Spotlight

A recent C-suite barometer showed a surprising level of optimism among international business leaders. Mark Kennedy deciphers the findings to explain why short-term optimism will need to be buttressed by business transformation plans and long-term investment strategies if organisations are to thrive in a post-pandemic world. A report detailing over 500 global C-suite leaders’ views on their outlook for 2021 during a worldwide pandemic always had the potential to surprise. Despite the current economic uncertainty, the most surprising finding was the consistent presence of optimism globally, with 71% of respondents assessing the outlook for growth in 2021 as positive. At the beginning of the pandemic, we witnessed resilience and consistency as some business sectors adapted reasonably quickly. For established companies, there was a kind of ‘muscle memory’ approach to the crisis that unlocked lessons learned and business continuity measures that were initially adopted following the global economic crisis of 2008. Despite the unique nature of the pandemic, businesses that previously invested in crisis management strategies appeared to exhibit more resilience. The state approach to the pandemic was also a big differentiator, as tax and legislative aid mechanisms created a profoundly different context for business. Countries in Western Europe mostly saw the benefit of this approach. In contrast, other parts of the world, such as Africa, received noticeably less business aid, which resulted in less optimism for the future. Business transformation plans Confidence in managing and mitigating risk during the pandemic was undoubtedly a factor in respondents’ forward-looking business transformation plans. Economic and technology transformation trends scored highly, with 90% expecting to respond to technology and innovation trends and 78% confident in managing upcoming economic trends. Technology transformation was the most likely focus overall for large companies ($1 billion plus), with 54% of executives indicating a more-than-50% chance of implementing technology transformation plans. While the need to digitally transform businesses has been on the agenda for some time, the crisis appears to have accelerated plans. If we take the retail sector as an example, the need to meet the demand for online shopping during lockdown has added an urgency to prioritising digital strategies. Perhaps more surprising than what was high on the list of business transformation plans was what respondents considered a low priority. While the travel ban during lockdown highlighted the vast potential to reduce carbon emissions, only 20% of respondents said they expected climate risk to have the most significant impact on their business: the lowest on the list. This figure is slightly higher among Western Europe companies (25%), suggesting it is higher on executive agendas in that region. However, it is less than 20% in Latin America, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth Independent States (CEE/CIS), and the US.  One potential reason for climate risk attracting such a low score is the current lack of bottom-line accountability. Despite the growing need to mitigate climate change risk for business sustainability, leaders often treat it as an intangible business issue. They see it as being driven by regulatory momentum rather than a tangible business goal to be approached in the same way as technology or new service transformation plans. However, climate change will become a matter of profit and loss for many companies over the next ten years, either because it will influence how capital is obtained and the cost of infrastructure, or it will become an opportunity to do more business. It is a similar story with cultural change, which scored equally low on respondents’ business transformation plans. As mandatory reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues becomes more widespread in both cases, businesses will need to consider these developments in business transformation plans. What is driving the business agenda? While technological transformation is the overarching theme, how businesses approach plans is often driven by regional and industry factors. In financial services, a high level of regulatory and compliance demands in Western Europe and the US is the driving force for banks and insurance companies launching digital strategies to automate and manage data management and reporting costs. In manufacturing, meanwhile, technology transformation drives improvements in efficiency and productivity. These regional differences were also evident when looking at investment plan timeframes. Businesses in Africa, for example, are looking at short-term transformation plans to drive profitability. In Europe and Asia, investment plans are put in place as strategic building blocks for the next decade and beyond. While this is not surprising when looking at the maturity of business development in each region, it also reflects the lack of state aid available to prop up economies and businesses in times of crisis. A further factor driving the business agenda is confidence in a company’s ability to respond to trends. In general, the barometer shows that businesses are optimistic in their ability to tackle most trends, with 90% either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ confident in tackling challenges involving technology and innovation. Businesses in Asia-Pacific are more positive in their ability to respond to technology trends than in Western Europe, with 92% confident there compared to 85% in Western Europe, reflecting the vibrancy of the region’s technology start-up scene. However, executives are less confident in their businesses’ ability to respond to some other trends. 28% of companies are ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ hopeful in dealing with the impact of climate change. This lack of confidence in responding to some trends may be down to the fact that, as discussed earlier, it is positioned lower down on the business transformation priority list. A further worrying response is executives’ lack of confidence to deal with social/political changes and public health challenges. While many businesses expect both trends to impact them in the next three to five years, a quarter of respondents are not confident in their ability to address them. Western European businesses are the least confident in dealing with social/political, climate and public health trends. Less than 65% declared themselves ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ confident for each. Asia-Pacific companies were much more optimistic than their Western European counterparts in responding to public health challenges – 77% of the former looked forward with optimism. This regional difference may reflect Asia-Pacific societies’ longer experience managing epidemics, like the SARS outbreak in 2003. Longer-term investment strategies It is important to recognise that the pandemic’s impact on investment plans is critical in moving from a short-term to longer-term outlook. The change in business priorities and how business is conducted since the crisis started has given CEOs across a wide range of sectors a clearer picture of why making long-term and sustainable investments is a sensible business decision. Interestingly, female respondents were more inclined to opt for longer-term investment strategies. Female leaders represent less than one-third of respondents, but with the number of female business leaders rising, the shift to longer-term investment planning is likely to increase. It signals a much-needed focus on long-term business sustainability. This shift to longer-term sustainability was highlighted by the number of respondents who consider investing in sustainability initiatives to be a relatively long-term business activity. It was rated the fourth longest-term out of 23 activities, behind external growth opportunities, corporate strategy, and research and development (R&D). However, company size and sector had an impact. For manufacturing companies, sustainability initiatives are the longest-term activity of all. This reflects the transition away from fossil fuels and towards more sustainable business models. Sustainability is seen as a long-term activity in the financial services sector, but sourcing new talent, government engagement, R&D, and maintaining IT systems are higher long-term priorities. It is interesting to note that sourcing new talent is seen as a long-term priority, particularly as the financial services sector is in a phase of disruption driven by technology and new entrants. While this may suggest that the industry sees sourcing new talent as increasingly difficult, it may also hint that financial services companies still see themselves as people industries first and foremost. The responses from technology and telecoms companies indicate that sustainability initiatives are viewed as one of the shortest-term activities in those sectors. External growth opportunities and regulatory issues are the two longest-term categories for this group, which considers acquiring customers as a longer-term activity than maintaining customers. It paints a picture of an industry that sees high growth as the key to its long-term and short-term future and one that is less concerned about its physical footprint and managing long-term external risks when compared to other, older industries. Of course, as new EU privacy laws become even more embedded, the technology sector may see regulation as both a short-term and long-term priority. Company size is a further factor. Larger ($1 billion plus) companies are most likely to consider sustainability as a longer-term business activity, reflecting that they have the resources to build a sustainability programme and the more significant external pressure on large and recognisable businesses to address sustainability issues. Executives from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) still regard sustainability as a relatively long-term activity, but R&D, corporate strategy, and external growth are viewed as higher long-term priorities. Framing a reset strategy What can we learn from the barometer results, and does it help frame strategies as companies look to reset? Looking at differences as well as similarities can give CEOs some bell-weather trends to consider. Take the fact that the barometer portrays businesses as generally optimistic. This helps provide momentum and confidence for the growth outlook, even though executives will consider different growth strategies and action pathways. It is then a question of looking at that growth landscape in more detail, so plans are more robust. Another key takeaway from the barometer is that businesses across the spectrum are prioritising driving technological change in one form or another. This could be implementing technology to transform and improve productivity, reduce costs, capture a business advantage from, say, increased online demand for products and services, or using it to enrich and enhance marketing strategies. Again, it is about capitalising on specific trends within the business sector. One aspect of technological change to keep in focus is the need to mitigate risk. With increasing complexity in the data and privacy regulatory landscape, it is crucial that – similar to technology transformation plans – risk mitigation remains high on CEOs’ agendas.   With the barometer also highlighting a growing appetite for ESG themes, it is essential to keep track of sustainability issues – particularly when reporting. ESG reporting is still not a high enough priority for CEOs, but it will demand greater focus from a risk management perspective in the future. Also not to be overlooked is the opportunity for businesses to create strategic business advantage by becoming an early adopter of, for example, environmentally friendly solutions or applying ESG as a business differentiator. Finally, a more oblique takeaway from the barometer’s high level of business optimism was the importance of investing in resilience. As we saw from government and company reaction at the beginning of the pandemic, lessons of the last economic crisis appeared to have been learned, particularly on the importance of continuity and making businesses more resilient to shocks. There are many examples of companies achieving business continuity success, whether through the ability to add flexibility in the supply chain or rapidly adapt products to meet changing consumer and business needs. It is clear that, where CEOs take the time to fully understand business and regulatory trends and invest in forward-looking strategies such as resilience and sustainability, charting a course out of the crisis will not be driven by short-term optimism alone but a realistic long-term growth strategy. Mark Kennedy is Managing Partner at Mazars in Ireland.

Chartered Accountants in practice have had a lot to contend with over the last six months. Here, they share the lessons learned from the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.Chartered Accountants and their skills have been at the forefront of business during this pandemic, ensuring that businesses across the island of Ireland – including their own – continue to stay afloat. In this feature, three Chartered Accountants describe what challenges they and their clients have faced during the COVID-19 crisis.Members in practice, Conor Woods from Woods & Partners, James Kelliher from Kelliher O’Shea and Wendy Merrigan from Williams Merrigan share their insights on current business challenges, the lessons they have learned during the pandemic and what the future holds for SMEs. Meeting adversity with growthConor Woods FCA, Managing Partner at Woods & Partners, outlines how technology and innovation have enabled him and his staff to keep the business running through the COVID-19 crisis.QHow has your business been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis?Initially, it was a shock to the system for everyone. However, we have invested heavily in our cloud platform over the last five years, so we were able to adapt to remote working relatively seamlessly. The greatest initial challenge was not having a ‘physical' closing meeting with our clients nor being able to have team meetings in the same format we were once familiar with. What is the most challenging aspect of leading a practice in this environment?On-boarding new staff is the most challenging aspect of growing a firm in the present environment. We have hired 12 staff in the last three months and it's challenging to integrate, train and induct them into an organisation where ‘normal office conditions’ do not prevail. The strength of our profession is in the quality of the training that our articled clerks receive in practice, so we must ensure that this training continues to the highest of standards in the current social distancing climate. We have been lucky our size enables us to continue this training which has proven to be a key attraction for high calibre graduates to come to our firm.What business changes have you made to ensure that you continue to deliver for your clients?Due to growth across our practice, we have recently opened new offices in Laois and Cavan to meet client and market needs in these locations. Clients want premium advisory, audit and taxation services close to their businesses without having to travel to Dublin and so we see this as a key opportunity. Additionally, more and more of our staff do not want to commute, so having regional locations helps us with staff retention and attracts a high calibre of staff from the city and larger firms. If you could make one change to the supports available for your clients, what would it be?We would like to see an expansion to the Local Enterprise Office Business Continuity Voucher scheme for another six months for SMEs. This proved to be a hugely supportive and popular scheme for them. What does the future hold for small- and medium-sized accountancy practices, in your opinion?The future is bright and exciting for firms who innovate and continue to re-invest in people and technology. It’s critical that firms maintain financial liquidity and strength to enable them to hire the best and invest in technology within their practices. The firms that have strong technology platforms have found it easier to adjust to the enforced changes in work patterns. I see smaller firms engaging in more collaboration with each other due to increased regulation and, perhaps, more consolidation in this space. As a practice leader, what has been your most important lesson to date?It’s just as important to work on the business as it is to work ‘in the business’. Practices must manage working capital, lock up, and liquidity relentlessly. This is now more important than ever before. This can be difficult as our clients, may want more leniency in terms of credit, support, and time in the present environment, so there is a fine balance to be achieved. Managing client expectations and our own business performance is a pivotal aspect of our own practice strategy.Adapt and be flexibleJames Kelliher FCA, Partner in Kelliher O’Shea, Chartered Accountants, has found that flexibility with staff and clients has been key to navigating business changes that have cropped up because of the pandemic. How has your business been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis?As a small accountancy practice, we offer a wide range of services. We provide bookkeeping services to a number of businesses in the hospitality sector which was impacted severely. We have a diverse client range across many sectors from hospitality, media, motor trade, retail, nursing homes and agriculture who all had various challenges and continue to do so as we work through the crisis. Our workload, in terms of dealing with client queries, increased dramatically, especially around the introduction of the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS) and other government supports. What is the most challenging aspect of leading a practice in this environment?There has been a level of disruption to both the practice and client business which has had a knock-on effect on the timing and delivery of work. The business disruption will have an impact on filing deadlines being met later in 2020 and this will be an issue for our staff and clients in an already demanding year. What business changes have you made to ensure that you continue to deliver for your clients?Although our office was closed for a period, we were still very much accessible throughout for our clients by phone, email and Zoom/Microsoft Teams. We also facilitated some of our staff with young children to work shorter hours. Our audits have been conducted remotely this year; previously, we would have carried out the fieldwork for our larger clients on-site. We have had to be flexible with our clients and cognisant of the fact that some of their finance personnel were also working shorter hours with an enhanced focus on their short-term cashflow management.If you could make one change to the supports available for your clients, what would it be?For many small businesses, funding during the current crisis has not been easily accessible. While the TWSS and Restart Grant were successful, many small businesses failed to secure additional short- or medium-term facilities from their lending institutions as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the crisis and the impact it was having on current trading levels. We would have liked to have seen a simplified, low-interest government loan or capital grant made available for PPE expenditure, which was significant for many SMEs in reopening. What does the future hold for small- and medium-sized accountancy practices, in your opinion?We believe there will be further consolidation within the industry among small- and medium-sized practices. This trend had started pre-COVID-19. The talent pool for small practices was at an all-time low because of the larger firms attracting the majority of graduates to the cities. Consolidation should enable practices to attract better people and possibly offer a more attractive work-life balance that people crave. Smaller practices need to continue to invest in technology and their people, and use technology to move towards a paperless environment. The current crisis has highlighted how reliant we are on technology.As a practice leader, what has been your most important lesson to date?The ability to adapt and be flexible is key to leading our practice and being able to advise our clients. This has never been more prevalent than in the current COVID-19 climate where guidelines that impacted on both decisions that needed to be made for the practice, as well as advice given to our clients, were evolving on a weekly and sometimes daily basis.Focus on positive actionWendy Merrigan FCA, Co-Founder and Director at Williams Merrigan, has seen the workload in her practice increase in the last six months, but believes opportunities are there for accountants who concentrate on serving clients’ needs.How has your business been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis?We have a small team and the level of queries regarding COVID-19 issues has been overwhelming. This has led to a slower turnaround time for some work which has its own impact as we approach large filing deadlines later this year. While working remotely was used by our practice for several years, COVID-19 meant some staff no longer had childcare facilities and had to home-school children for a period. Ensuring staff did not take on too much work and balanced their homelife with their need to provide ongoing quality, timely service to clients, specifically regarding tax filing return deadlines, was a specific challenge. Right now, it is unknown what will occur during winter months regarding schools and this is stressful for staff. What is the most challenging aspect of leading a practice in this environment?Staying on top of the ‘normal’ workload as well as managing client queries. A serious challenge has been planning and scheduling work while also finding time to keep up-to-date with Government and legislative changes as they arise to ensure clients are kept informed. This increased workload has meant I have had less time as I would like with staff members.What business changes have you made to ensure that you continue to deliver for your clients?Responding to email and telephone queries proved highly challenging. For some queries that arose, it became more practical to share information generally by way of email or, in certain circumstances, on social platforms. This has meant less time repeating answers to queries that many clients have. Sharing knowledge with other accountants and making new connections to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on our profession has been beneficial also.If you could make one change to the supports available for your clients, what would it be?Grants have been made available to review cashflows and financing, yet necessary ongoing compliance costs for accountancy services were not included. I would have granted subsidies to businesses to allow their usual monthly or yearly fee to be included in the grants awarded. Ensuring clients have tax clearance for subsidies and grants mean accountancy services were vital for all businesses yet not provided for.What does the future hold for small- and medium-sized accountancy practices, in your opinion?Regardless of size, I believe we are fortunate to have a qualification whereby our services, expertise and advice are continuously sought and needed. Our practice is small yet, as I mentioned, there are always opportunities to be found when you are laser-focused on serving client’s needs. I believe services will always be sought from proactive accountants with good communication skills.As a practice leader, what has been your most important lesson to date?I've realised uncertainty can be positive and have learned to let go of the need for control. Inspiration and creativity come from not being rigid in views or practices. It's important to move with the times and learn to embrace new working environments and social networking platforms to serve client needs efficiently. Above all, the most important lesson has been the realisation that uncertainty is neutral; we can continue to focus on positive action.

Chartered Accountants play a critical role in operations around the world, and many are now guiding their organisations through the uncertainty and economic turmoil wreaked by COVID-19. Accountancy Ireland spoke to several members at the fore of this difficult task. Liam Woods  Director of Acute Operations at the HSE As a member of NPHET (the National Public Health Emergency Team) and with responsibility for the public hospital system in the Republic of Ireland, Liam Woods has played a central role in the country’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. In normal circumstances, Liam oversees acute services and the deployment of a €6 billion budget for the acute hospital system, which covers 48 hospitals across the country. Today, however, he is at the forefront of the public health system’s response to the global pandemic. Liam and his colleagues have worked relentlessly since December 2019, when the first case of coronavirus became known. “At that time, we were aware that there was an emerging set of concerning circumstances in China,” he said. “We are linked in with the World Health Organisation and the European Centre for Disease Control through the Department of Health, so we began receiving information on the situation almost immediately.” According to Liam, the threat to Ireland was confirmed by the Italian experience, with Ireland’s first case confirmed in late February 2020. This in turn led to an escalation of the pre-existing national crisis management structures. “Once we saw Italy’s crisis unfold, we implemented the HSE emergency management structures and assessed emerging scenarios and the subsequent requirements for intensive care capacity, acute capacity, and community capacity,” he added. “As March approached, we expected a major surge in cases of COVID-19. That surge did occur, but we didn’t see the levels experienced by Italy and that was primarily down to the public health measures taken in February and March.” As the pandemic progressed, areas under Liam’s remit such as the National Ambulance Service became increasingly critical elements of the response strategy. But as the pressure increased, so too did staff absence. “Today (30 April), 2,800 colleagues are absent in the acute system with a further 2,000 absent in the community system related to COVID-19,” he said. “That is a big challenge for the frontline, as is the procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE). Our procurement teams are working night and day to secure the necessary equipment to protect our workers.” That effort has been supplemented by the overwhelming generosity of individuals and businesses according to Liam. “We had a massive response from the business community and society as a whole, from distillery companies manufacturing antibacterial hand gel to people making face shields using 3D printers,” he added. “Beating this virus has become a truly collective effort and those working in the HSE really felt and appreciated that.” Although restrictions are now being cautiously eased, Liam expects the workload to remain relentless. “At a personal level, it is demanding but if you work in the health system and understand how it needs to operate, you at least feel that you can make a direct contribution and a lot of positivity comes from that. The response of frontline staff in hospital and community services has been amazing and the commitment to delivering care has been key to the success to date in responding to what is a global crisis.” Tia Crowley  CEO at Western Care Tia Crowley had an “unusual” induction to the role of CEO at Western Care, as her appointment coincided with Leo Varadkar’s statement in Washington on the first wave of measures to tackle COVID-19 in Ireland. Given that her organisation provides services and supports to adults and children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism in Co. Mayo, Tia was very conscious of the need for – and challenges to – the provision of her organisation’s services. “When the COVID-19 restrictions were imposed initially, we risk-assessed all areas of service provision and made the difficult decision to close day/respite services and limit community support services to essential supports that could be provided safely,” she said. Many of the organisation’s 950 staff were reassigned to support Western Care’s residential services, which now operate on a 24-hour basis. According to Tia, maintaining an optimum level of service while securing adequate PPE for frontline workers is a constant concern – but there are longer-term challenges in the horizon. “I, and the new management team, had hoped to bring in a balanced budget for 2020 after prolonged periods of cutbacks, deficits and containment cycles. However, a shock 1% cut to funding allocations across the sector coupled with the impact of COVID-19 will impact our ability to meet the demand for our services within our existing allocation,” she said. “The cost of the crisis, and the associated long-term implication for funding, is a challenge that is constantly on our minds. But at the moment, our focus has to remain on keeping our service users and staff safe.” Aside from financing, one thing preventing organisations like Western Care operating to their full potential is an overly burdensome compliance regime, Tia added. “I hope the Government recognises how organisations like Western Care responded to this crisis and the support they provided to the HSE when it was most needed,” she continued. “After the worst of this crisis passes, I would like to see a streamlined regulatory environment where, once an organisation is deemed to comply with a basic set of standards, that is accepted by all regulators. We, like others, struggle to comply with multiple regulators and compliance regimes and at last count, more than 35 different regimes applied to Western Care.” Despite the many challenges, Tia has noticed certain positives amid the bleak backdrop. “The atmosphere of cooperation throughout the organisation has reinforced my belief in human nature and I hear stories of resilience among service users, families and staff who have gone over and above to support families in crisis and keep service users happy and content,” she said. “We are also building supportive relationships with the HSE locally as we turn to them for support and guidance. But equally, we provide them with reassurance and support too because we are all in this together.” Ultimately, Tia’s hope for the future is a simple one. “I hope that we can emerge from this pandemic with a sense of pride and renewed purpose, knowing that we have come through one of the most significant events in our lifetime and that everyone in Western Care did their best.” Dermot Crowley  Dalata Hotel Group Dalata Hotel Group was quick to respond to the threat of coronavirus to its business. From cancelling its shareholder dividend to renegotiating with lenders, the company has cut its cloth and according to Dermot Crowley, Deputy Chief Executive, Dalata is well-positioned to weather a long storm. “We have always been very careful with our gearing and as things stand, we have access to €145 million in funding,” he said. “We immediately created a worst-case scenario of zero revenue for the remainder of the year. We examined every cost item and calculated our cash burn. The major fixed costs are elements of payroll, rent and interest. Having done that exercise, we were in a position to reassure our shareholders that we could survive at least until the end of the year on a zero-revenue model.” As it happens, the company is still generating revenue. Dalata raised a further €65 million in April when it sold its Clayton Charlemont Hotel in a sale and leaseback transaction and although most of the company’s hotels are formally closed, Dalata responded to requests from governments and health agencies to accommodate frontline workers, asylum seekers and the homeless – often at much-reduced costs. Meanwhile, all other hotels have management and maintenance teams in place to ensure that all properties are ready to re-open at short notice. While some workers remain, the company was forced to lay-off 3,500 staff at the outset of the crisis, but Dermot is determined to re-employ as many people as possible as restrictions ease and trading conditions improve. “One of the most frustrating things about this crisis is letting our people go. We invest a huge amount in our staff and last year alone, we had 350 colleagues in development programmes. We also take on 35 people each year through graduate programmes and we have several trainee Chartered Accountants in our employ,” he said. “We absolutely want to take everyone back on.” Despite the company’s preparations for the ‘new normal’, whatever (and whenever) that might be, Dermot remains cautious in his outlook for the sector. “Dalata is a very ambitious company and we have a lot of new hotels in the pipeline, but the reality is that we are likely to be facing lower occupancies once the restrictions are lifted,” he said. “When we re-open, the domestic market will be the first part of the business to recover but the international market could take quite some time depending on travel restrictions.” At its AGM at the end of April, the company confirmed that earnings fell almost 25% in the first three months of the year to €17.7 million. With even worse results certain for the period after 31 March and normality a distant prospect, Dermot expects the sector to experience both tragedy and opportunity in the months ahead. “Some companies will not make it through this crisis and that’s just reality,” he said. “That will create some opportunities. We built a strong company after the last crisis, but I do not see the same fallout in Ireland as in the UK this time around. The UK has many old properties and companies with high gearing ratios, so that may be where the most changes will occur.” Naomi Holland International Treasurer at Intel As International Treasurer and Senior Director of Tax at Intel, Naomi Holland had a demanding role before COVID-19 became a threat, but her role has since expanded as she – and her colleagues – seek to protect the chipmaker and its people from the threat posed by coronavirus. As leader of Intel’s Global Tax & Treasury Virus Task Force, Naomi also sits on the Global Finance Virus Task Force, which develops and implements Intel’s crisis response for the corporation’s worldwide finance function. This is not just a strategic project for Naomi, however. Her global role means that she has direct responsibility for employees in some of the worst affected areas of the world. “I have teams based in China where we were dealing with the outbreak from early 2020,” she said. While it was largely restricted at that stage, the China situation effectively became a test-run for the global pandemic that was to come.” Some employee considerations included colleagues who had returned home for the Chinese New Year and became confined to their province, others were on secondment outside their home country and Intel needed to assess the return home versus the remain in situ options, and some countries’ lockdown notice was so short that staff ended up not returning home to their families and were confined alone. In the early days of the crisis, Naomi and her colleagues engaged in extensive scenario planning. They considered single sites closing down, multiple sites closing down, and the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks on the organisation’s operability. That led to a rationalisation of activity to ensure that critical functions remained up and running. “In addition to ensuring that we had the necessary contingencies in place should a person, team or site fall victim to COVID-19, it was also essential that we prioritised our activity,” she said. “This required significant coordination as we needed to ensure that our partner organisations around the world were satisfied with what remained on our priority list and, importantly, what didn’t.” This required extensive communication, which was central to Intel’s response according to Naomi. “We were acutely aware that people needed information,” she said. “So, we focused on our internal communications and developed a ‘people’ track to complement that.” This was particularly important for Naomi, whose team spans several countries including Ireland, the Netherlands, Israel, India, and China. Her leaderhip remit meant the US teams were also on her agenda. Despite the complexity, Intel’s quick response meant that the company “didn’t miss a beat”, according to Naomi. “COVID-19 has forced all companies to assess items including their liquidity, their work-from-home capability, and their technological infrastructure,” she added. “We took all the necessary decisions, amended procedures as required and augmented our hardware in places. The greater complexity, of course, resided within our factory and logistics networks but I am proud to say that their delivery can only be described as incredible.” As the shock factor subsides and people increasingly become resigned to the prospect of living and working alongside COVID-19 for the foreseeable future, Naomi is determined to maintain her focus on her people and their mental health. “I’ve always said that people are a company’s best asset and if this crisis has taught me anything, it’s in our augmented ability to deliver when we operate as one team despite the circumstances,” she said. “The first six months of 2020 have been a traumatic time for many. However, with senior executives leading from the front and maintaining communication with their people, this crisis is in fact humanising us and helping us connect with our colleagues on a more personal level.” Shauna Burns Managing Director at Beyond Business Travel Beyond Business Travel is ten years old this year and like the rest of the travel sector, it faces severe challenges due to COVID-19. According to Shauna Burns, the company’s Managing Director, 2020 was the year the firm planned to reach £20 million in turnover and build on its investment in Ireland following last year’s opening of offices in Dublin and Cork. The impact of the pandemic was felt by the company in February, according to Shauna, when FlyBe entered administration. March then saw the domino effect of countries closing their borders, which presented a unique set of challenges. “We had clients and staff located all over the world, and we had to work 24/7 to ensure they got home quickly,” she said. The company was also involved in the Ireland’s Call initiative to bring home medical professionals to work in the HSE and NHS. After this initial flurry of activity, Shauna and her team had to take both a strategic and forensic view of the business amid a fast-changing business landscape. “Difficult but essential decisions had to be made on operational continuity and cash flow while engaging with our key stakeholders and looking into the potential for financial assistance from Government,” she added. “From the off, we were determined that our company’s core values around excellent customer service would not change. We retained some key staff to provide ongoing information and to ensure that clients who urgently need to travel can do so. This comes at a financial cost in terms of maintaining our premises and fixed overheads, but it is a decision we believe will benefit the business in the long run.” With one eye on the easing of travel restrictions, Shauna’s firm is also compiling information and advice for companies whose people must resume travel, so that they make informed decisions and manage the impact of COVID-19 on their business. The travel industry will re-open and travellers will take to the air again, she said, but they will travel less often and with an increased focus on traveller health and safety. “We expect to operate below capacity for the immediate future, so part-time furlough allows us to raise activity in line with demand,” she said. “Consequently, we are looking at our offering and service lines, and right-sizing our business for the ‘new normal’. There are opportunities to become leaner, faster, and more efficient, and digitalisation is a core element of that process. “We now have an opportunity to ask ourselves if the business were starting from scratch, what would we do differently and reimagine what this looks like ,” she added. “But for our business, restoring confidence in the safety of air travel is a vital pre-requisite to enabling recovery and with more than one third of global trade by value moving by air, it will also be vital for the recovery of the global economy.” The entrepreneurs Growing businesses with finite resources are very vulnerable to economic shocks, but one Chartered Accountant is using technology to weather the storm. Fiona Smiddy, Founder of Green Outlook, had three active revenue streams before the onset of COVID-19 – e-commerce, markets/event retail, and corporate services including speaking engagements. She is now down to one viable revenue stream, but the growth in online retail has allowed her company to grow during the pandemic. Fiona runs a tight ship from a cost perspective. She outsourced her order fulfilment activity in 2019 and engaged the services of a ‘virtual CFO’ who keeps her focused on her KPIs. “Green Outlook turned one year old at the end of March and the key challenge remains brand awareness and cash flow management,” she said. “The company is self-funded with no outside investment or loans, so I am restricted to organic growth.” Green Outlook continues to support Irish suppliers, with 22 Irish brands represented among the more than 170 sustainable, plastic-free products available online, and Fiona cites this as a contributory factor in her success. “I have noticed a huge uplift in supporting local and Irish businesses and I hope this continues post-COVID-19,” she said. Brendan Halpin, Founder of WeSwitchU.ie, also hopes to support Irish businesses and households in the months ahead. He launched his new company in March 2020, just as the lockdown came into effect, but having spent 2019 in the development phase, he is certain that now is the right time to launch a cost-saving business. WeSwicthU.ie is a digital platform that finds the best electricity and gas energy plan for individual households each year and even as COVID-19 reached Ireland, Brendan did not consider it a threat to his business. “It was pandemic-proof in a sense because our entire proposition is online. From the comfort of your home, the platform takes the stress and hassle out of switching and saving money on customers’ home electricity and gas bills,” he added. “The only change in the business plan was on the marketing side; I had intended to be out and about meeting people, but that activity simply moved online.” While the market reaction has been positive so far, Brendan is conscious that any planned expansion would require funding – and that may be a challenge as the economic malaise becomes more entrenched. “I have funded the business myself so far but if I really want to grow, the next step will involve external financing,” he said. “I do hope that the Government and State agencies will help start-ups like mine grow through their relevant phases despite the uncertainty that lies ahead.”

Six influential Chartered Accountants in business and politics share their stories. Chartered Accountants are in many ways a driving force in the economy. With more than 16,000 members working in industry, and many in C-suite roles, our colleagues are found in every sector and at every level. In the pages that follow, we meet a number of trailblazing Chartered Accountants at various stages in their career. Each has had a significant influence on Ireland Inc. and continues to exemplify the very best aspects of the profession. From Sharon Cunningham, Co-Founder of Shorla Pharma to Michael Cawley, former Deputy Chief Executive at Ryanair, these profiles offer a snapshot of the talent and influence within the membership – qualities that will be in high demand in these uncertain times. Senan Murphy The CRH Group Finance Director discusses his journey from technical subject matter expert to general manager and leader. CRH Group Finance Director, Senan Murphy, divides his career into five chapters, beginning with his education and training as a Chartered Accountant and culminating in his current role. “I was interested in maths, business and science in school and did a BComm in UCD,” he recalls. “You could take a number of routes after that, but Chartered Accountancy looked the most interesting to me. I did a Diploma in Professional Accounting, which took the first three years out of the accounting exams at the time.” Senan joined Arthur Andersen in 1990 when it was one of the so-called Big 8. “I stayed there for five years and it was a very good place to work. It was a great transition from college into the real world. I moved into industry in 1995.” That saw him move to GE and begin chapter two. “Practice is a great experience, but you are an adviser. I wanted to be part of the execution and implementation; not just give advice and come back the following year to see how it worked out.” His GE career took in finance, acquisitions and business development in Europe and then the US, before moving back to Europe to what became GE Money. But the call of home was loud, and he moved back to Ireland with his wife and children in 2003 to begin the next chapter with Eddie O’Connor in Airtricity. “I stayed and helped grow the business until it was sold to SSE in 2008,” he said. That saw the beginning of chapter four with Senan moving into banking, first with RBS Ulster Bank and then Bank of Ireland. “2008 was an interesting time for the sector,” he noted with at least a hint of humour. “When something is in a crisis, you learn more than when things are going smoothly. It was a tough time for the banking industry but an interesting time to be part of it.” He sees the transition from subject matter expert to general management as quite natural for a Chartered Accountant. “The move from accountancy to financial leader to general management happens naturally. You start off learning about the financial side, but most of the job is about managing people. It’s about collaborating, working in teams and leading teams. As a financial manager, you get more and more involved in the commercial and operational sides of the business. In Airtricity, I became more and more involved in growing the business. “In some ways, it’s good to leave the numbers behind,” he continues. “As you go on, it’s about building good teams around you. The expertise around you comes from them. You become an orchestrator in a way. Accountants all start off the same way, and a lot of Chartered Accountants own their own business or end up running businesses. We don’t all stay in the financial world.” His fifth chapter sees him back in the role of Group Finance Director with CRH. “It’s a large organisation with lots of operating companies around the world. My job is to help drive performance and improve the business, but I also help to recruit, develop and promote talent globally. I also spend a fair amount of time talking to the owners of businesses. We have lots of shareholders around the world who want to hear from us.” For Senan, the people agenda is the most enjoyable. “That’s the part I enjoy most. I’m always pleasantly surprised by the people coming through the system who are more capable than their years might suggest. I also enjoy meeting shareholders. Some are supportive; some are quite challenging. Those two parts are very enjoyable.” He believes Chartered Accountancy has provided a good grounding for his career. “When you come out of college, you have to decide if you want to go into a business or go into practice and train as an accountant there. Practice is a good place to start with people of a similar age. You have to be a team player and learn to work with others. You have a number of clients and you have to build relationships with them. You’re not quite in a sales role, but you are really.” Michael Cawley Michael Cawley recalls his unorthodox path to Chartered Accountancy and life as the second in command at one of the world’s most successful airlines. With the candour we’ve come to expect from people associated with Ryanair, Michael Cawley says his reasons for becoming a Chartered Accountant were mostly materialistic. “My sister had a few boyfriends who were accountants and they had cars,” he says. “That was quite impressive, and it stuck out as most people didn’t have cars at that time.” Having never studied accountancy in school, Michael chose to pursue a commerce degree in UCC. “I liked it, and I went to Coopers & Lybrand afterwards. I spent three years auditing, and I hated it with a passion! The moment I qualified and finished my training contract, I walked out the door.” After a year teaching in UCC, he went into industry with the Cork-based motor dealer, Frank Boland. “I wanted to be in the middle of the action rather than just recording what had happened. I worked there until 1981 when I moved to Dublin to work for Kodak for five years.” His next move was to Athlone Extrusions as Managing Director. He led a management buy-out (MBO) of the company in 1990, the biggest such transaction in Irish corporate history at the time. The company later went on to a public flotation. After that, he moved back to the motor industry with Gowan Group in 1993. “I enjoyed my time there, but it was a family-owned company, so there was no prospect of a stake in the business,” he says. His move to Ryanair in 1997 as CFO and later, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer had its roots in the Athlone Extrusions MBO. “I worked on it with Gerry McEvoy in KPMG and Tony Ryan was one of his clients. I stayed in contact with him and he knew I had ambitions beyond the Gowan Group. I was 42 or 43 at the time and I wanted to really have a good lash at something. Ryanair was about to float at the time.” That connection led him to join the airline at a crucial stage in its history. “Incredible as it may sound, I got on with Michael O’Leary from day one. I had a good few rows with him over the years as well, of course. It was always exciting, sometimes frustrating, but I was extremely lucky to be involved. It suited me from the outset.” He describes it as a phenomenal opportunity. “Low fares were in their infancy back then. We transformed air travel across Europe. I have dealt with more than 300 airports across Europe; lots of them were a bit like Knock back then, small with a few connections. We breathed life into many communities and helped them build up tourism industries. Bergamo in Italy had 130,000 passengers when we started there; that increased to 13 million by 2014. Charleroi grew from 30,000 to 7.5 million.” He stepped down from his executive role with Ryanair in 2014. He took up several non-executive directorships with a wide range of organisations including the Gowan Group, Kingspan plc, Fáilte Ireland and, of course, Ryanair. “I was 60 and grandchildren had started to come along,” he explains. “When I joined, we had 3.5 million passengers, and when I left, we had reached 83 million. It was 142 million last year. I’m delighted to still be on the board. I’m in and out every five or six weeks to catch up, so I haven’t really left. I’ve also been lucky enough to have become involved in a number of very fine businesses.” Michael concludes by   emphasising the need to keep pace with change. “You have to be open to change. Despite the advent of artificial intelligence and so on, accountants will still be able to master their environment. But we have to stay up-to-speed and be flexible and humble about the need to change. You can be top of the pyramid today, and irrelevant in six months’ time.” Ronan Dunne Ronan Dunne, the self-declared “accidental accountant”, has taken opportunities as they arose – and to great effect. A stellar career that has seen Ronan Dunne become Executive Vice President and CEO of Verizon Consumer Group, the largest division of the world’s biggest telecoms company, could have been very different if not for a teachers’ strike back in 1981. “I was all set to do Law in UCD, but there was an examiners’ strike the year I did the Leaving Cert,” he says. “The papers couldn’t be marked and there were no college offers.” And then fate took a hand in the form of intervention by Terry O’Rourke, Managing Partner of Touche Ross, and a past pupil of his school. “He contacted the Dean and said if anyone was interested, they had three to four unfilled slots for trainee accountants. I was one of those kids who was always fascinated by finance. My dad worked for Shell in a finance role and I was always interested in it.” A phone call from the Dean and a chat with O’Rourke sealed the deal. “It sounded like an interesting opportunity, so I decided to give it a go. I am an accidental accountant.” Six years later, the newly qualified Chartered Accountant was about to experience his next encounter with fate. An injury in his final year at school had put paid to a promising rugby career, but he was also an excellent soccer player and went on to play at senior level for the Mount Merrion club in south Dublin. “We were playing in a soccer tournament in Wales, and I visited my brother in London as part of the trip. I was sitting in his apartment when my mother rang, saying a lady had called about a job interview. The job was in London so I borrowed a suit and tie from my brother, went for the interview that afternoon with BNP and by 4.30pm had a job offer. It was 1987 and the markets were on fire. They couldn’t recruit fast enough. I signed a contract, went back home and packed my bags, and returned to London three weeks later.” Rapid promotion followed, and by the age of 25 Ronan had become the chief accountant at the bank. He then switched to the banking side of the operation where he dealt mainly with major US corporates with operations in Europe. And then came a call to jump the fence. That saw him switch to senior finance and treasury roles, first with Waste Management International and then with transport and logistics group, Exel. Dunne’s next move saw him follow his former boss at Exel into BT Mobile, which was about to become O2 and de-merge from its parent. “In 2005, O2 was acquired by Telefónica and I became CEO of Telefónica UK in 2007,” he says. “That was an interesting back story. When I became CFO in 2004, my boss gave me responsibility for legal and regulation, then procurement, and then asked me to take on HR as well. After a while, I pointed out that I was doing all the heavy lifting and doing three jobs instead of one. He said I had missed the point. I clearly had the capability to be a general manager, and he was getting me ready to be a success in such a role. I still thought my future was as a big public company CFO. My boss and my chairman saw my potential before I did.” Dunne’s departure to Verizon followed a blocked sale of the business to Hutchinson in 2015. “I had decided to leave once the deal was closed. I had a fairly extensive non-compete agreement, so I had to move sector or move geography. Verizon is the largest telecoms company in the world and when I got that approach, there was no way I would turn it down. In late 2016, we headed off to New Jersey.” “My training as a Chartered Accountant has been incredibly valuable at every stage in my career,” he adds. “It really is best-in-class, and I don’t think there is a better skillset out there. In my opinion, a good Chartered Accountant is better than any MBA from any business school in the world. It’s the best business qualification out there.” And he has some advice for his fellow accountants. “The biggest challenge and opportunity for accountants is to realise that your success is measured not by what you do, but by what you can make happen and the influence you have on people. Building teams, coaching and developing them, and bringing them on a journey with you is what’s most important.” Sharon Cunningham Ambition and tenacity helped Sharon Cunningham forge a path from practice to the cutting edge of pharmaceutical innovation and entrepreneurship.   Award-winning entrepreneur, Sharon Cunningham, learned about business and accounts literally at the kitchen table. The Shorla Pharma founder was interested in business from a very early age. “Both of my parents owned companies, and it was ingrained in us from a very young age. They did the books on the kitchen table. I used to go to the accountants with my mother and was fascinated by the questions the accountant would ask. My mother was focused on things like sales and cash and had her own goals. The accountant was asking about things like profit margins, inventory management and so on.” That early inspiration led her to a degree in finance in UCC. “I wasn’t 100% sure what I was going to do when I went to college at first, but by the time I finished I knew I wanted to be a Chartered Accountant and wanted to get a training contract, preferably with one of the Big 4.” Sharon went to work with PwC in Waterford initially but soon found herself travelling to Dublin, Chicago, New York and London. “It was fun but difficult; it was lots of hard work, but it was great. I went on an international secondment to an investment fund in Manhattan. That was a great experience.” Her move to industry came about almost by chance. “At the height of the recession in December 2010, I was working on a very challenging audit. A colleague of mine got wind of a job going in a pharmaceutical company I had never heard of in Waterford. I met with the co-founders of EirGen, Tom Brennan and Patsy Carney. They are very inspirational people, and I joined the company.” Having spent seven years with the company, initially as a management accountant and later as Head of Finance, Sharon decided that it was time to start her own venture with her colleague, Orlaith Ryan. “EirGen was sold to a multinational in 2015 for $135 million in a very successful exit,” she explains. “After the takeover, the company started to change and was no longer the entrepreneurial organisation that we knew and loved. The excitement wasn’t there anymore, and both of us knew it was time to move on.” Their idea was to establish a speciality pharmaceutical company based in Clonmel, which would develop a pipeline of innovative oncology drugs for women’s and children’s cancers. “We spent two years planning Shorla at night and in our spare time, and we launched the company in January 2018,” says Cunningham. “Both of us would say that at no point were we scared. We believed in ourselves and our vision for what we wanted to do; we never thought it would fail.” That confidence was well-founded. “We don’t have billions of dollars and 20 years to wait like major pharmaceutical corporations. We are not a major corporation, nor are we a generics company. We are somewhere in between. We take existing active substances and do something novel with them. We put them to different uses and make them less toxic to the patient. The time to market is much quicker. Business is great and we are very busy. We are in the middle of multi-million euro ‘Series A’ funding round and we are growing and scaling up for the US market launch of our first product, a breast and ovarian cancer drug.” It is a bit unusual for a Chartered Accountant to set up a pharmaceutical company, she concedes. “But accountancy is a very useful skill to have in any industry. The Chartered Accountant qualification gives you a certain degree of confidence when you talk about numbers; people listen to you and don’t tend to probe too much. They accept and trust what you say. The profession as a whole has a very positive impact on society.” Sharon’s experience has taught her the value of planning. “It’s much more beneficial to work smarter, not harder,” she says. “Everyone should sit down and decide what they want to do and what they want to be, and then map out a way to get there. Don’t get bogged down in small details; don’t sweat the small stuff.” Michael McGrath Having moved from practice to politics via industry, Michael McGrath has brought his training and experience to bear in his role as Fianna Fáil’s finance spokesperson. One of the most prominent faces in politics in recent years has been that of Fianna Fáil finance spokesperson, Michael McGrath. The Cork South Central deputy has earned plaudits for his work on tracker mortgages and the regulation of so-called vulture funds, among other pressing issues. And he attributes at least part of that success to his training as a Chartered Accountant. “There is no doubt about it, the training I received as a Chartered Accountant has proven to be far more valuable than I ever thought it would,” he says. “It equipped me with the skills to get to grips with the finance portfolio. It also makes you comfortable with numbers and reaching informed decisions. The analytical skills you acquire are hugely valuable when it comes to problem-solving.” He started out on his professional and political journeys at a very young age. “I was the first member of my family to go to college when I went to study Commerce in UCC having just turned 17,” he recalls. “My first election was a contested role in the Commerce and Economics Society, and I won.” Having completed his degree in 1997, he joined KPMG in Cork. “I wanted to stay in Cork and was keen to get a professional qualification. I stayed for four years and was fortunate to work with a number of companies and organisations in a variety of sectors.” Then came the move into industry. “Following the end of the training contract, an excellent opportunity came up to join Red FM, a new start-up commercial radio station in Cork. I joined as Financial Controller in late 2001. The station had yet to go on air, and I was involved in helping set up the processes and systems to run it. It was great working for a station with a youth focus. I was reporting to the CEO and the board, and I enjoyed the diverse range of responsibilities. It was very nice having a company car as a 25-year-old, of course. I didn’t think things could get much better.” He left Red FM for a relatively short stint in the UCC finance function. “It was quite a senior role and a step up for me,” he notes. But the call of politics was loud. “I always had an interest in politics in parallel with my working life,” he explains. “I was fortunate to live in a town that still had a town council. That provided a fantastic platform for a young person to contest an election. A few hundred votes was all you needed to get elected. I ran in 1999 at the age of 22 and managed to get elected. My heart was set on politics after that.” Michael was elected to Cork County Council in 2004 and quickly realised he couldn’t continue working full-time. “I resigned from UCC in 2005 and found some part-time work to tide me through the next year and a half.” Election to the Dáil in 2007 followed. Re-election in 2011 was an altogether more difficult proposition, however. “It was an incredibly tough election. Fianna Fáil lost over 50 seats. At a time when the party vote collapsed, I managed to take the fifth and final seat. I focused on playing my part in rebuilding the party after that. Brian Lenihan passed away in June 2011, and I was appointed spokesperson on finance.” He enjoys his role as a public representative. “It is an enormous privilege to be a member of Dáil Éireann, and I still pinch myself walking in as a member. As a T.D., I am juggling a number of responsibilities. I have the finance portfolio and at a local level, I try to serve people to the best of my ability. What I get most out of it is being able to help people. Very often, people come in with difficult and sensitive issues. Sometimes they need guidance; sometimes they need someone to fight their corner.” Serving in government remains an ambition, of course. “Having spent nine years as finance spokesperson and four years involved in confidence and supply, to present a budget as Minister for Finance would naturally be an ambition,” he says. Fergal O’Dwyer Fergal O’Dwyer is one of the driving forces that helped turn DCC into the industrial powerhouse it is today. DCC is one of those quiet Irish success stories. Since its flotation in 1994, it has grown into a significant force in the energy, electronics and healthcare sectors with a substantial presence in 17 countries. From an investor perspective, the company delivered returns of nearly 7,000% up to the beginning of 2020. One constant throughout that success has been Chief Financial Officer, Fergal O’Dwyer, who joined the company in 1989 when it was still a venture capital firm. “Shortly after I joined, the company decided to change its colours and become an industrial group,” he recalls. “That required a complete transformation. We had a number of minority investments and had to decide which ones fitted in with the new strategy and which did not. Between 1990 and 1994, we spent our time moving out of some of them and moving to ownership positions in the others. I am not aware of other companies that made that strategic change.” He began his accountancy career with Craig Gardner (now PwC) almost straight out of school due to a natural aptitude. “I did maths and accountancy subjects at school and was always going to head towards finance or accountancy. I didn’t have a burning desire to be an accountant or anything, I sort of gravitated towards it.” O’Dwyer qualified as a Chartered Accountant at the age of 21 with a year or so of his training contract remaining. Ireland was in the depths of a recession at the time, and the search for opportunities took him overseas. His search took him and his wife to South Africa. “After we got married in 1983, we headed off to South Africa. I worked for three years there for Thomson McLintock, which represented KPMG at the time, and came back to PwC in 1986.” That move back led him indirectly to DCC. “I had clients who were looking for development capital, and I had worked on a number of deals on their behalf with DCC and they had worked out well for everyone. In 1989, I got a call from the founder and former CEO of DCC, Jim Flavin, who asked me to join the firm.” That was a major change. “I became an associate director of a venture capital company. I was dealing with entrepreneurs and building relationships with them. I learned about the venture capital focus on return on capital employed. That’s still the same mantra in DCC to this day. What is the return we are going to get on every euro? We aim to get a circa 15% return because we want returns well in excess of the cost of capital.” He describes the transformation from venture capitalist to industrial group as “very exciting”, but the flotation in 1994 was not without its challenges. “The flotation was a success, but we didn’t raise any capital, and our share price didn’t perform for quite a long time. We wore out a lot of shoe leather explaining our business and strategy. It has been all about constant delivery over the years, getting investors to listen and building a following. We were growing revenue, growing profits, growing cash flow, but still were having to work hard to sell the story. It was frustrating, but we had to accept that the market is always right.” His advice to other Chartered Accountants starting out on their careers is to keep learning. “The qualification equips you to do much more than just the numbers. You’ve got to interpret and advise on them. I still learn every day and you have to try to learn all the time. And you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. You can find business to be stressful, but if you put in the work and effort, it can be rewarding and fulfilling.”

Accountancy Ireland started out as a replacement for the members’ and students’ bulletins. 50 years on, it is one of the most valued member services provided by the Institute. In June 1969 – the same month that General Franco closed Spain’s frontier with Gibraltar, Georges Pompidou was sworn in as President of France, and Joe Frazier knocked out Jerry Quarry in round eight to win the heavyweight boxing title – the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland published the first issue of Accountancy Ireland. In an understated ‘Word of Introduction’ on page 10, the magazine’s founding editor Ben Lynch described the magazine’s objective as being a “communications link” between the Institute and its members and students. 50 years and three editors later, the magazine remains faithful to its founding principle. Constancy amid change In the intervening years, Accountancy Ireland has helped the profession navigate a business and economic landscape that has changed utterly. From Ireland’s accession to the European Economic Community to dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis, our members – in sharing their insights and expertise through Accountancy Ireland – have supported and informed each other through one evolution after another. In this anniversary issue, we look back on some of the seismic events that have challenged the profession over the past five decades. Some are technical in nature while others are social and geopolitical, but the most striking thing about leafing through old issues is the realisation that, despite the changes brought about by technology, Chartered Accountants have been consistently driven by the same core value of integrity – which to this day remains one of the Institute’s five core values as outlined in Strategy 2020. “It is your journal” The pages that follow will take readers down memory lane with, we hope, a sense of nostalgia and enjoyment. And while looking back is always a useful exercise, it is incumbent on the editorial team to remain focused on the future. The information needs of the profession will continue to evolve, and we will endeavour to meet those needs as admirably as our predecessors did, but we will also consider how to share information in a way that is accessible, convenient and in keeping with modern news consumption as both trends and technologies change. While we can of course benchmark ourselves against similar publications and other international publications to which we aspire, our best source of guidance are the members we serve. Over the years, your input has driven many innovations within Accountancy Ireland – not least the launch of our podcast, which is now listened to around the world, and an increasingly tailored suite of publications that includes Briefly, Vision and Chartered Accountants Abroad. As we look to the next 50 years, your views and suggestions will help us shape our strategy and deliver information and insight in a way that meets your needs. To that end, please share your thoughts with us at editor@accountancyireland.ie – and criticism will be equally welcome, if not more so. As Mr Lynch quoted in 1969, “It is your journal. Contribute to it if you are able, praise it if it serves you well and criticise it if you must. By these actions you can help to make the journal a live force in the progress of the profession.” His words are as valid today as they were 50 years ago. You can see look into the past 50 years of Accountancy Ireland here.

Since the turn of this century, the accountancy profession has undergone exponential development and evolution. Not so long ago the stereotypical view (rightly or wrongly) of an accountant was of a dull, old, grey-haired man (not a typo!) crunching the numbers in a back office. Expectations were low; these accountants were not ‘people people’. They probably didn’t interact with customers. They had limited contact with other departments within organisations. Decision-making and the setting of the strategy was not the role of the accountant but of the sales and commercial team, which was the driving force in most organisations. Fast-forward to 2019, and there are some interesting facts concerning Chartered Accountants. Consider this, from the Institute’s 2018 Annual Report: Eight of the top 10 Irish companies have a Chartered Accountant as either CEO or Chief Financial Officer; 41% of the roughly 27,300 members of Chartered Accountants Ireland as at 31 December 2018 were aged 37 or under; 64% of the membership work in business with further analysis of the membership suggesting that roughly 700 are CEOs, 900 are business owners, and 2,800 are directors; and At 31 December 2018, women constituted 41.5% of the membership. Chartered Accountants are business leaders. Accountancy practices are recording unprecedented growth rates in both fees and employee numbers. So, what has happened in the last 20 years that revolutionised our profession and how we are perceived? A few key drivers have changed the skill set of the successful accountant: The impact of technology on record-keeping; The effect of technology on how we do things; The availability of data; and The expectations of clients/stakeholders. The impact of technology on record-keeping It is no secret that technology has changed the nature of accounting. The transition from the manual capture of transactions to the use of computerised application packages is one of the most significant changes in recent years. I remember my first assignment vividly as a trainee accountant. I had to prepare an organisation’s year-end financial statements.  The process went as follows: Record purchase and sales invoices manually onto a paper-based sales and purchases ledger daybook; Record all the payments made during the year by manually writing up all payments in the paper-based payments ledger using the cheque stubs; and Manually prepare a bank reconciliation, and so on and on. I wrote everything in pencil: no typing, no Excel formulas – all manual. One mistake in totting and I had to start over. My trainee days were not all that long ago, and it has been exciting to observe the changes in record-keeping in the intervening years. The accountant has evolved from a data processor to an analyst. Mundane processing no longer consumes his or her time, allowing the accountant to step out of the detail and begin to analyse, interpret, question and provide insights thereby meeting the current expectations of the accountant. While technical ability is still an assumed skill, analytical and problem-solving skills are now a standard requirement on any job description for an accountant both in practice and business. The form of examinations for trainee Chartered Accountants has changed in recent years, particularly at FAE level, to meet this expectation of our qualified accountants. The exams, through case study scenarios, reward students for their ability to apply technical knowledge to given situations and resolve problems identified rather than just regurgitating memorised material.  The effect of technology on how we do things In recent years, there have been significant changes in how we “do” our work (outside of record-keeping, as set out above) with advancements in technology. Basics such as email and social media have enabled easier and quicker communication and information flow. Take the audit profession as an example, which has transformed in the last decade due to an increased focus on technology in audit methodologies or simply as a tool to collate our audit documentation. It is impossible to avoid the phenomena of blockchain, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence. All these have begun to change how we do things, but more is to come as these technologies start to unfold and usage gathers pace. RPA, for example, automates high-volume, low-complexity administrative tasks.  The use of RPA will not replace the entire job of the accountant, but it will save time in performing specific basic tasks which, as alluded to earlier, will allow the accountant to concentrate on analysing and interpreting data rather than producing it. The spread of digital technologies and their impact on business has transformed, and will continue to transform, accounting and the competencies that professional accountants require. Accountants will need to be technology-aware and embrace technology as part of their day-to-day work. 57% of those members who completed the Chartered Accountants Leinster Society Annual Salary Survey 2018 believed that automation would have a positive impact on their career. 40% felt that the same was true for artificial intelligence. Judging by these statistics, we possibly have further ‘embracing’ to do. The availability of data With the increased use of technology also comes a vast increase in data. Accountants are now required to decipher large volumes of data promptly and be capable of summarising and presenting that data in an understandable manner for the end user, often non-accountants. Presentation skills are, therefore, another critical capability. Data analytics is now an industry in its own right, with many of the larger accountancy firms employing hundreds of analysts to assist their accountants in analysing and interpreting data. 51% of members who completed the Chartered Accountants Leinster Society Annual Salary Survey 2018 believe big data will have a positive impact on their career. The expectations of clients/stakeholders With the advances in technology and the ever-changing world of business, the expectations from our clients and stakeholders have changed. We are no longer assumed to be in the back office processing but instead on the front line advising and challenging the status quo. Communication and interpersonal skills are no longer ‘nice to have’ qualities. They are now required competencies for successful accountants. The building of relationships with our clients and stakeholders is vital as we make that transition from back-office operatives to front-line advisors. Conclusion Technology will continue to influence the work of accountants into the foreseeable future, and application of existing and emerging technologies will be necessary. Technology should, therefore, be embraced and not seen as a threat. The role of the accountant will continue to be exciting and challenging. Technical ability will become an assumed skill alongside other skills such as analytical skills, problem-solving skills and presentation skills. These will become the ‘must have’ skills for the successful accountant of the future. Brian Murphy is Director, Audit and Assurance, at Deloitte and incoming Chair of Chartered Accountants Ireland Leinster Society.