Latest / Chartered Accountants Global Update / Episode 33: Innovation, AI, and Leadership: Three Stories Shaping the Future of Accountancy

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Episode 33: Innovation, AI, and Leadership: Three Stories Shaping the Future of Accountancy · Chartered Accountants Global Update

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome back to the Chartered Accountants Global Update.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: This is episode 33, and we've got a really strong lineup for you today.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at what happens when a chartered accountant decides the best way to fix audit is to build something no one else has built before.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'll hear about a tech entrepreneur who says AI should make finance professionals more powerful, not less relevant.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll reflect on some important insights from a recent Women in Finance webinar that asked a question every leader should be sitting with right now.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do you lead your team through change when the ground keeps shifting?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Three stories all pointing in the same direction.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: The profession is evolving and the people shaping it are remarkable.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into it.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Christian Quitze, CEO and co-founder of Audit Toolbar, and the overall winner of South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, top 35, under 35.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Christian started his articles straight out of high school.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: That early start gave him something unusual, a front row seat to how hundreds of different businesses actually run.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: He got deep into governance, financial fluency, and rapid risk assessment at an age when most people are still figuring out their career.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Those skills, it turns out, became the foundation for everything he built next.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what's interesting about his company.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: While much of the conversation in our industry has been about grand digital transformation and AI platforms, Christian's team looked at where auditors actually spend most of their working hours.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is Excel.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not some cutting-edge platform, Excel.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's where they built.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Audit Toolbar lives inside the spreadsheet environment that practitioners already know.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: The results have been significant.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The company estimates that, across Africa, their tool saves a rolling 650 years of work every single year.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's not incremental improvement.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: For smaller firms that have traditionally struggled to compete with the big players, that kind of efficiency gain changes the conversation entirely.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: What struck me most about Christian's story, though, isn't just the product.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's the mindset shift.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about realizing he'd been thinking too small, watching peers make bold asks of global leaders, and recognizing that he'd been quietly self-rejecting opportunities before anyone had a chance to say no.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: His new default pick up the phone.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Aim for the top-tier client.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Let the answer be earned, not assumed.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lesson there for all of us, whatever stage we're at in our careers.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: How often do we talk ourselves out of something before we've even tried?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can listen to the full conversation with Christiane on the Young Difference Makers podcast.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Next up, Nick Reimer, chartered accountant and member of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants, co-founder of Envigilator, and another top 35 under 35 winner, this time the 2021 overall winner.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nick's journey is a useful counter-narrative to a lot of what gets said about AI and the future of finance careers.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The story we often hear goes something like, AI is coming, it's going to automate your job, and you should be worried.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Nick would push back on that strongly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: After qualifying as a chartered accountant, Nick co-founded an EdTech company.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Envigilator is an AI-powered platform for secure, scalable online assessments, and it's now used by over 100 academic institutions across South Africa.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was the most downloaded education app in the country three years running, 2022, 2023, 2024, with around 850,000 active users.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: The company recently received 11 million US dollars in funding to expand globally.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: What makes Nick's perspective valuable here isn't just his success, it's his argument.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't think AI replaces financial expertise.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks it amplifies it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: A chartered accountant who understands how to deploy AI tools, who can interpret outputs, who can translate complex data into sound decisions, that professional becomes more relevant, not less.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be sharing these ideas live in the upcoming Difference Makers Discuss Session on March 19th, hosted by Shineade Donovan, Chair of the IFAC International Panel on Accountancy Education.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're curious about where your CA career could take you, or you're actively looking for a new direction, it's a conversation worth joining.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Our final piece today comes from a webinar that Chartered Accountants Worldwide Network, USA, hosted last October.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Women in Finance leading teams through change.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: The session has been published to our platform, and I wanted to highlight it because the content feels as timely now as it did then.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: The central argument from that session is one I keep coming back to.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: In periods of rapid change, leadership is less about having all the answers and more about creating the conditions in which your team can navigate uncertainty together.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Three leaders contributed to the session.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Linda Nell, a chartered accountant with expertise in adaptability, explored how to make change a feature of everyday team culture rather than something you react to.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Shingi Gwinding Hui, managing consultant at cross-country consulting, spoke to how you build genuine trust within a team when automation is reshaping workflows around them.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: And Nancy Chakabuda, Vice President of the Chartered Accountants Worldwide Network, USA, and a senior accounting director for a Fortune 200 company, tackled a challenge that's almost universal.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: How do you influence change when you don't have full authority over the people around you?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: And critically, how do you manage resistance?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: A few themes ran across all three contributions.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Transparent, consistent communication matters enormously when people feel uncertain.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Psychological safety, meaning the belief that you can speak up or try something new without it being held against you, is not a soft extra.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's a strategic asset.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the resilience of a leader matters because your team is watching how you handle pressure, even when you think they're not.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: The webinar is available to watch in full on the Chartered Accountants Worldwide Knowledge Hub.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: If you lead a team or you're building toward that, I'd encourage you to set aside the time for it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's our update for episode 33.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Three people doing genuinely interesting things, building tools that level the playing field for smaller firms, making the case that AI is a multiplier rather than a threat, and reminding us that how we lead through change matters as much as the change itself.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.