Difference Makers Discuss – Kingsley Aikins – Why your next opportunity is hiding in your weakest connection

Ask most people to describe their network and they will describe their friends, their family and a handful of close colleagues. Kingsley Aikins calls that the inner concentric ring, and he argues it is the least useful part of your network. The opportunities sit further out, among the loose associations and the people you have not spoken to in three years.

In this episode, Kingsley joins host Sinead Donovan to continue their conversation on networking and to widen it out to something much bigger. There are now 305 million people living outside the country they were born in, roughly double the figure in 1970. Kingsley has written diaspora strategies for national governments, for regions and for cities, and he explains why so many of them have come round to seeing the people who left as national assets rather than lost actors.

Along the way he makes the case that networking is neither an art nor a science, but a process, and one that can be learned. He sets out what companies quietly lost when their networks shrank during the pandemic, why the technical skills that won you your first job matter less as you rise, and the practical tricks that make walking into a room full of strangers survivable.

What you will take away

• Why weak ties and loose associations are where opportunity actually sits, and how to rebuild an outer network that has quietly shrunk
• The five challenges bringing companies to his door: less business development, less learning on the job, less serendipity, thinner loyalty and weaker culture
• Practical techniques for working a room, from why you should look for ones and twos rather than groups, to the quiet usefulness of standing near the bar
• What the global diaspora phenomenon means for countries, regions and cities, and why around 120 countries are now building strategies around it
• The four fundamentals of a network: personal, strategic, operational and online
• Why the skills that earn you a job early in your career are not the ones that carry you later

What Six Difference Makers Can Teach Every Chartered Accountant

On Friday the 25th of September, Chartered Accountants Worldwide is hosting Difference Makers Discuss: Best of Season 4, a free one hour broadcast hosted by Sinead Donovan that brings together six standout conversations from across the year. The stories range from entrepreneurship to sport to social enterprise, but they all point to the same conclusion. The skills that create lasting impact are the ones that are hardest to measure and easiest to overlook.

Connection compounds

Kingsley Aikins built the largest Irish business network in any city in the world, starting from a twelve person dinner club in Sydney. One letter to a stranger became a professional relationship that lasted twenty one years. Aster Thackery built a community of around two thousand parents from a single coffee meetup she started in London, alone, during lockdown. Neither story started big. Both prove that influence is built one conversation at a time.

Resilience shows up under real pressure

Caitriona Jennings qualified for the 2012 Olympic marathon while working full time at PwC, balancing two demanding commitments at once. Manuel Rodrigues, CFO for African Operations at EDP Mozambique, described how a simple change in payment timing, from annual to every thirty five days, transformed household economies for over seventy five thousand farming families. Different scale, same principle. Structure and commitment turn pressure into progress.

Judgment still belongs to people

Nick Riemer of The Invigilator and Liswaniso Namatama both spoke to the same point from different angles. AI can support academic and professional assessment, and it can support audit, but humans must retain the final call. As routine work becomes more automated, professional judgment becomes more valuable, not less.

Why this matters for you

None of these six stories are about technical skill in the traditional sense. They are about the qualities that sit alongside it: patience, resilience, honest judgment. For chartered accountants navigating AI, client relationships, and career pressure all at once, that is a timely reminder.

Registration for Difference Makers Discuss: Best of Season 4 is free. Full details and speaker profiles are available on the Chartered Accountants Worldwide events page.

Four Events Worth Your Calendar Space This Autumn

If you're a chartered accountant trying to keep pace with where the profession is heading, the next few weeks bring a genuinely useful cluster of events, on sustainability, ethics, and the broader question of what transformation means for finance leadership.

First up, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand continues its CA Sustainability Community webinar series on 22 September. Running since 2023, it's built for finance professionals who need practical, ongoing grounding in ESG topics rather than a one-off briefing.

Three days later, on 25 September, CCAB hosts a free virtual session called Ethics in the Digital Age. It walks through CCAB's draft statement on the ethical use of AI, using real scenarios that touch on confidentiality, professional scepticism, and accountability when a tool gets something wrong. Speakers are drawn from all five CCAB bodies, and CPD hours are on offer, though registration is capped at 1,000 places.

On 7 October, ICAS brings its Sustainability Summit to Edinburgh, in a hybrid format for anyone who can't attend in person. Rather than treating sustainability as a compliance box to tick, the summit frames it as a genuine driver of commercial value, with keynotes and panels from voices across the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, GSK, and Swire Pacific, among others.

And closing out the run, ICAEW's Annual Conference lands in London on 16 October, themed Thriving in Transformation. It's a full day covering AI's effect on finance leadership, cyber security, and Making Tax Digital, with Professor Hannah Fry delivering the keynote and afternoon streams tailored to practice, industry, or policy.

Taken together, these four events point to a pattern worth noticing: sustainability and AI keep showing up side by side, not because they're the same issue, but because both are forcing the same underlying question, what good judgment looks like while the rules are still being written.

Full details and registration links for all four are linked below, and you can catch the full conversation on this week's episode of Chartered Accountants Global Update.

Change rarely announces itself politely. It shows up as a career crossroads, a new technology, or a shift in what clients and the public expect of us. Two recent pieces from Chartered Accountants Worldwide look at change from very different angles, but land on the same conclusion: the profession's real strength has never been in the tools we use. It is in the judgment we bring to them.

A career built on systems thinking

Kate van der Merwe's path into the profession does not follow a predictable line. She studied social science in South Africa, qualified as a chartered accountant in Ireland, and spent years working in pharmaceuticals and technology, including a stint at Google. By most measures, that is a complete and successful career. Kate did not see it that way. She returned to study, this time a master's in renewable energy and environmental finance, and used it to move into sustainability work, first at the NGO Trócaire, and now across a range of advisory and board roles focused on climate and social enterprise.

What stands out is not the list of roles. It is her thinking. Kate argues that environmental and social goals are not separate line items to manage independently, they are deeply interdependent, and treating them as isolated boxes to tick is exactly how organisations lose sight of the bigger picture. As she puts it, "The existing system is dying. It is going to change and what we do now will determine the new system that emerges."

That is a big claim, and it puts financial professionals right at the centre of it. Someone has to model the numbers, test the assumptions, and hold organisations accountable for the sustainability commitments they make publicly. Kate's story is a reminder that a chartered accountancy qualification is not a narrow path. It is a foundation flexible enough to carry someone into work that genuinely shapes how organisations respond to the biggest challenges of our time.

Trust in the age of AI

The second piece takes on a very different kind of change: artificial intelligence, and what it means for trust in the profession. The core argument is refreshingly clear. AI can meaningfully strengthen how accountants work, but it cannot replace professional judgment, scepticism, or ethical accountability. That responsibility stays with the accountant. It does not transfer to a vendor or an algorithm, however capable that algorithm appears.

The risks are real and worth naming: automation bias, where AI-generated findings get accepted too readily; gaps in understanding how client data is stored and used; a gradual erosion of the scepticism that has always defined good accounting; and the "black box" problem, where a system cannot explain how it reached a conclusion, making that conclusion hard to defend to a client or regulator.

None of this is a case against adopting AI. It is a case for adopting it properly, built on three foundations: human accountability that never gets delegated away, governance frameworks that are documented rather than assumed, and cybersecurity practices strong enough to protect the confidentiality clients rely on.

The common thread

Whether the change in question is a career redirected toward climate impact or a new tool reshaping daily practice, the constant is the same. Chartered accountants are trusted because they exercise judgment, uphold ethical standards, and take ownership of the work with their name on it. Technology and causes will keep evolving. That part of the job will not.

AI Agents, Insider Trading, and the Fight Against Greenwashing

The profession is facing three fast moving fronts at once, and each one comes back to the same core skill: judgment.

Chartered Accountants Worldwide, working with member institutes and Ipsos, has opened wave two of its global study on AI and the future of the profession. Wave one set the baseline, and this round digs into how attitudes are shifting on traditional AI, generative AI, and agentic AI, the systems that carry out tasks on their own rather than simply assisting with them. The point of the exercise is straightforward, the findings will shape strategy and leadership decisions across the whole global profession, so it's worth the fifteen minutes to have your perspective counted. Responses are anonymised and aggregated, and the survey link is in the show notes.

From there, a story that puts two unlikely topics side by side. EY's Richard Harrison has been discussing how audit firms are deploying AI agents to take on more routine work, which raises a genuinely open question: how much can automation reliably own, and where does professional judgment stay non negotiable. In the same conversation, Polly Tsang flags a separate risk worth watching, prediction markets, where people trade on the outcome of real world events. It sounds abstract until you hear that a Google employee reportedly made over a million dollars trading on inside information through one of these platforms. Existing insider trading rules were never built with this in mind, so finance professionals working on anything market sensitive could be exposed without realising it. Different problems, same root cause, technology is outrunning the frameworks meant to govern it.

Finally, greenwashing, and why Chartered Accountants are increasingly the ones asked to separate genuine sustainability claims from spin. As sustainability reporting has gone mainstream, so has the temptation to oversell it, vague language, unsupported net zero pledges, and selective disclosure that shows the good numbers and buries the rest. The consequences are real. Volkswagen's emissions scandal wiped out a fifth of its share price and roughly thirteen billion euros in market value, and regulators are catching up fast, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority can now fine misleading environmental claims up to ten percent of global turnover. The same scepticism and evidence standards Chartered Accountants apply to financial statements are exactly what's needed here, which is why the profession's role in this space keeps growing.

Three different stories, one consistent message: as the tools and the claims get more sophisticated, it's professional judgment, not the technology itself, that keeps the profession trustworthy.

Trust in Transition: Stablecoins and Climate Risk Reporting

Two very different stories made headlines in the accounting world recently, and together they say something important about where the profession is heading.

The first is about stablecoins. They have moved from a niche corner of crypto into serious policy conversations, yet some fundamental questions remain unanswered. Should a stablecoin sit on the balance sheet as cash, an intangible asset, or something else entirely? The answer matters more than it might seem: classify it wrong and a bank could lose the ability to use it for liquidity at all. Layer on unresolved tax treatment (should every coffee paid for in stablecoin really trigger a taxable event?) and a patchy assurance landscape, and it becomes clear that mainstream adoption depends less on the technology and more on the profession's ability to build the trust infrastructure around it.

The second story is about climate risk reporting, and it is maturing fast. The days of longer and longer disclosures are giving way to a sharper focus on materiality: what genuinely matters to stakeholders, and why. Investors are asking for less noise and more signal. Responsibility is shifting into finance functions, audit committees are paying closer attention, and the hardest challenge of all remains translating long range climate scenarios into numbers that fit a three year planning cycle.

On the surface, stablecoins and climate disclosures could not look more different. But both are really about the same thing: building confidence in areas where the rules have not fully caught up with reality yet. That is not a new job for chartered accountants. It is the job. It is just showing up in some genuinely new places.

We unpack both stories, and what they mean for practitioners, in episode 5 of Chartered Accountants Global Update. Have a listen and let us know what you think.

Trust has always been the currency of the accounting profession, and this month's stories show just how much that idea is being tested and reinforced at the same time.

First up is a new paper from Chartered Accountants Worldwide on artificial intelligence and trust in the profession. Its central message is refreshingly clear: no matter how advanced the tool, responsibility for professional work always rests with the Chartered Accountant. The paper sets out five core principles, human accountability, professional scepticism, awareness of AI specific trust risks, strong governance, and cybersecurity and transparency, then walks through eleven concrete risk areas, from automation bias to accountability gaps. It closes with a practical framework of questions firms can use before adopting an AI tool, not after. The bottom line: AI can sharpen our work, but it can't carry our ethical obligations for us.

On the sustainability side, Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand has released a new Sustainability Playbook, and it's a genuinely useful resource. It walks practitioners through the fundamentals of stakeholder mapping and materiality assessments, then into strategy, target setting, and data processes, before addressing how to embed sustainability into an organisation's culture. It also covers inclusive workplace practices and mental health, a good reminder that sustainability is as much about people as it is about emissions data. As CA ANZ puts it, Chartered Accountants play a vital role in producing decision useful sustainability disclosures that investors and stakeholders rely on, so a clear playbook like this gives practitioners a real head start.

Finally, for anyone working at the sharp end of ESG reporting, the ESG and Sustainability Controllers Conference 2026 is worth diarising. Running from September 15th to 17th and organised by A4S in partnership with the Center for Impact at UCLA Anderson, it's built specifically for finance leaders and controllers dealing with real world reporting challenges rather than theory. Expect sessions on ESG governance structures, materiality assessments, data controls, executive communication, and financial modelling that connects sustainability directly to business impact. Registration is open now through the A4S website.

Taken together, these three stories point to the same conclusion: the profession is being asked to move faster on both AI and sustainability, and the accountants who earn the most trust will be the ones who pair that speed with judgment, governance, and genuinely useful practical tools.

Episode 3 of Chartered Accountants Global Update is out, and it's a packed one. Host Olivia brings listeners a mix of AI, sustainability, and events worth marking in the diary.

First up is a call to action. Chartered Accountants Worldwide, alongside its network of member institutes and research firm Ipsos, has launched Wave 2 of its global study on AI and the future of the profession. It builds on Wave 1 and digs into how traditional AI, generative AI, and now agentic AI are reshaping the roles, skills, and expectations of chartered accountants everywhere. The survey takes about fifteen minutes, responses stay confidential, and the results will shape how institutes support members through this next wave of change, from training and standards to the tools firms invest in. If you haven't taken part yet, the link is available through your institute or on the Chartered Accountants Worldwide website.

From AI, the episode turns to sustainability. The CA Sustainability Community, run by Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, continues its practical, webinar based series, with the next session on 22 September. The focus stays grounded in how to demonstrate sustainability risks and opportunities to boards, clients, and investors, making it a low effort way to stay current.

Looking further ahead, two flagship events land this October. The ICAS Sustainability Summit 2026 takes place on Wednesday 7 October at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh, with a hybrid option to join online. Expect a keynote from Fiona Watson of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, plus a panel featuring voices from Transition Finance Scotland, GSK, Swire Pacific, and more, all exploring how sustainability translates into commercial value.

Just over a week later, on Friday 16 October, the ICAEW Annual Conference 2026 takes over the InterContinental London at The O2. Mathematician and broadcaster Professor Hannah Fry headlines, exploring how AI and emerging technology are reshaping business and society. The day also includes specialist afternoon tracks across practice, industry, and policy, plus up to eight hours of CPD. Tickets are 295 pounds, with full details available through ICAEW.

Three things to act on this episode: add your voice to the AI global study, get sustainability savvy with the CA Sustainability Community, and pencil in Edinburgh and London for October. Links to everything covered are available at charteredaccountantsworldwide.com.

Season two continues with an episode that swings from a friendly run through the City of London to a genuine warning about AI governance, then zooms out to the pressures facing the profession worldwide.

It opens on the Standard Chartered Great City Race, where twenty ICAEW colleagues joined more than five thousand runners for the annual five kilometre event through London. The real story wasn't the running, though. Afterwards, Sarah Prescott, who chairs the CAW taskforce for wellbeing, equality, diversity and inclusion, organised a joint social with runners from Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand, turning a race into a chance to build relationships across the network. CAW even sponsored a trophy for the fastest team. CA ANZ took it home this year, helped by an individual time of sixteen minutes thirty.

From there, the tone sharpens. ICAEW has published six safeguards every organisation should build into an AI agent deployment, and the underlying message is blunt: most AI failures trace back to the organisation, not the model. The list covers limiting an agent's access to only what it needs, sandboxing before going live, naming a human owner for every agent, keeping backups the agent can't reach, building in a kill switch, and having a clear escalation plan. That last point carries real weight. EU breaches can mean fines of up to thirty five million euros, or seven per cent of global turnover, and recent research found that none of the leading AI models currently meet an acceptable bar for compliance with EU AI and privacy law. This isn't a job to hand off to IT. It's a leadership responsibility.

The episode closes with a global scan from ICAEW's mid-year review, and the picture is a profession under pressure from every direction at once. Tariff uncertainty is now a finance problem in North America. Talent shortages are constraining Chinese firms expanding overseas. Europe's sustainability reporting timeline has slipped again, even as a harmonised EU framework moves toward a possible 2027 launch. Australia is pushing ahead with mandatory climate disclosures, and Southeast Asia is focused on building its next generation of finance professionals.

Three stories, three different scales. But the thread holds: relationships, governance and global awareness are all doing more work than usual right now.

Season 2 kicks off with three stories that, on the surface, look unrelated: an event about industrial revolutions, a piece on carers, and one on school leavers. But they all circle the same idea, so here's the post.

Chartered Accountants Global Update returns for season two, and the opening episode makes the case that the profession is quietly redefining what "value" even means.

The first thread comes from an upcoming CAW Network USA session, Beyond Accounting: The Coming of the 5th Industrial Revolution. The pitch is that the Fourth Industrial Revolution was about efficiency, digitising data, automating the grunt work, cutting cost. The Fifth builds on that but changes the scorecard. Environmental impact, human wellbeing and income inequality move from footnote to headline, and stakeholder capitalism starts to matter as much as shareholder return. There's a sharper edge to it too: the same firms driving the AI and data centre boom are now bumping into real energy constraints, which makes energy security a live issue for finance teams, not just engineers.

The second thread is closer to home. Unpaid carers are one of the fastest growing groups in the UK's working age population, and research from the Institute for Employment Studies shows they're less likely to be in paid work, and less likely to work full-time, than everyone else. That's not a lack of willingness to work, it's workplaces not flexing around what caring actually requires. Becoming a carer-friendly employer isn't one big policy change. It's usable flexibility, managers who can have the conversation well, and a culture where people don't feel they need to hide it.

The third thread is about who gets in the door in the first place. Figures from Progress Together show around 90% of senior finance and accountancy roles go to people from higher socioeconomic backgrounds, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds earn on average £17,500 less, the largest pay gap of any UK sector. BDO's response has been a school leavers scheme, an entry route that skips the traditional university path, because as its Head of Audit for Scotland puts it, this isn't goodwill, it's talent strategy. Ninety percent of senior roles coming from one slice of society means firms are all fighting over the same narrow pool.

Three different stories, one underlying question: how widely does the profession define value, in its strategy, in its people, and in who it lets in.