It gives me great pleasure to be writing my first President’s Message for this edition of Accountancy Plus. It is an incredible honour to be elected as the 50th President of CPA Ireland. It is also a daunting challenge to follow not only in Aine’s footsteps but also in the footsteps of all the other men and women who have held this office before me but I am confident that I will represent CPA Members well nationally and internationally. I would like to thank Áine for all her work as President for the past two years.

My ambition as President of CPA Ireland is to continue to build on the great foundations laid before me and to serve CPA Ireland to the best of my ability.

The external environment is volatile and ever-changing with the debate taking place as to whether we are in a state of permacrisis or polycrisis. This debate is largely academic, and we are now in a world where it is impossible to predict what will happen next.

Earlier this year Ireland had the honour of hosting a hugely successful visit from Joe Biden, the President of the United States and I am reminded of a quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin “when we are finished changing, we are finished”.

I believe this quotation is as apt today as it was when it was written.

Over the past 3 years we have all been challenged to change the way we live, work, communicate, socialise and so much more. The accelerated change in technology and artificial intelligence has both supported the way we work and threatened the relevance of some of the work that we have traditionally done.

As a community of CPAs, we have responded well to the challenge of change and have continued to deliver value to those we serve.

To this end, we have had a number of innovative developments over the years with more coming late this year. We are currently in the process of developing stackable micro-credentials for our Sustainability Hub with key experts in areas such as Reporting Standards, ESG Challenges, ESG Strategies, Sustainability Assurance and Auditing Sustainability Standards. These micro-credentials will ensure we provide our members and students with the best possible education in a top of such high importance.

Later this year we will be launching a new diploma in Fintech & Machine Learning covering topics such as Money, Cryptocurrency and Payment Systems, Workflow Automation for Accounting and Finance, Regulatory Landscape and Machine Learning Solutions for Financial Services. These modules can be taken individually based on interest and need, or all together to gain the full diploma.

Work on Virtual Reality training in Robotic Process Automation is ongoing and it is exciting to watch this virtual space unfold. Just imagine that CPAs and CPA students will be using virtually reality headsets to train in the metaverse – another first in the world of accountancy.

CPA Ireland has made incredible progress on some of the greatest challenges and opportunities facing the profession. Our progress is based on innovation and agility, and our strategy offers tactical flexibility to our executive team. The profession is changing and to paraphrase Benjamin Franklin we must change, or we are finished.

You will see in Institute News a request for members to engage with our Business Development team to become involved in our Go Anywhere campaign and I would encourage my fellow members to answer that call.

I also look forward to working with Vice Presidents, Clodagh Henehan and Michael Kavanagh, with my colleagues on Council and Committees, with the executive team at CPA Ireland and I look forward to meeting many CPAs in person across the next year.