With Matthew Ord and Tom Herbert having some well-earned holiday, Richard Hattersley called in some back up for this week’s episode of No Accounting for Taste. He is joined by Wes Rashid, co-founder and CEO of Accountancy Cloud, Nikki Adams, joint managing director at Ad Valorem and Alex Falcon Huerta, CEO and founder of Soaring Falcon.

The panel kicks off with the profession’s big debate: private equity (PE) vs independence. Hattersley recalls his chat with Simon Massey, the managing partner of Menzies, which has recently merged with Beever and Struthers and remains committed to staying independent. With consolidation on the rise, the guests debate whether smaller firms can compete with PE-backed rivals, discussing the pros and cons of each route.

Closely linked to the topic of PE is tech adoption. While firms are now experimenting with artificial intelligence (AI), the panel questions how it’s really being used and whether the profession is falling behind in other areas. They explore the gap between progressive firms pushing for more innovation and smaller practices still catching up with cloud adoption. The risk, they warn, is that some practices could fall so far behind that succession planning becomes much harder

They wrap up by looking at how firms can respond to these pressures. With so much upheaval, collaboration and community are becoming essential. The panel stresses the power of knowledge sharing and peer support, noting how in-person events help practitioners create stronger trust and better client relationships.