on the right track when it comes to DE&I? “That’s one thing employers really struggle with—how do you measure culture?—and that’s where Inclusio comes in,” says Healy. “We’re bringing a ‘scientific evidenced’ approach to employers, which allows them to listen to the collective voice of their people and to measure, track and act on DE&I,” she says. About Inclusio Healy spun the idea for Inclusio into Dublin City University (DCU) in 2016 where she established and led its Centre of Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion Research. “Diversity and Inclusion is a core focus for many organisations now and the DCU Centre of Excellence was established to give them access to the very latest developments in academic research, insights and tools to drive change across organisations,” Healy explains. “I started working on Inclusio from 2016 with my two co-founders Deborah Murphy and Arthur Lubambo and support from Enterprise Ireland’s Commercialisation Fund, we spun out of DCU in 2020.” Inclusio has been developed by experts in behavioural data science, psychology, artificial intelligence, equality, diversity and inclusion. The platform gives employers real data-driven insights that will help drive DE&I improvements within their workforce and deliver measurable improvements in their culture. Healy has ambitious plans to make Inclusio Ireland’s first female-founded tech unicorn, and a global DE&I enabler that will help employers to “take the right action on DE&I and ensure that it’s not just a tick box exercise”. Participants in the company’s €6.2 million investment round, closed in 2022, include lead investor Elkstone, alongside Atlantic Bridge, Oyster Capital, Wakeup Capital, Enterprise Ireland, and a group of private backers, such as Brian Caulfield and John Hearne.  Inclusio’s clients include RSA Insurance Ireland, 123.ie, Intact FBD insurance, Linesight, Kilsaran, the Public Appointments Service, and Teagasc. “We already use global benchmarking, and we are now starting to develop sector benchmarking, initially with the insurance sector. Our customers use our data for Board and regulator reporting, Gender Pay Gap and environmental, social, and governance reporting,” Healy explains.  “That will allow employers to answer the question, ‘how am I doing compared to competitors in my own industry?’ as well as the global benchmark. “There is nothing else like Inclusio in the world. Our software is helping organisations to pinpoint and focus DE&I actions in a more strategic way, linked to business KPIs.” “That will allow employers to answer the question, ‘how am I doing compared to competitors in my own industry?’ as well as the global benchmark. “There is nothing else like Inclusio in the world. Our software is helping organisations to pinpoint and focus DE&I actions in a more strategic way.”

John Francis Dick tells Accountancy Ireland why it is so important to advocate for yourself and ask for what you need to succeed at work “Be the disruptor”. That’s the call to action from John Francis Dick, ACA, whose approach to his career has seen him seek out new opportunities at every turn. “My attitude has always been to just go for it, to take that step and to be the disruptor. You have to be willing to represent yourself in any new situation; to come in and say, ‘this is what I need, please provide it for me’.”  As John sees it, people in positions of influence—school teachers, college lecturers, and bosses and managers at work—have an enormous impact on the opportunities open to people with disabilities. “I want to get the message out there that it’s just so important to give people the time and space they need to perform at their best, to engage with them, and take the time to understand what they need to contribute in the best way they can.” John, who has cerebral palsy, grew up in south Belfast and, after completing his A Levels, went on to Queen’s University Belfast to study for a degree in land use and environmental management. “A lot of my school friends dropped out after their GCSEs. They didn’t go on to do A Levels, but I didn’t grow up seeing many people with disabilities around me, so I’ve never taken my education or career for granted,” he explains. “I was passionate about getting as much out of the educational experience as I could. Going to college was a big milestone for me. I hadn’t always been sure I’d get to do it because of my disability.” Be your own advocate It was at this time that John learned the value of speaking up, asking for what he needed, and becoming his own advocate. “It was the first time I was really on my own. I didn’t have my parents behind me and I was suddenly in a much bigger environment than I had been in at school. It was the first time I found myself having to fight for my needs and rights,” he explains. The experience taught John the importance of determination, and gave him the confidence to begin looking further afield to progress his career and education. He decided to apply for a one-year placement with Study USA, a British Council initiative, which allows third level students to spend a full academic year studying business in the US. His placement was with Monmouth, a private college in the midwestern state of Illinois. “That was really where my business education began,” he says.  “Up until that point, the only experience of accountancy I’d had was through my dad, but he just did a one-year course at Ulster University and then went into business.” John was “very open” to learning about accountancy and business, and potentially taking his studies in a new direction. “Really, I’d say my entire education and career to date has been driven by an openness to grasp opportunities, try new things and make the most of lots of different experiences,” he says. “I think this approach will take you in the right direction and, again, for people with disabilities, it comes back to that idea of being a disruptor. “It’s so important to reach out, to be seen and counted, and have access to the same experiences, opportunities and choices as people who do not have disabilities,” says John. “For the most part, people have been accepting of my difference, curious to know more about me and how they can help.  “The bigger challenge for me has been navigating the organisations and institutions that are not quite sure how best to support people with disabilities. “I feel that, in my own journey from school to college and on to work, I’ve really had to be my own trailblazer in terms of getting things done, but I’ve also seen a lot of change in those years.  “Even in terms of Chartered Accountants Ireland as an organisation, its approach to helping people with disabilities continues to improve and that’s encouraging. The Institute has agreed to my request to introduce disability awareness training for staff and I really welcome that.” Path to accountancy While he enjoyed studying for his degree in environmental management at Queen’s University, John was also aware that better career opportunities might lie elsewhere. “I remember, when I was at Monmouth, being encouraged to come up with business ideas. It was just a different way of learning and I think it really helps you when you go into the working world,” he says. “So, I came home and finished my degree, but I also took a part-time job as a book-keeper and started learning about debits and credits. My parents were a big support at that time, because they were both responsible for the accounts in their jobs.” In late 2011, the year after his graduation, John decided to apply for a training position with EY in Dublin. He was offered a six-month internship and went on to work with the firm for five-and-a-half years, qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and becoming an Audit Senior. “Joining EY was a really big step for me. It was my first full-time role and my first experience working in a Big Four environment. Starting with the six-month internship was really key for me because it meant I knew what to expect and how best to navigate my way around,” he says. Importance of managers During his years with EY and in subsequent roles in banking and industry, John has learned time and again the critical role managers can play in supporting career progression. “I remember once I had one manager who, I felt, wasn’t supporting me or interested in me as a person.  “I thought, ‘something has to change’. There were other managers I got on really well with, so I asked to switch teams. I took control of the situation. “The person I talked to about switching teams, who was also a Chartered Accountant, was an enormous help and support to me at that time. They are also someone I’ve returned to over the years to ask for advice and input.” Such support has been crucial in helping John to navigate his career path and make the right decisions.  “It just goes to show how important it is to speak up and advocate for yourself. Anyone can find themselves in a situation where their manager isn’t open to promoting them or supporting their needs and progression,” he says. “You might not have exactly what they’re looking for on the face of it, but if they’re not open to seeing your strengths, they won’t be able to see how a different approach could result in a better outcome for you and for your team.” The result of this approach to managing people is often a poor culture and a higher turnover of staff of all abilities, John says. “I wasn’t the only one on my team who was frustrated with how we were being managed, but I think I found it especially difficult. I had identified what I wasn’t able to do myself, but there was no room for genuine communication.” He continues: “These days, I am more confident about asking for that communication and understanding. I’ll give everything 110 percent. Living with a physical disability can present acute challenges, but I find solutions and I put them into practice.  “I am an advocate for the promotion of differing abilities in the workplace. I think it’s crucial that we respect and value each colleague’s abilities and I take pride in my work and in leaving things better than I found them and having a positive impact on the people around me.”

Maeve Dermody tells Accountancy Ireland about her experiences in the workplace as a person who is profoundly Deaf For Maeve Dermody, ACA, a truly inclusive workplace is one that supports open communication, diversity and allyship. Dermody, who qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2018 and now works for Revenue, has had varied experiences in the working world—some positive, and some negative.  Above all, she has learned the true value of open communication, a willingness to embrace difference, and the strengths and benefits it can bring to the working world.  “My biggest advice to employers would be to focus always on a person’s abilities, not their disabilities,” Dermody says. “I am Deaf, but I have strong communication skills. I am very good at writing reports and communicate very effectively this way. I am a team player and I always want to contribute, to discuss my work, and find out about other people’s work.” Dermody joined Revenue five years ago as an Executive Officer and was promoted to Administrative Officer in 2019. “I have been given a lot of space here to learn, develop and grow in my career,” she says. “Not all jobs are positive, and I think this has really shown me the enormous value of providing the right supports for people with disabilities and creating the right culture of communication.” The right support Dermody has the full support of her line manager at Revenue and is provided with an Irish Sign Language (ISL) interpreter at all team meetings. “This means I’m able to converse, interact and engage. The conversation flows naturally because I can express myself. Without an ISL interpreter, it would be challenging in a group environment to engage effectively,” she says.  “I can lip read in one-to-one meetings, but, in a group setting, it is much more difficult because I am trying to keep track of everything around me.” This practical support also helps to foster a sense of inclusion and allows Dermody’s colleagues to benefit from the full scope of her skills and expertise as a Chartered Accountant.  “I haven’t always had a positive experience at work. A few years ago, I worked with a small firm in private practice, and I found it very challenging,” she says. “At team meetings with colleagues, there was no interpreter present, so I found it hard to understand the messages my colleagues were communicating.  “We would be sitting together around a table and people beside me would be chatting and looking at their notes, so I wasn’t able to lip read.  “I was the only Deaf person and felt I couldn’t make the role work for me, because of the lack of support in the environment. “With Revenue, my experience has been completely different and so—to all employers—I would say, ‘be an ally, listen and work together with the individual, because everyone has different needs’.  “My husband is Deaf too, but his level of hearing is different which means he can use the phone, whereas I can’t, but we have the same preference to have an ISL interpreter at meetings.  “At the same time, another person who has the same level of hearing as me might prefer to use captions. Different people have different preferences, needs and accommodations and that is why it is so important to talk, to ask questions, to listen and respond to the individual.”  Maeve’s story Dermody grew up on a farm in Mullinalaghta, Co. Longford, with four older brothers. “One of my brothers has a hearing loss and I am profoundly Deaf, so we have both had very different experiences. I went to a Deaf school and he went to a mainstream school. “I grew up seeing him progressing a few years ahead of me—going to college and getting a job. I thought, ‘I’m going to grow up and I’ll do the same because he’s been able to do it’.” At first, Dermody set her sights on becoming a primary school teacher. “I went to a Deaf school in Dublin and I knew that St Patrick’s College offered a teacher training course in Deaf education. That’s what I wanted to do,” she says. Dermody discovered, however, that she couldn’t apply for a place on the course because the Deaf school she had attended had not taught Irish as a subject at either primary or secondary level.  This meant she did not have Irish as a Leaving Certificate subject—a requirement for primary teaching in Ireland. “I didn’t have the option of doing my primary teacher training in Ireland. I could have gone over to the UK, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted to study here and be close to family and friends,” she says. Instead, she decided on a different career path; one that would allow her to use her strength in maths and interest in business to become a post-primary teacher. College life Dermody embarked on a degree in accountancy and finance at Dublin City University (DCU) in 2008 followed, three years later, by a professional diploma in education and a master’s in education. She is a qualified secondary school teacher, specialising in accounting and business studies.  Dermody’s college experience was positive, but it was also a new and unfamiliar environment. “When you’re in a Deaf school, it’s a bit like being in a bubble. You know all the teachers and everyone uses sign language. We had very small classes of just two to six pupils,” she says. She was the only pupil in her class to do the Leaving Certificate. “I had always wanted to go on to third level, meet people and socialise,” she explains.  “College is very new and different though when you’re coming from a Deaf school. You can feel a bit lost, but I was determined to roll up my sleeves and integrate.” As well as forming close bonds with her collegemates at DCU, and forging lifelong friendships, Dermody made use of the supports offered to Deaf students, including ISL interpreters and note-takers for college lectures. “I started to teach and I enjoyed it, but found myself wanting more from my working life. I’ve always been a problem-solver, so I started thinking instead about pursuing a career in accountancy,” she says. Dermody’s next port-of-call was AHEAD, the independent non-profit organisation working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for people with disabilities. “AHEAD is a really good organisation and they provide a lot of support in the workplace, both to the person with a disability and to the employer,” she says. Through AHEAD’s Willing Able Mentoring (WAM) programme for graduates with disabilities, Dermody secured two paid work internships with ESB and the Civil Service. “I started applying for jobs when I completed my internships, but I wasn’t having much luck. I decided that I needed more qualifications under my belt, so I started studying to become a Chartered Accountant,” she says. “As an organisation, Chartered Accountants Ireland was every bit as supportive as DCU, organising ISL interpreters and anything else I needed. “It was only when I started applying for jobs, both after graduating from DCU and completing my CA training, that I started to feel different. I could see my peers, who had similar grades but no disability, getting jobs. I wasn’t getting those same opportunities.” Path to experience To gain the experience she needed, Dermody took a part-time paid position with Reach Deaf Services. “That was a good start for me, and I was able to apply for other jobs while I worked there.” Eventually, Dermody was offered a fixed-term accountancy position and, from there, she joined St. Joseph’s School for Deaf Boys in Dublin as an accounts administrator. “I also started working as an administrative accountant with Deaf Village Ireland and the Sign Language Interpreting Service. I was working three different jobs, all fixed-term, but I wanted more security.” That was when Dermody decided to apply for work with the Civil Service and was offered her first position with Revenue. Government supports Even though her experience of working in the public sector has been overwhelmingly positive, Dermody would like to see greater emphasis at Government level on the provision of practical work-related supports for people with disabilities in Ireland. “I think the Irish government should look to the UK model of providing supports for people with disabilities. The Access to Work scheme there provides people with a disability with funding at an individual level, to help support them in the workplace,” she says. “This means the employer doesn’t have to be concerned about the cost of providing this support. The person with a disability receives the funding and the employer then confirms that the funding has been used.” On the other side of the coin, Ireland is better than the UK in terms of access for people with disabilities in social spaces.  “I would also like to see Irish Sign Language (ISL) included in the school curriculum in Ireland. ISL is one of our three official languages, yet it is not taught in our schools,” says Dermody. “If Irish Sign Language were on the curriculum alongside Irish and English, it would help to give people a basic understanding of sign language. That would make it easier to converse with Deaf people, even just through simple, everyday expressions like ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.”

Tony Ward tells us about his experiences starting his career as a Chartered Accountant and adapting to a new working reality after he began to lose his sight in his twenties I had a very ‘ordinary’ early life growing up in Monaghan. I was of a generation where it wasn’t so commonplace to go to college, but I was always reasonably academic and chose to study commerce at UCD.  I had no particular focus on going on to do accountancy, but I guess the subjects I studied were already oriented towards accountancy and business.  Looking back now, almost 40 years later, I don’t know whether I was lucky or smart, but choosing to become a Chartered Accountant turned out to be a great decision from a career perspective. I’ve never had any sense that I went in the wrong direction. I began my career in contract with a smaller firm—now long gone after many mergers over the years.  Like all trainees, I started at the bottom and found working at a smaller firm to be of great practical help. I qualified as an Audit Senior in 1989, moved to Deloitte for two years and, from there, went into a management role in practice. It was around 1990 that I became aware that things I used to be able to do fairly easily were becoming more difficult. I was losing my sight, but it wasn’t until 1994 that I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a genetic condition that causes sight to degenerate over time. Those four years without a diagnosis were the most difficult for me, both personally and professionally.  I was desperately trying to survive in the sighted world and many things became more difficult, and eventually impossible.  It may sound strange to say it now, but it wasn’t obvious to me at the time exactly what was going on.  I think the human response when faced with all kinds of challenges is often to try to survive in the moment.  It’s perhaps only afterwards that we realise what was actually going on. My diagnosis in 1994 came as a huge relief. It’s hard to believe in 2022, but back then losing my sight meant that I basically had to stop working.  Computers and adaptive technology were in their infancy, and I just couldn’t read any more.  At that point, I embarked on a new career pathway—less direct than most in the profession.  Technology began to improve and one of the most important decisions I made was to learn to touch type.  Around that time, I and others were gradually starting to realise that, just because I couldn’t see didn’t mean I didn’t have the skills to do a lot of the jobs sighted accountants could do—think clearly, solve problems, and be part of a team.  Definitely then, and even now, people can be too easily judged at face value. Unfortunately, this means that your most easily identifiable, defining characteristics—in my case, my sight loss—can be a real disadvantage.  At that time, many doors were closed—both to me, and on me. Fortunately though, there were enough open doors, even then, to allow me to pursue a rewarding, constructive and worthwhile career. Here, I have to mention Access Support Services at Chartered Accountants Ireland. I was extremely reluctant to engage with the service at the outset. I thought, “what can they really do apart from sympathise with me?” But, for whatever reason, I decided to reach out, initially to Derek Snow and then Oliver O’Brien. Oliver (who only recently retired from the Institute) was a huge support. He encouraged and facilitated me to go to Institute events and introduced me to others. For that, I am extremely grateful.  I think the biggest challenge people with disabilities face is often other people’s perceptions and attitudes.  This is much improved nowadays with genuine engagement on equality, diversity and inclusion and a much more diverse society than 30 years ago. Challenges remain, however, including preconceptions of what blindness means and assumptions about what you can and can’t do.  There are also the very practical challenges involved in everyday tasks—reading hard copy documents, shopping, transport, participating in sport, traveling, the basics of working full-time, and walking into things if I’m not careful!  I suppose one way for a sighted person to understand my experience would be to close your eyes and try to go about your daily life. That said, technology and a multitude of very considerate family members, friends and colleagues have all made this easier for me.  So, while everything starts from a position of potentially being difficult, good planning and decent workarounds make it all much more possible.  Nowadays, I enjoy a very fulfilling work life, and numerous work- and career-related interests, but getting to this point was neither easy nor inevitable. In my experience over the years, very few employers actively start from a position of discrimination—but we all know, through training and education, that bias is ever-present, including unconscious bias.  The phrase I use to describe how this works is, “the making of assumptions”. We all make incorrect assumptions all the time based on sub-optimal information or flawed perceptions.  So, while the world of employment has improved greatly over the years, much more remains to be done to ensure that we are truly fair and unbiased. People with disabilities and other differences deserve a fair crack at fulfilling their expectations of obtaining and retaining work.  We wouldn’t like to be discriminated against, so we should not put ourselves at risk of discriminating against others. My advice to employers here is to be fair and equitable. Don’t make assumptions about employees or candidates who have disabilities and get professional advice if you need it.  There are organisations like AHEAD (ahead.ie) working to create inclusive environments in education and employment for graduates with disabilities, and many other sources of excellent information about people with specific disabilities that will give any employer the resources they need.  The essential ingredient here is that the employer is genuinely open to all of this and has the right attitude. Without this, it doesn’t matter how many resources you have—­­it will be inadequate. It was one small private company I worked with 20 years ago that gave me my first breakthrough in obtaining employment in an open competition.  I am very good friends with the Director to this day. When I asked him why he gave me the job, he said I was the best candidate. He knew I would be able to do the work as a person with a visual impairment because, he said, “I figured you would figure it out and that it was really none of my business!” That was worth more than anything to me and I flourished in that role for six years. It just shows how much attitude matters. The details can always be figured out, unless the person hiring you really believes your disability is an issue—then, it won’t work. I had a similar experience with The Wheel where I was Director of Finance from 2016 to 2022. They were a bit apprehensive about hiring me, simply because they didn’t know what they didn’t know. In other words, they didn’t know how I would interact with the normal volume of information any Director of Finance would be expected to handle—but, if I can put it this way, they took the risk. By risk, I don’t mean me as a person or professional. What I mean is that they were comfortable not fully knowing or understanding what they didn’t yet know or understand. If you look at equality for people with disabilities in the wider working world and in society as a whole, the bottom line for me is that, if we are treated fairly and equitably, then we have the same likelihood of benefiting from opportunities in life as everyone else.  As it stands, unemployment rates among people with disabilities are much higher than in the general population. There may be genuine reasons for some of this disparity, but definitely not all of it—and employment opportunities really matter because there are so many benefits that go along with them. I am talking about active engagement, social interaction, economic benefit, and the power to make decisions about where and how you live, and what you do.  So, to the extent that people with disabilities might need some extra support or flexibility in the work environment, the benefits for these people, for employers, and for society as a whole far outweigh any efforts, costs or flexibility required. If it is done the right way with the right support from the Government and from employers, we will all reap the rewards.

As the year draws to a close, we talk to three members about the challenges of the past 12 months and their hopes for the future Pamela McCreedy Chief Operating Officer Police Service of Northern Ireland The most recent economic forecasts make for sobering reading—a perfect storm of powerful geo-political and economic currents ushering in a period of profound economic uncertainty and, most likely, recession.  Combined with the most recent Northern Ireland Fiscal Council report, which points to a perilous public finance landscape and a growing cost-of-living crisis, it is perfectly understandable that hope and optimism are in short supply. Reform of Northern Ireland’s public sector has been a matter of significant discussion for decades, but the public finance landscape will necessitate a return to difficult first principle discussions about how we operate public services, to what standard and how these might be prioritised. There is a consensus that painful choices lie ahead. In stark choices, however, there are also opportunities. Service redesign, especially on the scale the public sector will need to embrace, often offers a chance to think and do things differently. In my own organisation, which faces unprecedented budgetary pressures, we have embarked on a demand and capacity analysis. While the circumstances necessitating this innovation are regrettable, it will provide a more evidence-based, outcomes-orientated approach to policing service delivery. But there are chinks of light that leaders can cling onto when looking ahead to next year. In the first quarter of 2022, Northern Ireland’s economic output was at a 15-year high. According to the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency, over the last three years, we have grown strongly, with output up by 4.8 percent compared to GDP growth of 1.3 percent in the UK. This is not to diminish the challenges that lie ahead for families and local communities—rather, simply to make the point that, with the right combination of public policy and leadership, we can overcome these challenges and thrive as an economy and a society. This year has seen our society emerge from the most difficult public health crisis of our time. While we are glad to begin leaving that behind, perhaps one positive has been our renewed sense of concern for our neighbours and a reminder of the importance of people in any organisation.  As we emerge from one crisis, however, we enter another. Behind these stark economic indicators are real families who are struggling now, many of whom work in our respective organisations.  As we move into 2023, we will need to rediscover that sense of solidarity in helping our people through another crisis year. Brian Murphy Audit & Assurance Partner, Deloitte  It has been another year that wasn’t quite what we imagined it would be, as we spun from one crisis to the next. Looking towards the New Year, it’s clear uncertainty will once again prevail.  Inflationary pressures have resulted in weakening consumer and business sentiment. Of the 23 countries surveyed in Deloitte’s most recent Global Consumer Tracker, consumers in Ireland were the most concerned about inflation. We are in an energy supply crisis while the climate emergency continues to heighten. There’s no doubt that businesses are approaching the New Year with caution. Deloitte’s bi-annual CFO survey found that just 32 percent of CFOs are forecasting an increase in revenue over the next 12 months—down from 61 percent six months ago.  Businesses are also facing a huge talent shortage. In fact, according to the same survey, 96 percent of Irish CFOs feel that retaining and attracting the right talent is one of the biggest risks they will face in the coming year.  Through our work with clients, we are seeing more focus on upskilling the existing workforce and ensuring workplace settings and policies meet the needs of employees to help them navigate the changing terrain.  The pandemic implemented new ways of working that are here to stay, and I believe businesses that continue to offer employees flexible working patterns, and invest in programmes that meet employee needs, will stand out in the year ahead.  All this considered, there have also been great opportunities in the Irish business landscape this year. One of the highlights for me was taking the helm of Deloitte’s Best Managed Companies programme. What set our winning companies apart in 2022 were the innovations that allowed them to endure and drive profitability, a distinct focus on local communities, and putting people at the heart of their organisations. I expect and look forward to seeing this continue in 2023.   David W Duffy Co-founder and CEO, The Corporate Governance Institute We are facing a high level of global uncertainty. The challenges of post-COVID-19 recovery for businesses, like a possible recession, inflation and the war in Ukraine, are all contributing to feelings of uncertainty—not to mention the recent cryptocurrency meltdown.  As we head into 2023, our organisation is looking to build on what has been a very fast growth trajectory. To capitalise on this, we launched our first online and accredited Diploma in environmental, social and governance (ESG) in November, which has had a significant uptake globally. The challenge in 2023 will be identifying and addressing the risks to our business. Thankfully, we are developing a global footprint using a variety of distribution channels, which will diversify risk.  The other challenge for a fast-growing business is attracting and retaining talent. The tech slowdown can only help us. I think, in planning for 2023, organisations will need to be cautious and take as much risk off the table as is appropriate. Investment decision-making will be influenced by the variables in the environment they operate in, and many will only be made on the back of positive data. 2022 has been good to us in our second year of business. We have built a great and diverse team with an amazing culture. One of our key values is that everyone has a licence to think and experiment—and we back their judgement. So far, it’s working.

Jennifer Nickerson left a successful career in Dublin to co-found a whiskey distillery in rural Tipperary. She tells Accountancy Ireland about her inspiration, ambitions and lessons learned along the way When Jennifer Nickerson co-founded Tipperary Boutique Distillery in 2014, the Aberdeen-born Chartered Accountant had already risen through the ranks at KPMG in Dublin to become an associate director in the tax department just seven years after joining as a trainee. Tipperary Boutique Distillery is now exporting worldwide and employs seven people in south Tipperary with further plans for expansion. Here, Nickerson tells us about what inspired her move into entrepreneurship and her experiences establishing and growing a small business with global reach. Q: Tell us about your life and career prior to co-founding Tipperary Boutique Distillery—what prompted you to become a Chartered Accountant? I grew up in Scotland and my dad, Stuart, was a master distiller. He managed and worked as a consultant for some of Scotland’s best scotch producers, such as Glenfiddich, Balvenie and William Grant & Sons. You could say I grew up in the industry. I loved it, especially the passion the people working in it had. I went to college in Edinburgh for six years, studying Veterinary Medicine initially and then switching to Accountancy. I decided I didn’t want to work outside in the cold and wet.  I wanted to work in an office and I had this perception that a job in accountancy would be “nine-to-five”.  I was wrong about that, but after meeting my husband Liam and moving to Ireland to train, I found I really enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of the work. Numbers make sense. There is a “right answer” and that can be very satisfying.  I worked in the tax department at KPMG and did a lot of advisory work. The hours were long but there was great camaraderie and that makes for a really nice working environment. Q: So you had settled into this new career in Dublin and you were enjoying it. What prompted you to up sticks and move to rural Ireland to set up a whiskey distillery? I married a farmer—but I did tell him that I wouldn’t be moving to Tipperary unless there was work there that would interest me as much as what I was doing with KPMG in Dublin. We talked it through and my dad had already mentioned during a visit to Ballindoney, Liam’s family farm near Clonmel, that it would be the ideal setting for a whiskey distillery. We could grow grain, we had the land to build a distillery on, there was good quality water in Tipperary and good conditions for maturing whiskey as it’s a little bit warmer than Scotland. He really just mentioned it in passing, but it struck a chord. I’d had lots of experience putting together business plans and I was lucky that Liam had a steady job working for the county council. It was a calculated risk and we could afford to do it, so we went for it. Q: What was your vision for Tipperary Boutique Distillery starting out in 2014? Ultimately, we wanted to produce a world-class whiskey from grain to glass here on Ballindoney Farm.  We knew we had everything we needed, but we also knew it would take time, because distilleries are expensive and there is also the cost of laying down spirit for at least three years before it can be sold as whiskey. It wasn’t until 2020 that we finally had the funding raised, the facility built and the equipment installed to open our own distillery. We had started outsourcing Irish whiskey casks from other distilleries cut to bottling strength with water from our farm and released our very first expression way back in March, 2015.  After that, we started taking our own grain from the farm, having it malted and distilled by my dad at other facilities. Now, we are able to do everything apart from malting here in our own distillery. We grow our own grain, we mill, we mash, we ferment, we distill, we mature and we bottle here on the farm.  Q: Tell us about your markets? What countries do you sell to and where do you have the healthiest trade? We sell into Belgium, France, Canada, into several states in the US, and a little in Korea and Singapore. We were selling to Russia, but obviously not any more, and we were in discussions with distributors in Ukraine and Poland, but the impact of the war has scuppered both. Germany is our biggest market, Italy is great, and Belgium is a surprisingly steady little market as well.  In Ireland, we sell online ourselves at tipperarydistillery.ie and through Irishmalts.com, James J Fox, The Celtic Whiskey Shop, and through local retailers around the country. Q: What was it like moving from a successful career as a tax advisor in a Big 4 environment into the cut and thrust of entrepreneurship? Was it a good experience? It was massively humbling to be honest, but also incredibly rewarding. At the start, I did miss having colleagues to talk to and bounce ideas off. I really felt I was on my own and it took me a while to find my feet. My background in accountancy definitely helped a lot with the ‘form filing’—understanding bills and applying for licenses, things like that. At the same time, there were lots of things I didn’t know about, like where to get a barcode or source seals for bottles. It was a massive learning curve. Q: What are the most important lessons you have learned so far running your own business? I had no idea starting out how vitally important sales are. That sounds like a ridiculous statement, but it took a long time for me to shift my mindset away from numbers and deadlines to just getting out there and going after sales.  What I know now is that you can’t give up. It’s no good just sending out an email to a potential customer and waiting for them to come back to you. You have to keep trying and telling literally everyone you can how great your product is and why. That can be really hard because it’s very different to sitting in front of a computer as an accountant and working to a deadline. You have to be willing and able to stand up on a stage and say, “this is what we’re doing, we’re amazing and our product is the best”.  There is a theory that 80 percent of all sales in any business come from 20 percent of costumers. Based on my own experience, I’d have to agree with that. There’s really no point in chasing one-off sales. It’s far more important to focus on valued relationships than driving around trying to get a bottle into every bar in the country. On the other side of the coin, you have to chase your bills just as much. If you’re not getting paid, you’re in trouble. Q: How has the COVID-19 pandemic and the more recent war in Ukraine affected your business and how have you responded? As soon as the Pandemic hit, our orders from overseas plummeted. We had two pallets due to go to a distributor in a country that was very badly impacted by the pandemic and they ended up having to wait six months to take delivery. Irish people are brilliant though. They started buying more Irish whiskey during the pandemic and that really saved our business. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had a massive impact as well, because it caused major supply chain issues for us and other producers. We had to change our glass suppliers, and we had really big delays with cork supplies, the capsules for the top of the bottle seals, cardboard for packaging deliveries—you name it, everything was disrupted. Most of our suppliers I tried to keep, because we have good relationships with them and that’s really important in business. We were also probably lucky that we are quite a small operation, so we have been able to adapt more quickly than bigger producers. Q: The Irish whiskey industry has grown enormously in recent years—do you think there is room for further growth and what are your own plans from here? When we started back in 2014, there were something like six craft distilleries in Ireland, but by the time our own distillery was up-and-running in 2020, the number had risen to around 40.  The market grew so much in that time. There is a lot more competition now and a lot more diversity in the sector, but there are also a lot more customers buying Irish whiskey in Ireland and overseas. I think there is still scope for some growth in the market. Forty distilleries sounds like a lot, but Scotland has around 100. What we are seeing is that, as the market matures, there is less focus on cost and greater focus on quality. Each producer has to know their niche and communicate it well to the marketplace. For Tipperary Boutique Distillery, our plan now is to continue to sell in Europe, and expand our presence in America and Asia. We want to continue to grow sustainably and one day—hopefully soon—open our own visitor centre at our distillery here on Ballindoney Farm.

Martin Moloney, Secretary General of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, outlines his priorities for the year ahead Irishman Martin Moloney is Secretary General of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO). Headquartered in Madrid, Spain, the international body brings together the world’s securities regulators and is recognised as the standard setter for the securities sector worldwide. IOSCO develops, implements, and promotes adherence to internationally recognised standards for securities regulation, working closely with the G20 and the Financial Stability Board (FSB) on global regulatory reform. Accountancy Ireland sat down with Moloney to discuss his goals, priorities, and concerns for the year ahead. Q: What are the biggest risks facing investors around the world right now and how is IOSCO working with securities regulatory agencies to address these risks? The risks that investors face never really change. There are some fundamentals. You can hire the wrong advisers, you can pay them too much, you can choose the wrong times to get in or out of markets, and you can invest in the wrong things. These risks are the core risks for investors, and they have been for as long as financial markets have existed. The difficulty is that financial markets are constantly changing. New asset classes like crypto are emerging, and there are new ways in which intermediaries work on your behalf, but also earn fees for themselves. This creates new risks for investors. Also, as we saw from recent events in the UK, markets can go into sudden periods of stress and crash. We do our best, working with others, to try to make markets as resilient as they can be, to ensure that these episodes are few and far between insofar as we can. These are the big issues facing us currently. Really, it all comes down to integrity—being able to trust the price you see when you invest in the markets and ensuring that you are not being fooled by people who are trying to cheat you out of your money. Q: You have described the rise of cryptocurrency as an area fraught with risk, requiring “a lot of work” on the part of regulators. Can you tell us more? There is no doubt in my mind that we have reached a turning point in relation to crypto. This is not because of the so-called ‘Crypto Winter’. The value of crypto might go up or down, but that is not really the issue. The point that we all have to observe and recognise is that crypto has survived and has continued to survive over a number of years. It is reasonable to assume that it is not going away and, therefore, it has to be regulated. I am delighted to say that, since I have joined IOSCO, the organisation has moved forward with its policy in this area and is now very quickly developing a set of guidelines for the market on how different jurisdictions should regulate crypto and the common standards they should aim to achieve in doing so. We are seeing a number of regions, notably the United States and Europe, now moving towards developing legal frameworks. I have no doubt that this is far from the end of the matter, however—it is just the beginning. Crypto is going to evolve and change as people get on top of the technology and new opportunities emerge. The most important thing we must all keep an eye on here is the outcome for the investor. In the first years of crypto, a huge number of people lost money through fraud. Other people, who may not even have been aware of it, lost money through market manipulation, insider trading and various other dubious activities we know well. Very often, this has been driven by conflicts of interest. If you dig down into the principles articulated by IOSCO for financial markets many years ago, you will find us warning against many of the phenomena we are now seeing in crypto markets. Theft does not change. It might happen in a different location, but theft is still theft. Bad management is still bad management, no matter where it happens. It is up to us to re-articulate these very simple, but really important, ideas and explain how they can apply in the crypto space. It is also important for the crypto sector itself to come up with good solutions and technologically enabled solutions, so that its work can be supervised and that it can reach the same standard of regulation as the rest of the financial sector. There are a number of individuals, I think, within the crypto sector who have come to understand that they need to move positively towards a strong regulatory framework in order to bottom out their businesses and remain stable. If we do not start to see self-regulation within the crypto sector, then I think we will see more jurisdictions banning crypto. It is just not sustainable over the medium term to try to avoid the regulatory frameworks that apply to everyone else. It is one thing to see yourself as a different asset class. It’s quite another to see yourself as an entirely different industry when you are effectively doing the same thing. Q: So, you do believe that cryptocurrency has a long-term future provided that there is robust regulation in place across the board? I think there is some potential for this asset class, but it is going to become more challenging. I don’t have a crystal ball, so I try not to predict the future. I see some very interesting new products developing in the decentralised finance space, and I wonder if this is ultimately where crypto is going to go. We are all used to a simple model in which you get quite non-functional assets like Bitcoin being traded and people making money primarily out of the bubbles in Bitcoin. The use cases for crypto continue to be worked on extensively, however. So, every time you have one of those bubbles, what is actually happening is that money is being raised to allow people to invest in new potential use cases. There are now so many use cases that have come and gone, and failed ideas that have been touted and promoted, you could be forgiven for thinking that there are no use cases left for crypto—but that is probably wrong. I think people will continue trying to figure out good use cases for crypto. I don’t think it’s going away any time soon. Q: You have spoken recently about the greenwashing risk facing securities regulators—what can be done to address this? We put out a couple of reports in 2021 where we looked at the greenwashing issue in great detail, listing the different ways in which this phenomenon occurs. We had to acknowledge, however, that it is not just about ‘evil intent’. Activity that might be described as greenwashing often happens, because the market structures needed to adequately support sustainable finance are not yet in place. Sometimes, you do get people who are frankly trying to fool investors by issuing misleading information, but, equally, the markets as they stand are just not built for sustainable financing. Having identified the problem and having asked the industry to work as hard as possible to reduce the amount of greenwashing that now exists, we have had to acknowledge that the system itself needs to change. Regulators have to do it, governments have to do it, standard-setters have to do it—to create a better system to achieve true sustainable finance. If, for example, I am proposing an investment that has a strong impact in terms of reducing carbon emissions, I should get a better price on the market and a better investment price for that security than someone who comes to market with a security for a carbon-emitting project. We want the market to be sensitive to the environmental impact of different proposals, companies and products. They must have access to information that is reliable; that has been independently audited; and that brokers can bring together to compare stocks from different parts of the world and determine differential pricing based on their impact on the environment. Getting all of this right would be an incredibly hard job, so we have broken the job down into a number of elements. We will be progressively working on putting these building blocks in place over the next couple of years, in order to make sure that the process can be regulated and that people who don’t do the right thing can be held to account on the basis that they could have done the right thing and chose not to. Q: As the move to establish standards for environmental, social and governance (ESG) reporting gathers pace, what is your take on the current efforts underway? We have a very close relationship with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB). We effectively oversee its work and, if we like what it is doing, we will endorse its standards, and recommend those standards to individual regulatory securities agencies around the world, so that these jurisdictions can adopt the standards as they see fit. The fundamental issue we are all facing is that a sustainable financial marketplace has to be a global marketplace. If you have fragmentation and you don’t have the same information sets available in different parts of the world, you cannot have a true comparison between different securities, and capital cannot flow to the best projects. It is no good for anyone if Europe is pristine, while the rest of the world is working in a different way. What happens in the Amazonian rainforest matters to all of us. Capital, therefore, has to flow from those places where it is abundant, such as Europe and North America, to locations in which the opportunities exist to do the right thing. What IOSCO has said to the countries we work with around the world is, “do this any way you want, but use the ISSB standards as a baseline and build your own approach on that foundation”. Put simply, you can do all you want in the ESG space, but unless we have a common core, we cannot create a global financial market that will bring about any real change. Q: Can you tell us about the work you are doing with the Financial Stability Board in relation to investment funds? This is a very big project for us. Investment funds are a crucial mechanism all around the world for people to get access to markets on a collective basis, but they can have a concerning impact on markets in periods of crisis. We have been doing work in this area since 2016. We have done a lot already, but there is more to do. A major focus for us next year will be trying to make sure that the kind of funds both ordinary individual investors and the more risk-averse institutional investors choose are safe in a crisis. We are trying to ensure that, if you are investing in a product that is riskier, it will be clear to you that it is more difficult to get your money out of it; that these kinds of investment funds are not the equivalent of a bank account. This is a typical example of what we do, but there are lots of others. We do a lot of work on cyber-resilience, and we are also very interested in the change in the behaviour of retail investors and their vulnerability to scams. One of the problems we face at the moment is that, while technology has made it easy or cheap for people to invest in the markets, it has also made it easy or cheap for fraudsters to get at many thousands of people. We need to figure out better and better ways to stop these fraudsters and prevent them in their designs. About Martin Moloney Prior to joining IOSCO as Secretary General in September 2021, Martin Moloney was Director General of the Jersey Financial Services Commission and, before that, he worked as a Special Adviser on Risk and Regulation to the Central Bank of Ireland, where he served for 16 years, previously heading up the Markets Policy, Markets Supervision, and Legal and Finance Divisions. Moloney began his early career working in industry with Barclays Bank and Bank of Ireland in London, before returning to Ireland to work with the Department of Justice, Department of Finance, the Irish Competition Authority. Born in Dublin, he has a master’s degrees in Business Law and Economic Policy, both from Trinity College Dublin.

Elaine Coughlan, one of Ireland’s most successful venture capital investors, tells us how her experience in accountancy and audit led to a high-flying career in technology Since qualifying as a Chartered Accountant and cutting her teeth in audit in the 1990s, just as the first wave of tech entrepreneurs in Ireland were beginning to access US capital markets, Elaine Coughlan has carved out an illustrious career in venture capital. Dublin-born Coughlan is the co-founder and joint Managing Partner of Atlantic Bridge, the global growth technology fund with more than €1 billion in assets under management across nine funds. For Coughlan, her career is a testament to both her training in finance and the power of human connection in business the world over. “Atlantic Bridge has over 35 companies we have successfully sold or ‘IPOed’ and I am immensely proud of that,” she says. “The wins drive you on because you can see what’s possible and those Irish entrepreneurs become role models for the next generation. I’m proud of the assets we have under management, and that Atlantic Bridge now has people in Dublin, London, Paris, Munich and Palo Alto in Silicon Valley. That is a truly global footprint, and it really helps us to scale our companies.” Early connections Coughlan credits the professional connections she made at an early stage in her career at Ernst & Young with setting her on the path to professional success. “Some of the people I met back in the nineties, our clients at the time, were hugely influential on me,” she says. Among those clients was Smurfit (now Smurfit Kappa), already a long-established industry leader in paper packaging production. “I was seconded from Ernst & Young to work with Smurfit when it was probably the number one Irish company in terms of market capitalisation and really blazing a trail in Irish business,” she says. “It is still a phenomenal company today, but for me at that time, Smurfit was just so ambitious and far-reaching in its approach to mergers and acquisitions, and the capital markets. I worked on fundraising and acquisitions with them and had early exposure to some of their senior executives—people like Gerry Fagan, their then-CFO.” Coughlan forged other crucial connections at the time with Bill McCabe, founder of CBT, the e-learning group, and Iona Technologies’ Chris Horn. “Bill and Chris were the first entrepreneurs in Ireland to float tech companies on the Nasdaq and, if you look at what they had in common with Smurfit, it was really that they were all entrepreneurial,” she says now. Coughlan would leave Ernst & Young to join Iona ahead of the company’s Initial Public Offering. “I knew then that practice probably wasn’t for me. That’s not to say that you can’t be entrepreneurial in practice, but the cut and thrust of the tech business pulled me in,” she says. “I remember traveling over to the US with CBT back in 1993 and that was it for me. There was such a sense of possibility.” Coughlan went on to join Parthus, the semiconductor IP company co-founded by Brian Long, and the pair formed an abiding partnership, co-founding both Atlantic Bridge and GloNav, the GPS company acquired in 2007 for $110 million. “All these years later, I am still in business with the same people, and they were the people that had an impact on me starting out. They were the people I learned from and the people who were generous with their time and their knowledge, and willing to give me experience and opportunities,” she says. For young Chartered Accountants starting out in their career, Coughlan has this advice: “Above all else, nurture your connections. These young professionals will already be well-qualified and proven in their ability and resilience, because training to become a Chartered Accountant is challenging in itself,” she says. “The question they have to ask themselves is ‘what differentiates me beyond that?’ It comes down to being able to combine your knowledge with strong relationships in ways that bring about better outcomes.” As Coughlan sees it, building solid sustainable relationships in business isn’t simply a case of networking and ‘transactional interactions’. “It’s about finding people who share your values and ethics, whose accomplishments and abilities you admire, and who have the ability to lead and inspire. You always have to be thinking long-term, not just about your next connection on LinkedIn,” she says. Supporting start-ups Coughlan’s commitment to supporting start-ups and advancing Ireland as a leading hub for technology development was recognised at this year’s Irish Accountancy Awards, at which she won the prize for outstanding contribution to the profession. “When we started Atlantic Bridge in 2004, we wanted to help tech companies in Ireland to scale successfully. Ireland is a small island and a small economy, so there are two things tech companies here need to scale—they need to move beyond the island to reach customers and they need access to capital,” she says. “We wanted to cross the Atlantic to the US, because it is the largest market in the world in terms of customers and capital markets. At the time, Ireland had a VC market of less than €100 million. It’s 10 times that size now, but back then, it was really small.” The primary focus for Atlantic Bridge today continues to be “deep tech” innovators in the business-to-business (B2B) space. “We’re not after instant gratification or overnight success. These are businesses with defensible research-intensive technologies that are primed to scale when the time is right,” says Coughlan. “Our investors are patient. They are looking for strong long-term returns, and we are very proud to have reached the stage where we have raised nine funds, because that is not an easy thing to do in this industry.” Coughlan warns, however, that we are entering a “new investment cycle”, in which surging inflation, rising interest rates, and the risk of recession, are all making investors more risk averse. “The outlook for Atlantic Bridge in the short-term will be cautious and tactical, but beyond that, we are optimistic and deeply committed to the technology trends we are seeing today that will make a difference in the future,” she says. “A lot of the technologies we’re investing in now are in climate change action—low-power, low-carbon enablers—and in medical technology and the digitisation of health, where we can meet unmet needs. We’re focusing on technologies like Artificial Intelligence and semiconductors—the fundamental building blocks that will be built into new products over the next three to five years.” Research and development As the economy enters uncertain terrain, Coughlan is urging the Government to continue investing in research and development (R&D). “Ireland has to continue to invest in R&D. We need to hold our nerve in continuing to invest in the best and brightest people and start-ups, because they will drive the next generation of growth,” she says. “Today, we are investing about 1.25 percent of GDP in R&D. We need to get that up to between 2.5 percent and three percent. The future economy will be knowledge-intensive and that requires knowledge-intensive people.” Coughlan is equally committed to the advancement of her profession, and proud of her own achievements as a Chartered Accountant. “The ‘bean counter’ perception is one too many people have of accountants, but I would probably be the last person you’d ask to do a P&L statement,” she says. “I can tell you if it is right or wrong though, because I understand the numbers and what they mean. I can interrogate and interpret any set of numbers and that is because I am a Chartered Accountant. All business now is run on data and our profession gives us a really strong grounding in using data to make decisions—and that is the future. “There are doors that are opened to you when you train as an accountant. You learn about process, structure, deadlines, and relationships. All of these skills are incredibly important. “You come out of it battle-hardened and resilient, and with all these options: to stay in practice; to focus on technical work; to go into consultancy; financial services; or business and entrepreneurship. The opportunities are phenomenal.” Growing up in Beaumont in north Dublin in the recession-hit 1980s, however, Coughlan had envisaged a different career for herself. It was a chance encounter that set her on the path to accountancy and a high-flying career in venture capital. Early career path “I was good at numbers at school and I studied accountancy for the Leaving Cert, but I wouldn’t say I was destined to be an accountant. I fully recognise now that it was my accountancy and audit experience that led me into the technology industry, but my real interest growing up was people,” she says. “I wanted to work in a people-focused environment, so I applied to study marketing and languages at DCU and went for a summer job at a small accountancy firm to keep me going in the meantime.” Coughlan didn’t get the summer job, but she was contacted by her interviewer and urged instead to consider accountancy as a full-time career. “It was 1989, unemployment in Ireland was something like 15 percent and so many people were emigrating to find work in the UK and the US,” she says. “I didn’t know anything about becoming a Chartered Accountant, but I wrote to the Institute and was offered a training contract with Ernst & Young. Here was this opportunity to have my fees paid and earn a wage with guaranteed work in a really tough economy. It was a great deal. That’s why I always say to this day, ‘what’s meant for you won’t pass you by’.”

A milestone move to new premises has laid solid foundations for future growth at Crowe Ireland, says Naoise Cosgrove, the firm’s Managing Partner The recent move to new offices on Mespil Road marked an important milestone in the evolution of Crowe, the accountancy, tax and business advisory firm, founded 81 years ago in Dublin. For Naoise Cosgrove, who has been Crowe’s Managing Partner since 2016, the move also signalled the start of an important new phase in the life of a firm with deep roots in Irish business stretching back to 1941. “We have ambitious growth plans and a modern office that serves as a collaborative and social hub is essential to this,” Cosgrove says. “Our new home is a place to teach and learn, to share ideas and develop relationships that are central to our culture.” For Cosgrove, who began his career with Crowe in 1999, the strength of this culture has also been at the heart of his own progression with the firm, spanning two decades in corporate finance. “I see our culture as our greatest asset, and I think I was very fortunate at the outset of my own career to find myself at a firm with great people, and wonderful mentors. I have stayed with Crowe ever since,” he says. The move to Mespil Road also represents a significant investment for the firm. “We had been at our previous office in Marine House further along the Grand Canal since 1978. It was time for a change,” Cosgrove says. “Now, we have a best-in-class environment that allows our people to work collaboratively, share knowledge and ideas, and one that supports our hybrid working model. It is a very different workplace to the one JJ Bastow and Jim Charleton might have imagined when they founded this firm back in 1941, and it positions us for growth at a very exciting time.” Deep roots Originally known as Bastow Charleton, Crowe started life on Cavendish Row, working with cattle dealers attending weekly marts at the Dublin Cattle Market on Prussia Street. The practice established a strong presence in the meat and metal sectors throughout the forties and fifties. When Jim Charleton passed away in the early 1960s, his brother Joe, a tax practitioner, took over his interest in the practice, becoming a driving force in its expansion in the decade that followed. Bastow Charleton expanded further in the late eighties and early nineties, merging with Hogan Kenny Matthews and Clarke and Conroy O’Neill, both Irish firms. In 1995, it joined forces with Horwath International, the global network, to service the needs of clients internationally, rebranding subsequently as Horwath Bastow Charleton and, more recently, as Crowe Ireland. Newmarket Partnership, a specialist corporate firm, joined Crowe Ireland in 2014—followed, in 2015, by Newmarket Consulting, a boutique strategy and marketing consultancy business—and Phelan Prescott + Co, a Dublin-based accountancy firm, the following year. As part of the Crowe Global network, the Dublin firm is one of over 220 independent accounting and advisory members in more than 130 countries worldwide. “Our services are pretty comprehensive. We provide tax, audit, corporate finance, consultancy and outsourcing services,” says Cosgrove. “We work with private clients, sole traders and owner-managed businesses, alongside financial institutions, government agencies, not-for-profit, and multinational organisations.” This broad spectrum is, says Cosgrove, a big part of what makes Crowe Ireland a vibrant organisation. “We have been around for a long time, and I think a lot of our success has been down to our focus on client service—on developing deep lasting relationships with clients and colleagues,” he explains. “We have a holistic understanding of what their business is about. It’s not ever just about simply executing a task. It is about creating real value for them.” Vision for growth Notwithstanding the economic turmoil prompted first by the pandemic and, more recently, the war in Ukraine, Cosgrove is optimistic about the future. “There are clouds on the horizon—inflation, supply chain issues, and rising energy prices—but change is the one constant,” he says. “The Irish economy has been performing well and you would like to think that gives us a strong foundation to move forward, whatever the wider circumstances. Growth through acquisition is something we are looking at. The last time we brought in another practice was in 2017. “We would like to think there will be a level of consolidation in the market, which had maybe been slowed down by the pandemic, and that we will be playing an active role in that. Whether or not it happens in the next 12 months given global events is hard to say.” Corporate finance As well as his role as Managing Partner, Cosgrove also leads the corporate finance team at Crowe Ireland, specialising in the buying and selling of private companies, and acting for purchasers, sellers and funders. “I have always had an interest in business, even back when I was growing up in Waterford. I had a very good accounting teacher at secondary school, and I really enjoyed the subject,” he says. “I did a Business Degree at UCC and, from there, progressed into the world of accounting. I suspect, like many of my peers at the time, I didn’t necessarily know what accounting was all about—there were no accountants in my family—but I found I really enjoyed it. “I trained with Deloitte, in an audit environment mainly. I was fortunate enough to have a number of secondments during those four years, and I was keen to get into corporate finance.” In his corporate finance work with Crowe in the years since, Cosgrove has led transactions ranging from trade sales to private equity and MBOs, advising clients on strategy, valuations, joint ventures, finance negotiation, transaction structuring, and due diligence. “I enjoy being involved in deals and transactions—being able to make an impact, maximise value and look to the future for the businesses I work with, rather than in the rear-view mirror,” he says. Attracting talent Crowe Ireland currently has 14 partners and employs 140 people—and the firm is continuing to grow, recently appointing Aidan Ryan as a director of its audit and assurance department. A Chartered Accountant, Ryan joins Crowe from Moore where he was Audit Director for three years, having joined the firm in 2008. “We are very active in terms of recruiting at the moment across all departments—that is a constant,” says Cosgrove. “There is huge demand for talent. Everybody is feeling it. We get natural enquiry through the positioning we have in the market, through word-of-mouth and referrals. Attracting talent can still be challenging, however, and that has been exacerbated by COVID-19. “Now more than ever, I think the culture of an organisation really matters. The world has become very transactional in terms of how people connect and communicate. We interact in a very scheduled way through Zoom and Teams calls. We log on, we log off. There isn’t necessarily much room in that for the spontaneous ‘watercooler moments’ that can help to establish and build working relationships in a more organic way.” Crowe’s response has been to consciously create forums at its new Mespil Road premises that help people to feel more connected to the organisation and to each other, Cosgrove says. The office was officially opened last July by Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe, TD. “Our investment in our office has centred on creating an open, inviting space, to give people a sense of the wider organisation and their part in it,” says Cosgrove. “We know that people need a reason to come into the office now. For some, that’s about learning. For others, it is about social connection. These are the forums we’ve focused on to help people feel more connected to the organisation and to each other.”

The Pensions Authority expects all schemes to be fully compliant with IORP II requirements by 1 January 2023. We speak to three members about their experience with the changing pensions landscape Barry Prendiville Director Nolan & Partners We are currently setting up a Master Trust arrangement for all employees, including those who are not currently in an existing pension arrangement. We were prompted to accelerate this process due to IORP II and, to a lesser extent, auto-enrolment. It has been a slower process than we would have liked, but it offers a suitable long-term solution. At a high level, there are benefits to IORP II. However, I do believe that one-member arrangements should have been exempt from the requirement to comply with IORP II. Trustee responsibilities have become much more onerous. Where possible and practical, it makes sense to outsource this risk to suitably qualified pensioneer trustees. I am concerned that transferring pension benefits accrued by employees to a new Master Trust may be a tedious process. Given prevailing volatility in financial markets, any transfers need to be efficiently managed. Pensions remain a mystery to a large cohort of the population. The myriad of pension arrangements in place and the technical jargon used by most in the industry confounds and confuses people. Education is key, and I think that retirement planning should be taught at school and university level. While a positive step overall, I have some concerns that auto-enrolment, once introduced, may lull scheme members into a false sense of security. It is debatable if the proposed contribution level will be adequate to meet long-term income requirements in retirement. It will also put an additional cost burden on businesses in particular sectors that were most particularly exposed to COVID-19. Overall, auto-enrolment should be seen as a positive development, but it must be clearly communicated and explained in jargon-free language. Damian Cooper Head of Private Clients and Investments Acuvest The burden of increasing regulation is unlikely to reverse any time soon. For the last two years, my organisation has been helping clients understand, develop, and implement updates to their policies and procedures to ensure their pension and investment governance complies with the new regulatory requirements. It is important to remember that, while Master Trust solutions offered in the marketplace are being strongly promoted based on their ability to help companies and trustees overcome a short-term regulatory hurdle, they are a relatively new development in the Irish market and, as such, are largely unproven in many respects. While the Pensions Authority is pushing for Master Trusts to retain the ability to independently select its key service providers in the interests of its members, it remains to be seen how easy it will be for a Master Trust to decide that the interests of members are best served by retaining a key competitor to provide scheme investment or administrative services. I think that IORP II will likely lead to a higher level of governance across the pensions industry, which is definitely to be welcomed. The transitionary period into a new regulatory regime is always challenging, and participants, regulators, professional service providers and advisors will all need time to adapt and find a new status quo that works effectively and efficiently. I think it would have been preferable to see if the regulations could have been implemented in a phased manner, starting with the largest schemes and well-resourced entities such as Master Trusts, which would then have allowed industry providers to develop best-practice models that the Pensions Authority could have assessed and then implemented, potentially in a scale-adjusted manner across the rest of the industry. It is important for people not to get too distracted by the industry focus on regulation and vehicles, as these will get sorted over time. The key thing to remember is that making pension contributions early and often is a valuable, tax-efficient way for people to save for retirement. Employees should take maximum advantage of any contributions available from their employer, remember that tax relief on contributions cannot generally be backdated, and start saving as early as possible. Bernard Barron Pensions Audit Partner Mazars Due to the recent legal enactment of the IORP II Directive in Ireland, there are very substantial additional pension administration and governance obligations and costs being incurred by pension schemes. Based on these expected additional costs, several smaller defined contribution pension schemes have already decided to wind-up and transfer their pension scheme arrangements into a Master Trust. The Irish Pensions Authority has set out strict criteria for establishing Master Trusts in Ireland, which is to be welcomed. There will be relatively few Master Trusts set up, and organisations expect to gain the advantage of lower administration costs through the economies of scale that these large Master Trusts will have compared to the smaller pension schemes. In addition, the Pensions Authority has set out stricter requirements for pension scheme trustees, and Master Trusts will have the benefit of pension specialists acting as trustees, which is not necessarily the case at present. Due to the increased size and importance of pension scheme arrangements for employees and employers, the increased governance and accountability requirements under this Directive are welcome. However, the currently proposed Pensions Authority requirements is imposing very significant obligations and costs on smaller and one-member pension schemes, which are not being allowed to implement on a proportionate basis or with a viable alternative. The IORP II Directive has substantial additional pension administration, governance obligations and costs. This may cause organisations to re-consider the pension benefits that they incur or plan to incur. In the context of the growth in the ageing of the Irish population, the Government’s plans for implementing pension auto-enrolment in the short- to medium-term are welcome. However, much more clarity and detail are needed about how this is going to work, particularly in relation to cost and funding by employees and employers. At a national level, the future increased costs and funding of pensions for those pensioners who are reliant on state pensions and for the public sector is a continuing concern.

With the launch of ‘The Garage’, Pfizer Global Business Services Dublin is helping accounting trainees discover how they can apply digital technology to make their work faster and easier It started with a conversation between colleagues about how their profession might evolve at a time of immense digital transformation, and how they might harness this transformative power to support their fast-growing Dublin enterprise. Aoife Allen, FCA and Senior Director with Pfizer Global Business Services Dublin (GBS Dublin) recalls: “It was three years ago, and we were thinking about how we would be working in the future. I remember the question was, ‘what will our future colleague look five or 10 years from now?’” At the time, Albert Bourla, Chair and CEO of Pfizer Inc, had set a challenge for the organisation globally to “win the digital race in pharma,” and Allen and her colleague John Anglim were overseeing a successful graduate programme for Pfizer GBS Dublin in association with Chartered Accountants Ireland. “Our graduate programme was really starting to ramp-up then, in terms of numbers—a cohort of younger colleagues who had grown up with digital technologies, and we wanted to find a way to help them explore how we could use digital technology to make our own processes more efficient and effective, with an enhanced control environment.” ‘The Garage’ – a digital innovation program So began ‘The Garage’, a one-hour weekly session, during which Chartered Accountant trainees were encouraged to explore how they might use digital technologies to make their work more efficient and easier to manage. “We challenged them to come up with a project idea, and then to build it. It was about teaching our graduates how to think differently and pass their learnings on to the wider organisation, so that we could harness the power of digital to improve how we worked together within the organisation,” John Anglim, Director, Pfizer GBS Dublin, explains. The Garage is an innovative applied learning program, developed and led by Pfizer GBS Dublin colleagues Colin Byrnes, Director of Global Process Transformation, and Lorna Flanagan, Director Statutory Reporting CoE. Nurturing the digital mindset “The idea behind the program was really about recognising a need to nurture and develop our graduates’ skill sets in working with digital tools and technologies as they progress through their accountancy training,” Colin Byrnes explains. “Our Garage sessions take our graduates through concepts such as design thinking, analytics and problem-solving, as well as introductions to some of the technologies we use, like Alteryx, Tableau, Dataiku and Power Automate.” As Lorna Flanagan sees it, The Garage is about equipping the accountant of today for their evolving role as the ‘accountant of the future’. “The role of the accountant has really moved on from repetitive tasks to providing higher value-add services,” she says. “Our hope is that The Garage will set our graduates up to support problem-solving at Pfizer GBS and also enhance their accountancy training experience, so that we can support them to become our ‘colleague of the future’.” Impressive results So far, The Garage has yielded impressive results, with participants using new technologies, like Robotic Process Automation, Visualisation and Predictive Analytics, to build innovative solutions for Pfizer GBS Dublin and the wider organisation. One such participant is Reza Shahrokhi, as Aoife Allen explains: “Reza’s project concerned an incredibly time-consuming process that was used by managers right across Pfizer to review Authorised Signature Limits (ASLs). “Every year, these managers had to coordinate the review of thousands of ASLs on large Excel files via email. It was an incredibly time-consuming and manual process and, through his participation in Garage, Reza found a solution that was adapted for use across the entire organisation.” Shahrokhi’s solution used Power Automate, a tool that integrates Microsoft applications such as Excel, Outlook, Teams and more, to simplify the ASL review process. “He effectively removed emails from the process, collating responses from managers in seconds and automatically updating files, reducing errors and time for follow-up,” explains Flanagan. “Reza presented his project to GBS Dublin leaders and departments, showcasing his work at a GBS Dublin Innovation Forum where he was awarded one of 10 Innovation Awards in 2021. Reza really exemplified the Pfizer goal to win the digital race in pharma by making our work faster and easier. He explored and defined the problem and leveraged technology to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of a manual process.” Automating journal entries Another successful Garage project by graduate trainee Kate Connell leveraged digital technology to automate the manual month-end journal entry process. “Kate’s project explored a recurring issue whereby a manual journal had to be booked monthly to reclass original banking entries in the SAP accounting system to certain division- or market-coded accounts,” Lorna Flanagan explains. “The process was taking two hours to post manually each month. By navigating and preparing a ‘process flow map’ and exploring the functionality of the Alteryx tool, Kate was able to apply a digital workflow to automate the preparation of the final journal.” Connell’s project was showcased to GBS Dublin leadership and, as a result, different departments were able to leverage the technology to automate repetitive manual journal entries. Digital workflow solution Ian Banahan, meanwhile, used his participation in Garage to identify a digital workflow solution for an important financial supply chain process. “Graduates who take part in The Garage are asked to identify a work activity they see as relatively simple but feel could be improved. The idea is to create a ‘focus’ for practical learning during the Garage sessions,” explains Colin Byrnes. “In his day-to-day work, Ian was involved in a process whereby the GBS Dublin team calculates and communicates critical financial information to country teams supporting the financial global supply chain and distribution of products. “While the process was robust and utilised the latest digital technologies to help calculate processes, Ian could see that there was still a lot of manual communication involved—via emails, for example.” As part of his Garage project, Banahan documented the flow of information exchange involved in the process, uncovering challenges with information tracking and management. “Ian used the Garage network to identify digital workflow tools that could potentially address these issues, assessed them and drafted recommendations. He presented his findings to GBS Dublin leadership and got approval to move ahead with the project,” says Byrnes. “Since then, the Global Process Lead responsible for this area has developed the proposal further and the plan is to start implementing Ian’s solution by the end of this year.” The future of Garage Originally introduced in 2021, the 12-week Garage programme is now entering its third cycle and, for the first time, will be open to all Dublin GBS colleagues in addition to graduate trainees. For Aoife Allen, the success of the initiatives is a point of pride. “I am very proud of The Garage. A lot of the projects that have come out of it have brought real value to the organisation, and to our day-to-day work as Chartered Accountants and financial professionals,” she says. “These accounting problems and projects are so specific to the activities we are involved in that, really, only we can fully understand and solve them. “By giving our graduates—and now our wider team—the tools they need, they are able to look at accounting processes and say with confidence, ‘I can automate this process, and then spend my working time using the information it’s giving me to carry out work that is far more valuable. “They are effectively solving day-to-day end-user problems and that is empowering, because it encourages them to think differently about how they, and how we as an organisation, approach our activities.” History of innovation Pfizer has a deeply rooted history of innovation in Ireland. One of the first pharmaceutical companies to establish a base in Ireland, the organisation celebrated its 50th anniversary here in 2019 and now employs 4,000 people at five locations in Cork, Dublin, and Kildare. GBS Dublin was established in 2003 and provides end-to-end financial accounting services, compliance oversight, and business transformation support to Pfizer operations spanning 150 markets worldwide. As such, says Allen, GBS Dublin acts as Pfizer’s own ‘in-house’ accounting firm with the same high-value capability and talent resource. “That is how we see ourselves, and what we have responsibility for are the complex, high-risk and knowledge-based accounting transactions that support Pfizer’s financial operations globally as well as regionally here in Ireland,” she says. GBS Dublin is also among the biggest employers of Chartered Accountants in the Irish market outside the Big Four accounting firms. “We are very fortunate to have access to such a big pool of very talented candidates who have a really good reputation internationally,” Allen says. “We have a young, qualified, educated, and diverse workforce. We have many different nationalities here; people who speak many different languages; who have experience in different local Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. “This means that we are able to provide an international organisation with financial support from here in Dublin, and we also now manage in-market colleagues responsible for statutory and fiduciary duties.” Evolving role of the accountant For Allen, who grew up in Wexford and trained as a Chartered Accountant with PwC, her time with GBS Dublin has allowed her to carve out a varied and satisfying career path. “I joined GBS Dublin 16 years ago as an accountant after living and working in Australia for a while after qualifying. Since joining, I’ve changed roles eight times. I have had so many opportunities. “After joining as an accountant, I became team lead, and then regional team lead, and progressed from there to a director role and, most recently, senior director, with colleagues from 41 countries reporting into my organisation.” In the years since she began her own career, Allen has also borne witness to the evolving role of accountants in all sectors. “How we do our job on a day-to-day basis now is very different to how it was when I trained. Great change is underway within the profession of accountancy and that change is being driven by digital technologies,” she says. “We have access now to digital tools—not just these big Enterprise Resource Planning systems like SAP and Oracle—but also end-user technologies like Alteryx, Dataiku and Power Automate. These tools are allowing accountants to carry out our work in new and different ways and creating the potential for real innovation.” Breakthroughs that change lives This innovation is at the heart of the GBS Dublin ethos and the driving motivation behind The Garage and other digital initiatives. “We have an amazing wealth of talent here in our own workforce in Dublin and, at the same time, access to these emerging digital tools that can really transform the way they work and add value to the wider organisation,” says Allen. “We reckon about 75 percent of the people working for Pfizer GBS Dublin have a qualification in accountancy, tax, or another high-value profession. Our colleagues are highly qualified and highly capable people, and we are part of Pfizer; a company whose purpose is to drive ‘breakthroughs that change patients’ lives’.” “Our own purpose and responsibility here at GBS Dublin, as I see it, is to employ that same ethos as an enabling function to the wider organisation and—just as our colleagues in science and manufacturing do—to use innovation to drive breakthroughs. “Being a truly innovative organisation involves learning to do things differently, being open to change, and being prepared for a future of constant change.” For Allen, meanwhile, how she approaches her leadership role as a Senior Director at Pfizer Dublin GBS is also changing. “What I’m learning is that, as a leader, you have to get out of the way. You have to give people the space to come up with ideas and to share them. You have to ask everyone to contribute, to listen and encourage all of their ideas. “That means listening equally to everyone in a meeting, from graduate right up to director level. I want to hear what the graduate has to say as much as I want to hear what the director has to say. You must listen, because absolutely everyone can bring something really valuable to the table.”

Tapping into the all-Ireland economy could hold the key to continued growth for businesses in a challenging market, writes Colin Kerr Businesses that fail to build on the opportunities on offer in the all-island economy risk losing out on a market rich with potential, according to Feargal McCormack, Managing Director of FPM, the Newry-headquartered business advisory firm. “The island is small, relatively speaking, but there is immense potential for expansion in a market where we have a well-educated English-speaking workforce and a highly tech-enabled business environment.” Founded in Newry in 1991, FPM today employs 120 people at its headquarters in the town, as well as Belfast, Tyrone, Antrim, and Dublin, recording annual revenues of £9.5 million (€11.2 million).  Following its recent merger with Anderson Anderson & Brown (AAB), the Scottish advisory firm, McCormack is looking forward to further all-island expansion for FPM. “We were one of the first firms in our sector to implement an all-island focus strategically from day one,” he said. “Our business has been very resilient. The current political uncertainty poses challenges to us and the sooner it gets resolved, the better. “All-Ireland trade has benefited from good relationships between everybody on both sides of the border. We also face global challenges, but we have faced these in the past and we have overcome them, and I am confident in the long-term.” As McCormack sees it, a long-term strategy and ‘big picture’ outlook is crucial to ensuring lasting success in business. “You must look at the bigger picture. You would not recognise Northern Ireland, or the island of Ireland now, compared to 20 years ago,” he said. “Our educational infrastructure has been hugely beneficial to businesses operating on the island and it continues to help us benefit from Foreign Direct Investment as we develop technology transfers and digital transformation.  “This is a wonderful place to do business. If you are fortunate enough to have a good job on the island of Ireland, where else would you want to live?” Establishing FPM as an all-island business has been something of a personal crusade for McCormack and one of the big drivers behind the decision to merge FPM with AAB. “One of the biggest challenges for any business is the ability to embrace change,” he said. “There are always risks attached when you expand, but, if you look at the historical context of business in Ireland, Glen Dimplex and Ryanair both started in times of recession. I am confident that this is a step in the right direction for FPM and we see this as a unique opportunity.” McCormack was drawn to AAB by the Scottish group’s established global connections and experience working with high-growth SMEs and large corporations internationally. “The synergies across our teams, service provision and sector specialisms, will provide a fantastic platform for future growth. In the evolving business of accountancy in Ireland there is going to be much more consolidation. We must increase our competencies—in a consolidated market, you need to have a breadth of services and capabilities.” Headquartered in Aberdeen, AAB Group has three offices in Scotland and two in England. The merger with FPM gives AAB an immediate reach across the island of Ireland from FPM’s five existing offices in Northern Ireland and the Republic. “AAB Group has grown rapidly in the last 12 months, following three M&A transactions and investment from August Equity in October 2021,” McCormack said.  “Our complementary geographic presence will enhance the wider AAB Group as a key player in the UK and Irish accountancy and business services markets.” FPM’s nine shareholder directors will remain with the business post-merger. “There are strong opportunities in the market for corporate finance, HR services and consulting in wealth management,” said McCormack.  “Our focus initially will be on consolidation, but this merger does create opportunities for our combined businesses on the island. FPM would be ‘the hub’ on the island of Ireland for the group, which would be looking for opportunities to potentially add niche businesses to its offering, McCormack explained. “AAB has a strong corporate finance presence and that will complement FPM’s existing capabilities,” he said. A past President of Chartered Accountants Ireland, McCormack’s personal philosophy is that business is ultimately about “people and relationships.” “In 1991, when I addressed the Chartered Accountants Ireland Student Society, the title of my paper was: I Don’t Care How Much You Know, Until I Know How Much You Care. “FPM has been, and always will be, focused on a people-centred approach and that is a core value that has not changed and will not change in the future.  “The key to any business is your team and I have always recognised that you have to build a team that facilitates the growth of talent and provides the opportunity for people to step up and develop. “I am confident that the people I am working with can bring the business forward. I have always been motivated by the creation of excellence and that is really important.”

It’s holiday season but switching off when you clock off for that well-earned summer break isn’t always easy. Liz Riley talks to three members about what helps them switch from work-mode to holiday zen Ronan Dunne Strategic Advisor at Verizon Chair of Six Nations Rugby I don’t tend to think about work when I’m not working – and I’ve found this easier to do over time – but I also need to be responsive.  I check-in regularly on work emails and messages to make sure no one is having their own work-life balance disrupted because they are waiting for me to respond or advise. When I have trouble switching off from my workday, I tend to take one of two approaches:  Technology: I have found that new tools on mobile devices allow you to set them to sleep mode or switch from work to personal mode, because they help to reduce ‘device distraction’. These options also let your contacts know if you have notifications switched off. Personal: I have a few go-to distractions that help me switch off. I like to watch sports (any sport – live or on TV) and I also like playing sports, mostly golf and tennis. I think the pandemic helped ease me into a better transition from work to home-life. It has enabled me to be more flexible about where and when I work.  I spent eight weeks during the summer of 2020 living in Dublin while working US hours. This meant I could see my parents every morning “before work.” Luckily, this summer I was able to get away and spend a lovely week in West Cork where I took part in a board meeting one afternoon from my room – a great advertisement for the importance and impact of good rural connectivity. Roseann Heavey Partner at Noone Casey  In finance, I think it can be difficult to find a work-life balance, but I also believe that work-life balance means different things to different people.  In private practice, servicing many clients across a range of industries, all with different needs, means there will be times when even the best planned-out day takes a change of direction.  For me, I look at my work-life balance over a month or a quarter. If I can look back over this time and know that I prioritised correctly, while meeting my deadlines and goals, I feel I’m on the right track.  This can be challenging at times. You can’t be everywhere at once and there are only so many hours in a week. If you can prioritise, manage time well and stick to your goals, the balance will come over time. To help myself disconnect, I document my workday and schedule, and ensure I can cross items off my to-do list. This allows me to be in control knowing that – at a minimum – the plan for the week must be completed.  This way, once the workday is over, there is nothing more I can do until the next day. I can switch off and focus on what is important to me outside work. The pandemic has, without a doubt, helped me to separate my work and home life. Even though I am working the same number of hours, there is more flexibility. Saving time commuting or travelling across the city and country for meetings allows me to have a more productive week and still deliver a high-quality service.  Face-to-face meetings are still important, but it is about finding the right balance for the firm and our clients. Edel Hayes  Founder of Accelerate  Accounting Solutions For me, the most challenging aspect of work-life balance is setting and maintaining boundaries. This is a skill a lot of us have had to learn over the last few years as the lines between work and home have become blurred.  I tend to set clear boundaries with clients and team members as soon as we engage with each other. I’m upfront about the hours I work, so that my clients are clear on what days and times I will be available to take calls and respond to emails.  The challenge comes in maintaining these boundaries when they are pushed by other people. I find the key is to be unapologetic.  A lot of my clients work in industries that require them to work outside traditional office hours. The expectation that someone should be sitting at a desk all day has lessened in recent years, however. I don’t have too much trouble switching off from work at the end of the day, but I’ve developed good practices to help me. My laptop stays at my office unless it’s a busy time of the year. I don’t take calls or check emails after 5pm. When I’m working, I’m 100 percent at work and, when I’m home, I try to be 100 percent at home. At the beginning, the pandemic did hinder my ability to separate my work and home life. It takes a certain set of skills and habits to maintain the boundaries we need for a healthy balance.  I took three weeks off from my business this year to visit family in the US we hadn’t seen since 2019. While I did bring my laptop with me, I can honestly say I didn’t open it once.  This was down to a lot of planning beforehand and making sure my clients and my team were all up to speed before I left. It really did feel amazing.

Keeping your head up when the chips are down can be tough, but resilience is a learned skill and a valuable asset for entrepreneurs. Liz Riley talks to three members in business about how they stay resilient Just as the pandemic was easing and talk of an upswing in the economy had begun to lift spirits, the Ukraine invasion prompted fresh concern as rising inflation sparked speculation of impending recession. The uncertain outlook is a worry for everyone, but perhaps more so for business owners now tasked with revisiting strategic plans and rallying their teams to adapt to changing circumstances. Former Dublin footballer Bernard Brogan co-owns two businesses. PepTalk has developed workplace wellness software and Legacy Communications specialises in PR and sponsorship. For Brogan, the pandemic hit hard and fast in early 2020. “Legacy Communications is in the sports PR business, and the world of sport closed down for the guts of a year due to the pandemic. We had a real challenging time there,” Brogan says.  Colm Davitt, founder of Dental Care Ireland, also encountered difficulties in the weeks following the announcement of the first Government lockdown in March 2020. “We suddenly had no income or cash flow to meet our financial commitments. We had to lay off almost all our staff within a matter of days, which was very difficult,” says Davitt. For Sharon Cunningham, CEO and co-founder of Shorla Oncology, meanwhile, the onset of the pandemic presented her with the “biggest challenge” of her career to date. Cunningham had co-founded Shorla in 2017 in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary, to develop new cancer treatments for women and children. The sudden standstill in international travel brought huge disruption for the business. “There were delays associated with the US Health Authorities’ ability to travel overseas to complete our outsourced facility’s inspection, which ultimately delayed product approval,” explains Cunningham. “It was the biggest challenge of my career and required careful stakeholder management.” Best foot forward Despite these challenges, all three Chartered Accountants found the strength to push through, protect their businesses, and plan ahead. While the pandemic was a setback for Dental Care Ireland, not once was Davitt tempted to close up shop. He knew the company could come through the other side. “I was able to draw on my experiences from the 2008 recession to take decisive action. We had to lay people off in mid-March 2020, we started to re-hire in early to mid-May, so they were off for about two months,” he says. Brogan shares the same sentiment. “The Legacy team got together, we put our heads down and we hustled. It’s a word I use in sport, but it’s what we did,” recalls Brogan. “We hustled to create opportunities in different spaces. We worked on different COVID-19 plans and we fought through. The team showed massive resilience getting into the trenches together.” As Brogan sees it, team resilience like this is earned over time. “You need to have trust and clarity. It’s really important, especially in times of challenge, that everyone is clear on what the challenge is, where we are at, and the opportunities that can follow.” For Sharon Cunningham, resilience in the face of the deepening pandemic came down to changing course quickly and decisively. “Shorla faced tough challenges in terms of how we adapted the way we conduct our business activities,” she says.  “Embracing innovation and accelerating our digital transformation journey, particularly in sales and marketing, has positioned us for success in the new normal.” No matter what challenge a business is facing, communication is ‘everything,’ says Cunningham: “We make a big effort to communicate what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and why we’re doing it. This ensures we stay focused on our vision and mission.” Building resilience While resilience may sound like a millennial term for ‘getting on with it’, the American Psychological Association (APA) defines it as much more. According to the APA, resilience is: “the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences—especially through mental, emotional, and behavioural flexibility, and adjustment to external and internal demands.” The pandemic, the war in Ukraine, spiralling inflation and the threat of recession—all pose potential challenge. According to Lynsey Hanratty, however, what really matters is how we respond. A business and life coach who works with female entrepreneurs, Hanratty says that resilience can be learned with practice and dedication. “Go back to basics. Are you getting enough sleep, exercise, and proper nutrition? Are you hydrated? Are you taking the time to get organised for the week?” asks Hanratty. “If the basics are working, you are in a better place to face any setbacks that come your way. That’s not to sound trite or to simplify a complex situation, but it’s a start on the road to resilience.” People who have overcome difficulties in the past are more likely to be resilient in their response to new challenges. “The people who suffer the most setbacks are usually the most resilient, because they have developed coping mechanisms to deal with their setbacks and traumas,” says Hanratty. “Learning from failures and mistakes instead of berating yourself for making them in the first place is a good start on the road to resilience. However, being willing to accept and tolerate a situation and work from there is also a great place to start.” Davitt understands this well. “I worked through the last recession from 2008 and, by 2012, I honestly thought it would never end. For several years, it was a constant cycle of cost reduction and restructuring and at one point in 2012, there wasn’t too much positivity around Ireland,” he says. “Thankfully, by 2013, things did gradually start to improve and move to a more positive note. The onset of the pandemic was massively challenging and quite stressful. However, as in 2008, we remained calm, came up with a plan and worked really hard to protect and save the company. “I feel the whole experience made us closer. Clear, objective, and regular communication throughout this time was critical. We have some very loyal and hard-working team members as a result.” Turning point Brogan believes his own resilience was cultivated during his years in football, and recalls a significant turning point during his career with the Dublin team.  “It was during a training game the Thursday before the match. The ball was kicked to me, and I went up to get it and I came down and ruptured my cruciate ligament… In my head, that was the end of my career. I thought I’d never play again,” he says. “I was absolutely devastated. We were on a big journey – the Dubs were after winning three [All-Ireland Championships] in a row and we were on course for history. I was trying to do my bit for the team.  “So, I made the decision: ‘I’m not done. I’m not finished yet’,” Brogan recalls. “I sat down with Jim Gavin in a hotel up near Dublin airport with a calendar and we counted back the weeks. I said, ‘If I get the operation this date, I’ll be five months on this date and coming into a super eight game. I can do this.’  “I circled the date of that game. My target was to get back for that game—five months and a couple of weeks.  “When I look back on it now, I’m kind of surprised I responded like that. I changed my mind in a day – I’m not going to lament on this. I’m not going to let this drag me down. I’m going to try to get back and get positive and get after this. “After the operation, I hit the gym with physio James Allen every second day for five months and got back out on the pitch against Roscommon on that day I had circled. It was only for five minutes – half dragging the leg – but I got back out. “To get back out running in Croke Park in front of 80,000 people, for me, is everything. I turned it around to make good decisions. I got back,” he says. Brogan’s story is a masterclass in resilience, not just in sports, but in life and in business. With enough practice, patient and dedication, resilience is a skill anyone can learn. 

Over the duration of a successful career as a Chartered Accountant, Suliyat Olalekan has learned the value of hard work, commitment and, above all, kindness From as far back as she can remember, Suliyat Olalekan wanted to become a Chartered Accountant. “I was really good at maths from a very young age and I was always very certain that I wanted to have a career as an accountant,” says Olalekan.  “I didn’t want to be an academic, studying mathematics or statistics in a university. I wanted to apply my skills in the real world. Accountancy seemed to me to offer a lot of possibilities, but I can’t say I had any real sense back then of what the role would actually involve day-to-day.” Born in southwestern Nigeria, Olalekan was raised in a tight-knit family in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State. One of five siblings, she moved to Ireland as a teenager, settling in south Dublin, and went on to study Leaving Cert Accounting.   Though Olalekan had “absolute conviction” about her career aspirations, acclimatising to the Irish way of life after relocating from Ibadan as a young teen came as a culture shock. “I found the education system in Ireland fantastic, but it was very different to the education I had experienced in Nigeria, which was highly academic,” she says.  “When I started secondary school in Ireland, I was ahead of the syllabus so it was an easy transition starting out. I was able to focus instead on integrating socially and learning about the culture and way of life in this new country that was so different.” Learning to adapt at a young age has stood to Olalekan over the course of an accomplished career as a Chartered Accountant that has taken her from practice to industry, and from Dublin to London. “It is so important to do your research in any profession. This is my go-to approach when I am considering a potential new role, or finding my feet in a new job, and it’s the reason I think I’ve been able to adapt well to new roles and responsibilities,” she says. “I reach out to people and lean into my network, so that I can find out as much as I can about a new role on offer—and not just the role itself, but the organisation, and the wider industry. The same goes for how I approach my work day-to-day. I always try to learn from other people who are experts in their role, their field, or sector.  “If I need advice on a tax issue, for example, I will go to a tax expert—and I never jump into anything. When I start a new job, I stand back and take stock of what is happening around me; what the dynamics are; how things work. I never dive in. I take my time and I do my research. This balanced approach has worked well for me in my career.” Now Chief Accountant at SFL Corporation, an international NYSE-listed maritime company, Olalekan manages a team in London and Oslo responsible for accounting and reporting on US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP).  She began her career in practice, training with Deloitte in Ireland after graduating from Dublin Business School in 2007 with a first-class honours degree in accounting and finance. “I knew I wanted to train with a ‘Big Four’ firm and I really enjoyed my time with Deloitte. Joining their Audit Graduate Programme was a really wonderful start to my career and they sponsored my Master of Accounting at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business. “From there, I went straight into the Final Admitting Examination (FAE) with Chartered Accountants Ireland in 2012 —and then I reached a point where I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do next.” Rather than mapping out a strict career plan, Olalekan instead decided to hang back and gain more experience where she was, before deciding on her next move.  “A lot of my friends and peers around that time were moving to Australia, the Cayman Islands, Bermuda — and thinking ahead to ‘what’s next?’ I was happy enough where I was though, so I stayed with Deloitte, moving from Audit Senior on to Assistant Manager and then Manager.” It was when Olalekan was offered a secondment with Bank of Ireland that she got her first taste of working life beyond practice. “I got this fantastic opportunity to see what it was like on the ‘other side’ working in capital investment, and I found I really enjoyed it,” she says. The experience prompted Olalekan to look further afield and, when she decided to relocate to London in 2014, she found herself open to a move into shipping – a sector she had no experience in at the time. “It was my brother who told me about this job as Group Reporting Manager with SFL Corporation and, straight away, I was intrigued,” she says. “I knew nothing about the maritime sector at the time, but shipping is such a traditional and tangible industry. I thought ‘that’s how food gets to my table and how furniture gets to my home’.  “SFL Corporation is also listed in the US, which meant I could get experience in US GAAP. I already had experience in UK GAAP and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Ireland. I thought US GAAP would be a challenge that would really stand to me.” Olalekan was promoted to her current role as Chief Accountant with SFL Corporation in London in 2017. “They have been very persuasive in keeping me, and I really enjoy the work I do here because it is just so interesting,” she says. “My day-to-day can go from journal approvals on really important qualitative items to filing statements to the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s EDGAR [Electronic Data Gathering, Analysis, and Retrieval] system. “I’m involved in preparing financial data for press releases, and in constantly reviewing and ensuring the accuracy of the information we make available to the public. I advise our commercial and operational teams on the accounting implications of new business contracts and potential transactions. My role is so varied and I find that incredibly rewarding professionally.” As her career has progressed, Olalekan has settled into an open, approachable leadership style centred on building strong relationships with the people on her team, as well as those she reports to and colleagues in the wider organisation. “There are many ways you can approach leadership and different styles work for different people—but I have always leaned into genuine, positive relationships and that continues to work really well for me to this day. “I make sure that I am seen as a ‘can-do’ person; someone people won’t hesitate to approach to ask for help. This has been very beneficial because people know I don’t shy away from work and that I’m not afraid of challenges.  “In any new role, you can’t know everything straight away. That is what growing and learning as a professional is all about. If you are seen as a positive can-do person who can be relied on to work hard, it is more likely that you will be offered promotions because your managers will trust that, even if you are not 100 percent ready, you will rise to the occasion, learn, and do what is needed.” Approachability, and a willingness to help others and collaborate to solve problems, is equally important for managers who want to support, encourage, and get the best from the people on their team. “Just as my managers know they can trust me, my team learns the importance of trustworthiness from me. It creates a positive chain reaction,” says Olalekan.  “They know they can come to me with problems and challenges, and that means they are also more likely to come to me with ideas, insights and solutions that can benefit the business. That is very rewarding for me as a manager.” A mother to two young children, Olalekan still finds time outside her work and home commitments to support her profession. A committed member of the London Society of Chartered Accountants Ireland, she was among four members recently elected to Council. “I am honoured to have been elected and to have the opportunity to give something back to the profession that has been so good to me in my career,” she says. “We train people to be robust, to be intimate with numbers, to be able to analyse the data and make sense of the figures. You don’t need to be the CFO of a FTSE 100 to be a success in this profession.  “My own ambition now is to add value to the organisation I work for, and support the people I work with. Even though I was so sure so young that I wanted to be an accountant, I couldn’t have known then how fulfilling my career would turn out to be. I am exactly where I want to be.”  

Over the course of a successful 30-year career in international business, Shane Fitzsimons has refined a tried-and-tested approach to hitting the ground running in any new role. Now CFO and Executive Vice President at AIG Inc in the US, he talks us through the most important professional lessons he has learned over the years. “Keep your ears open, talk to people, pay attention to how things are done around you and adapt.”  For Shane Fitzsimons, the recently appointed Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President at American International Group (AIG) Inc, showing curiosity, trustworthiness and commitment to the business’ success really matters in any new role.  Over the course of a highly successful 30-year career in global business, Fitzsimons has refined a ‘go-to’ approach to hitting the ground running in a new position—no matter the business, industry or location. “In a lot of ways, you could say that getting off to the right start comes down to being a good listener. It’s important to go into any new situation with an open mind and be willing to learn about what’s around you,” he says. “Preconceptions will only ever get in the way and, when it boils down to it, people the world over generally share the same motivations. They want to know that they can trust you, that you can get things done, and that the success of the business is your number one priority.” Born in Belfast and raised in Cork, Fitzsimons has risen through the ranks at global companies like General Electric, Tata Group and now AIG over the course of a career that has taken him from Ireland to Europe, and on to the US, and Asia. Profound advice Every step of the way, he has continued to heed the “profound” advice he received at a pivotal point in his early years at General Electric while he was an analyst at the company’s headquarters in Connecticut. “I was about four months into this one-year assignment in Financial Planning and Analysis and I was gung-ho about the role, working 14- to 16-hour days, because here I was at the company’s corporate headquarters with the opportunity to be noticed by Jack Welch (then Chair and CEO of General Electric) and other senior people,” he says. “I wanted to demonstrate my commitment and my work ethic. Then, one day, the head of FP&A called me into his office. He’d noticed the long hours I’d been working. I was expecting praise.  “Instead, he sat me down and said: ‘I see you’re working these long hours and I’ve got to tell you: if you can’t manage the job I’ve given you in less than the working day, I can’t give you anything bigger to do.’” This advice has since become Fitzsimons’ guiding philosophy, he explains: “If you can’t take a job – even the most difficult job – boil it down, simplify it, and improve how it’s done, you’re not ready to move to a more senior role because you haven’t demonstrated a capacity to grow.” Productivity & performance That conversation prompted Fitzsimons to re-think his approach to productivity and performance.  “I had to reflect on how I could use my working time more effectively to do the job at hand while also getting to know other parts of the business. From that point onwards, I started to look at everything from the point-of-view of efficiency,” he says. “It was really quite profound. Even now with my team here at AIG, we have a major focus on supporting efficiency in the wider business.  “We obviously focus on the numbers—on traditional activities like accounting, treasury and tax—but we also see ourselves as an operational partner to the wider business with an important role to play in driving efficiency and supporting strategy and process improvement.” In this respect, Fitzsimons sees finance as an operational ‘enabler’ in business. “We play a very important role in control and governance, obviously, but we don’t see ourselves as the ‘checkers’,” he says.  “That’s why words like ‘expediting’ are so important to me – because finance is an enabler. Our role is really to help the wider business to be successful in the markets in which we operate.” Even at the earliest point in his career, Fitzsimons was already aware of the need to gain hands-on experience in the cut and thrust of the commercial world.  While completing his training with Chartered Accountants Ireland, he worked with Fitzsimons Flynn & Co., the practice run by his late father Garry, also a Chartered Accountant, from three locations in Cork city, Kinsale and Bandon. “I left Ireland pretty quickly. At the time, there weren’t many options to progress your career unless you were willing to travel and accountancy seemed like a very good career to take on the road with you.” From practice to industry Fitzsimons first moved to the Netherlands in 1990 for a six-month assignment with Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) and would go on to spend a decade in the country, moving out of audit practice in 1994 to join GE Plastics in Bergen op Zoom.  “My father had always said that, to be a really good accountant, I would need experience in industry. He encouraged me to make the move early in my career, so, when I came across a finance role with GE, I decided to take it,” he said. Then a $5 billion subsidiary of General Electric, the US-headquartered multinational, GE Plastics had opened a manufacturing plant in Bergen op Zoom in 1971. By 1994, the site had become a key part of GE’s global operations, serving customers internationally. “I started in general accounting, consolidation, things like that, and quickly realised that, to progress my career, I would need to relocate to GE headquarters in the US and gain experience in areas like FP&A and commercial finance,” Fitzsimons says. He made the move in 2000, spending a year at GE’s Fairfield headquarters in Connecticut before heading southwest to Ohio to take up the role of Group FP&A Leader for Aviation. “That was a huge step up for me in terms of role and responsibility. It was a very formative period in aviation. The industry was heavily impacted by 9/11 and I learned a lot working with leaders like Dave Calhoun (now CEO and President of Boeing),” says Fitzsimons. “I worked very closely with Dave and other great leaders for four years, learning from them, and I was then asked to return to GE’s Connecticut headquarters as FP&A leader for the company. I stayed there for seven years.” Having weathered the worst of the financial crisis helming GE’s FP&A function, Fitzsimons was ready for “something new.” Now aged 44, he had already forged a successful career spanning industry and practice in Europe and the US.  So, what next? “Asia,” says Fitzsimons. “It was missing on my resume.”  When an opportunity came up with GE in Hong Kong, he decided to take it and, in all, spent six years in Hong Kong, initially as GE’s Chief Financial Officer for Global Growth and Operations, followed by Senior Vice-President of Global Operations.  “Then I turned 50 and decided to do what I’d always advised people never to do. I took time off. I’d been working since I was 18. I kind of needed a break. It was the right choice for me,” he says. After his sabbatical, Fitzsimons was on the move again—this time to Mumbai on India’s west coast.  There, he took up the position of Chief Synergy Officer at Tata Sons, the private principal investment holding company for Tata Group, India’s diversified “coffee-to-cars” conglomerate with operations in more than 100 countries. “I’ve moved around a lot over the years and what I’ve found is that there are more similarities between businesses and people around the world than you might expect,” Fitzsimons says.  “Often, you’ll find that the overriding priority for most people is to create a better future for their kids. That’s a very unifying motivation. “Another unifier is that you will always find people in a new company or situation who are willing to help you. Sometimes these folks will be buried in the organisation. They are the people who really want to help the company succeed. They’re willing to accept you early on and help you find your way.” This experience has taught Fitzsimons the importance of getting to know people in any new organisation he joins “at all levels.” “I don’t just want to get to know my direct reports, I want to get to know the people who work for them. I want to get to know people working in other parts of the business. Demonstrating your interest, your curiosity, is really important – and really valuable. People notice it.” An early win An early win can also help to create the right impression in a new role. “It’s important to be able to make a visible difference at the outset,” Fitzsimons says.  “It doesn’t have to be a big win, but it matters that people see it. It lets them know that you have the right intentions; that you’re here to execute and make the company better.” Fitzsimons spent 18 months with Tata Group, leading efforts to create synergies across the group’s diverse set of businesses. “At that stage, it was time to go back to the States. My family wanted to be in the US. The opportunity to join AIG came up in July 2019 and I jumped at it,” he says. Fitzsimons’ first role with AIG was as Global Head of Shared Services, based in New York. At the time, AIG’s Global Chief Operating Officer and Chief Executive Officer of General Insurance was Peter Zaffino, who is now the company’s Chair and CEO. “The shared services role attracted me, but, more than that, I really wanted to work with Peter,” Fitzsimons says.  Global Head of Shared Services was a newly created role at AIG, established to act as a single point of accountability for all key operational and financial capabilities across the organisation. “My biggest motivator right the way through my career has been the opportunity to just dig in and solve complex operational problems as part of a team, and I knew this role would be very operational, which would allow me to get involved in a lot of different aspects of the business,” says Fitzsimons.  “I enjoy breaking problems down into little pieces, finding the right operating cadences and rhythms, and the pure satisfaction you get when you find a solution—especially when you’re working at a pace that’s not necessarily comfortable, but it works.” The value of joining AIG in the shared services role and working with Peter Zaffino as a leader became quickly apparent.  Within five months, Fitzsimons took on the additional role of Global Head of Financial Planning and Analysis and three months after that, he joined the highest ranks of AIG senior management when he became Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer in March 2021—and a member of the company’s 12-strong executive leadership team.  In October 2021, AIG announced that Fitzsimons would transition to the role of Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer by January 2022. In his new role as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, he leads hundreds of financial professionals across the globe who are supporting AIG’s priorities—from delivery on AIG’s financial performance objectives, to the separation of the Life and Retirement business from AIG, the execution of AIG’s budget and capital plans, and proactive engagement with investors and other stakeholders. Future plans & priorities “My biggest career goal now with AIG is to be the best CFO I can be; to cultivate and lead our diverse finance team in a way that allows each member to meet their own aspirations; and support the leaders who have placed their trust in me to be successful,” says Fitzsimons. A member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants Ireland since 1993 and a fellow since 2003, Fitzsimons’ career has taken him from Ireland to Europe, and on to the US and Asia. Despite his success in different industries, however, he didn’t have a “concrete” career plan starting out. “I always had ideas about the experiences I wanted to collect along the way, but I don’t think I ever had a set plan,” he says.  “My father had taught me the importance of gaining industry experience as an accountant, so you would have domain knowledge as a business advisor working in practice, but I found my niche in industry and that’s shaped my career. “Now, ultimately, my priority in my current role with AIG is to eventually leave the business better than I found it. It’s also very important for me personally to build a diverse and high-performing team within the finance function.  “My team is about 60 percent gender-diverse already, which is a high figure for leadership teams in financial services. The goal now is to build on all diversity within the finance team and right the way through the organisation.” Team dynamics For Fitzsimons, a healthy, diverse, and balanced team dynamic is essential to achieving successful outcomes – and there is no place for ‘hands-off’ leadership in this respect.  “Everything is about the team and how the team works together. I actually never use the word ‘manager’ in the sense that colleagues need to be constantly instructed,” he says. “Everyone needs to play an active role. Everybody’s got to have defined responsibilities. They must see themselves and their role as part of the team.” As Fitzsimons sees it, the ideal team should comprise a group of people with diverse experience and backgrounds. “They need to be able to communicate well with each other to be successful and ambitious,” he says.  “I always say that a perfect team has five people on it who think they can do my job and two who probably can. What’s important is the belief that they’re not working in silos and that they’re paying attention to the big picture. It’s a good dynamic.”

Dr John McCallig’s research into the accounting system of the future built on blockchain technology and cryptography has earned him a sought-after award for invention, writes Arlene Harris. As Assistant Professor in Accountancy at the UCD Lochlann Quinn School of Business and the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, Dr John McCallig has long held a fascination for business, financial systems and the ways in which technology can improve both. Even as a teenager growing up in Claremorris, Co. Mayo, McCallig, now a Fellow Chartered Accountant, recalls an early interest in “the world of numbers” and emerging computer technology. After learning how to programme early home computers, McCallig went on to complete a degree in commerce at NUI Galway followed by a DPA (now Master of Accounting) at UCD.  “My research career began with PhD studies at Lancaster University in the UK and my thesis and subsequent research focused on the relationship between stock market returns and accounting numbers,” said McCallig.  “More recently, I have become interested in how the use of cryptography in business systems could produce better data for decisions by investors, regulators, and the public.” This interest is proving fruitful for McCallig, who was recently named recipient of the 2022 Invention of the Year Award by NovaUCD, the Centre for New Ventures and Entrepreneurs at University College Dublin.  Announced in March at the 2022 NovaUCD Innovation Awards, the prize was given to McCallig in recognition of his research into the use of blockchain technology and advanced cryptography to design accounting systems that could enable transparent access to verifiable data.  Through this research, McCallig has established that building such systems is theoretically possible and could potentially lead to a complete redesign of financial reporting processes in the future. His award-winning invention uses privacy-preserving analytics to collect and share commercially sensitive information about VAT obligations and payments.  This innovation can confirm that the proper VAT payments have been made—in real-time and without breaching the privacy of any individuals or firms involved.  The potential impact of this invention would be to provide the basis for a system that could interact “natively” with the digital economy to help build a modern and fair tax system, according to McCallig.  Now, he is keen to find out more about how his invention might work in practice.  “I have been working with NovaUCD on the commercialisation of my research on the use of cryptography in the VAT reporting and payment system and I am delighted and deeply honoured to have received the 2022 NovaUCD Invention of the Year Award,” he said.  “I appreciate the recognition this award gives to innovative ways of ensuring privacy and data integrity in critical social systems, like the VAT payment system.” Cryptography is the practice and study of secure communication techniques that allow the contents of a message to be viewed only by the sender and its intended recipient. “Many people think of cryptography as all or nothing—you encrypt a file, in which case nobody else can get any information about it, or you leave it unencrypted,” said McCallig. “In fact, modern cryptography provides a rich toolbox of techniques, which can be used to provide partial access to information.  “One example is homomorphic cryptography, whereby mathematical operations can be performed on encrypted data.” McCallig pointed to pay gap research published last year by Boston Women’s Workforce Council in the US, which collected payroll data in a secure manner without revealing information sourced from any individual company involved in the study. “One idea I have been working on myself is how a company’s receivables can be confirmed in a more efficient way,” McCallig said. “This relies on both the company and its receivables encrypting data about the obligations, so that data from the company and the debtors can be compared without revealing the data.” Although he does not foresee a future in which the fundamentals of accounting will change, McCallig is convinced that digital technology will play an ever greater role. “The digitalisation of accounting data in companies is nearly complete. Almost all significant enterprises have sophisticated Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems,” he says.  “The interfaces between businesses are still mainly manual, however, with information being shared using email and PDFs.  “Here, there is an opportunity to design systems that not only allow the secure exchange of information, but also provide access to high-quality information for auditors and stakeholders.” Advanced cryptographic systems are, McCallig believes, ideal for this kind of application.  “I am fascinated by the role of information in business decision-making and resource allocation in the economy,” he said. “Accountants play a key role in providing this information and my interest is in exploring whether advanced information systems could improve the quality of this information.” As he continues his work at UCD—where he teaches financial accounting, financial statement analysis and accounting technology—McCallig is intent on ensuring that the next generation of accountants are fully up-to-speed with the various technologies playing a role in the future of finance. “It has been a privilege to teach and research at UCD and I am hoping to introduce more material on accounting technology, data analytics, blockchains and cryptography into the university’s accounting curriculum in the future.”

Accountancy was well on its way to digital transformation long before COVID-19, but it can’t be denied that post-pandemic, the digitalisation of the profession has come a long way. Five members discuss their firm’s digital transformation and their role within it. David O’Connor Director Sheil Kinnear Our organisation operated, as many practices, did with an on-premises server and that worked well to a point but as demand for more flexibility grew as a response to the pandemic, it became an obvious option for us to take. In partnership with Datapac, moving to the cloud has futureproofed the business. We have learned to be more flexible and conscious of the risks around us. It has become more and more apparent that cyber security is a concern as we move toward a more paperless, digital environment. As a firm that does statutory audits, the ability to securely access our various software tools from anywhere was a huge incentive for us. I think there is an improvement in terms of what can get done no matter where you are. We are also benefitting from superior processing speeds both in the office and remotely. A challenge in our sector now is the transfer of knowledge. It’s huge in our business and people who work remotely still have to pass on that knowledge to trainees and other team members. This takes a lot more structure and scheduling.  I think there is a change towards more flexible working, but we do like to get together as a team and share knowledge and, because of that, it’s going to be hybrid going forward. Emer McCarthy  Group Strategy and Ecommerce Director Kilkenny Group We set up a “Go Digital” initiative a few years ago to transform as a company and become a true omnichannel retailer.  We defined a range of important steps and investments around channels, technology, and organisational restructuring to realise the omnichannel strategy.  We are one of the first to market with our VR store experience, giving potential shoppers worldwide an immersive, in-store experience from the comfort of their own homes. It allows our customers to engage with the Kilkenny Design brand in a completely new and unique way when the way we shop has undergone such a dramatic shift. COVID-19 has driven dramatic change in the digital space, and consumers have adapted accordingly. We have seen a decade of change over the last two years, and businesses need to continuously invest in experiences or processes via digital to meet and exceed the needs of the evolving omnichannel consumer.  Thankfully, we had commenced this journey before the pandemic, which allowed us to navigate an otherwise tricky trading period for bricks and mortar during the pandemic.   Our culture is very open to technology and the benefits that it brings. Embedding technology and new processes bring a level of change management but collectively, our culture has embraced the same by bringing our teams on the journey with us. Our environment has changed the need to adapt quickly to trends. COVID-19 has driven dramatic change in customers’ digital knowledge and use, which expedites the need to roll out pipeline projects sooner and plan to meet consumer needs three years in advance, at least. Louise Heffernan  Audit and Practice Manager Hugh McCarthy & Associates The pandemic exposed a weakness many firms weren’t prepared for and are now forced to adapt to, highlighting how behind some of us were in the digital age, primarily facilitating working remotely and having a strong online and digital presence.  We took this opportunity to begin a rebrand of the firm, working towards moving all systems online and providing additional training where needed.  We understand Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we are in the final stage of an online rebrand, transitioning to a paperless office and entirely cloud-based within four years.  My role in this has been writing and redesigning the website, developing a strategy with the marketing team, working with the IT team to develop a future cloud-based infrastructure, securing software that is online while ensuring GDPR compliance and setting out a four-year plan to go paperless while upskilling the team to ease with the gradual transition. The company has changed in so many ways. While our team chose to come back into the office, there is an option to work from home, providing a higher level of trust amongst the team and strengthening team communication. Giving the option to work from home also shows we value our employees and understand and appreciate the importance of life outside the office. Because of our digital focus, I have changed how I train the team, making sure all resources are available online while developing the team’s IT literacy. And my role has evolved – I now work with marketing and focus on long-term strategic planning while heavily analysing future costs. Bill O’Leary  Director  Goldbay Consulting Four years ago, I introduced accounting software to offshore wind energy consultants, delivering user-friendly automated features. Its reporting capability significantly enhanced the quality, relevance, and timeliness of our management information, which supported profitable business growth.  In March 2020, the pandemic forced us to change how we worked and the so-called “paperless office” had finally arrived.  My organisation implemented video conferencing software. Weekly and operational review meetings, and bi-monthly revenue assurance meetings with directors and senior fee earners were critical in managing revenue and cash flow during the pandemic.  More recently, our focus is on improving operating margin by using data management tools to extract, process and present project margin information in a graphical format to the leadership team. Collaboratively, we review project information, seek to understand the past better and work to agree on actions to modify future behaviour and increase performance.  Leveraging modern software and related digital processes have enabled me to provide the tools, coupled with knowledge, to empower our project leaders to make better informed financial decisions.  The benefits of digitisation and automation of processes are not always linear. As more simple and repetitive tasks are automated, the remaining work becomes more complex – which creates several challenges, such as increasing demands being placed on senior fee earners and the training and development staff becoming more complex.  The answer, which is nothing new, lies in how we use the wealth of digital information available today. How we extract, analyse, synthesise, present, communicate, discuss, understand, and act on the fruits of digital transformation is critical to unlocking the benefits of the digital revolution.  David Heath  CEO Circit At Circit, we have tried to create a culture of digital transformation from the company’s very beginning. With the assumption that technology will continue to evolve at pace, our team is encouraged to be tuned in to what is available in the market and trial services that they believe our organisation and people can benefit from.  This does not mean we implement every new tool we are aware of, but we do become better at monitoring the market, assessing the potential positive benefits of a new cloud service, and getting the timing right for making a change. By having a mentality of being adaptive, we can more easily advise and be an example for our customers who are also on their own digital transformation journey. Lockdowns and viruses have accelerated business trends already underway for companies, like moving to the cloud and modernising their IT departments, but it has also made them think about how their employees can work more efficiently. We’re moving from it being about ‘work from home’ to it being about entirely new ways of doing work.  For example, in the past few weeks, I’ve held investor meetings over video conference instead of in person, with the same – if not better – results.  Instead of thinking about who’s in an office, I’ve also been broadening the scope of who I chat with and when. On an average day, I’m probably talking to five times the number of people from different time zones than when I worked at the office. After all, anyone I want to communicate with is only a chat bubble and video call away. I think we will be forever changed, but now the challenge is to get the balance and team culture correct – one that is digital-first, security risk averse, being personable and willing to travel to in-person meetings to maintain a deeper connection with customers.