The Daffernomics Podcast
News, views, business strategy and tax planning from the team at Dafferns Chartered Accountants. An independent, medium sized UK accounting firm, based in Coventry, with a national and international connections
The Daffernomics Podcast
The end of an era for Martin - Reflecting on our first 10 years with AGN International
From Brexit to AI, Cowboy Boots and Sushi, we reflect on Dafferns’ first 10 years with AGN International and The end of an era for Martin
Martin Gibbs and Brian Jukes reflect on 10 years of Dafferns Chartered Accountants' membership with AGN International, coinciding with Martin's retirement after 26 years as a partner. How joining an international association of 200 member firms across nearly 100 countries transformed Dafferns and broadened our perspectives.
• From our first AGN conference in Copenhagen back in 2015, which while daunting quickly led to valuable connections
• How Brian and Martin became Brexit thought leaders, presenting at conferences and publishing widely-read blog posts
• How AGN provided critical support and knowledge-sharing during the COVID pandemic
• How we gained early insights into AI adoption and ESG trends through international exposure through AGN
• Travelling to over 35 international events, creating lasting professional relationships worldwide
• Helping clients expand internationally through trusted AGN connections
• Developing future firm leaders through AGN's partner development programs
• and how AGN membership has reinforced Daffens' identity as "authentic, agile and connected" advisors
Check out the Dafferns website at and visit our international page to see examples of our work with AGN over the last few years.
Dafferns Chartered Accountants, a full service, independent UK accounting firm, based in Coventry, with national and international connections
https://dafferns.com/
So hello everybody and welcome to episode 10 of the Daphnomics podcast. My name is Martin Gibbs and I'm Brian Dukes, and we are both still partners of Daphn's Chartered Accountants. And I say still because in one week's time, on the 30th of June, I retire after 26 years as a partner and enter a brave new world, brian.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's causing us both to be a little reflective just now, isn't it?
Speaker 1:It is indeed because we're also celebrating 10 years since DAFN's joined AGN International, and AGN is an association of separate independent accounting firms roughly 200 member firms in approaching 100 countries around the world and we're part of what's called the EMEA region, or what used to be the European region. So yeah, 10 years in AGM, Brian.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a long time. The world was becoming smaller and smaller, many of our clients were branching out into other jurisdictions and we were feeling a little nervous about our ability to service that need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and with good reason. So, if we drop back to 2014, our former colleague, andy joined us. He came in and he was really very excited about international business and DAFN's joining an international association not a network, but an association. So there we were, we joined AGN in June 2015. And the first event we went to was the then European conference in Copenhagen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have very strong memories of that Obviously quite intimidating. You're walking into a big conference with many, many people that you don't know.
Speaker 1:We didn't know the rules of the game, we didn't know who was who.
Speaker 2:We didn't even know what the what the dress code was really. Yeah, we arrived there, uh, very green and quite nervous, I guess. Um, but you, you quite rapidly settle in and it was a very welcoming community. And copenhagen was a very welcoming city, I seem to remember we had a fantastic time there.
Speaker 1:we we learned a lot. We learned a lot about Danish culture. We made some connections with AGN members, which had become hugely valuable over the last 10 years. Most of the people we met back in Copenhagen are still AGN members or, if they're not, we're still in contact with them.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was. It was a significant event and, if you remember, at the airport coming home we nearly missed our flights because our former colleague got the flight times wrong. I think we were about an hour or two hours wrong on our flight. But there were a couple of must have been Danish tennis players heading to the tennis event at Edgbaston and they were in a similar boat and they were remember how grumpy they were. Those young ladies are also 10 years older and probably retired tennis players.
Speaker 2:Yes, probably we made the flight. We made the flight.
Speaker 1:In terms of our time in AGN, there's definitely been, in sort of Taylor Swift style, there's been some eras. The first big era for us was the Brexit era. So in June 2016,. We went to the EMEA conference again. This time it was in Munich, and there was a Euro football championships going on at the time. I seem to remember with England losing to Wales or something. I forget what it was now, but we were in Munich for that, but it was a week and a bit before the Brexit vote.
Speaker 2:Yes, everyone was asking us you're not going to leave? It's not going to be a no vote or a yes vote as it was then. Wasn the technicalities of the UK leaving the EU, or somebody leaving the EU because nobody had ever done it before, and I thought, oh, this is a bit of a waste of time, isn't it? Surely this isn't going to be necessary. How wrong I was.
Speaker 1:One of my memories from Munich is the conference hotel, and shall I just say we did not stay in the conference hotel, we stayed in the cheap hotel that was a 20 walk away, but the conference hotel was the Kempinski Four Seasons on Maximilianstrasse, the big shopping street, where all the big shops are in Munich, and I remember in the hotel they'd got newspapers, german newspapers, and the headline on one of them was Brexit, something or other, and I must admit, at that point, for me, the phrase Brexit hadn't really registered. We knew the vote was going on, we knew it was all about whether we were leaving the EU, but it's like they're actually calling it Brexit, you know. Anyway, it very rapidly became the big topic of conversation after that and it gave you and I, in particular, the opportunity to participate and present at two of the following conferences, because we ran a Brexit question time. We did, which I hosted, I did my Fiona Bruce bit and one of the panellists, along with a number of other partners and leaders from UK AGN member firms, and we did the first one at the 2018 EMEA conference in Edinburgh and we did a follow-up, didn't we?
Speaker 1:In Cyprus at the 2019.
Speaker 2:EMEA. That's right. I did a double act with Ian Masterton from CT where we focused on the VAT and customs duty ramifications of Brexit. That might sound very dry, but it was very well received because everyone was desperate to know what this meant.
Speaker 1:Everybody across Europe. Firstly, they couldn't believe that the UK had voted to leave. Nobody wanted us to leave, and they just wanted to know what it was going to be like and how we were going to get out of the mess that we'd invariably got ourselves into. Yeah, certainly the Brexit era gave us the opportunity to be thought leaders. We did a lot of blog posts on the DAFN's website about Brexit, which I know were followed by many of our colleagues across the EMEA region and across North America as well. And just as we got to the back end of Brexit and the Theresa May Boris Johnson fiasco, as we headed towards not being able to work out how we were going to leave the EU, we entered the second period, which was 2020.
Speaker 2:COVID happened in 2020. So we had the combined effects of COVID and Brexit going on for a while where we were desperately trying to work out what on earth we had to do during this COVID era, whilst planning for the impending exit of the UK from the EU. So that was quite a fraught time, and having the backup of AGN member firms during that time was almost invaluable.
Speaker 1:But the other thing that happened in 2018 leading into this, I joined the EMEA region board as vice chairman. I joined the EMEA region board as vice chairman and in June 2019, at the Cyprus conference where we were doing our Brexit question time, I took over as regional chair and was then chair for three years, all the way through and beyond the pandemic. So at the point that the pandemic kicked off, I was the regional chair and the regional board has got nine or 10 senior partners of significant accounting firms all over the EMEA region and all of this brought significant challenges in terms of how we as AGN were going to be reacting to lockdowns, to conference contracts that we'd got. It was a very difficult, challenging time for AGN, for me as the chairman, and at the same time, we were running our own firm trying to work out where the world was going, what was happening with furlough, what was happening with government funding. We got a quarterly meeting set up, which went online with the partners in other UKA GN member firms. We increased those during lockdown and we're meeting probably just about every month and the ability to talk to partners in other firms.
Speaker 1:How was it going for them? What were they doing? What sort of policies were they putting in place? How were they seeing their cash flow? One big firm they were forecasting negative profit shares for the partners in the quarters to September 2020. Needless to say, it didn't happen, but it was enough to really wake us all up. At Daffens, we swapped into a mode of preserving cash. If you remember, I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, really, really Various opportunities that we took advantage of straight away, and we, of course, were guiding our clients through that same period of uncertainty. We were seen as almost the fourth emergency service for a little while, and that was obviously a serious responsibility that we leaned on our AGN colleagues to help us through.
Speaker 1:Looking back on the DAFN's website, we produced some really excellent blog posts, authentic blog posts written in-house by the DAFN's team on all aspects of life and business through lockdown, and I know those were read and welcomed by our colleagues across the EMEA region as well as clients in the UK welcomed by our colleagues across the EMEA region as well as clients in the UK. In challenging times, the fact that we were AGN members gave you and I in particular, experiences and perspectives and insights from all over Europe, all over the world, on how to address the challenge that we and all of our clients were going through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's an unbelievable resource really, when you think back to what we've gone through. Could we have done that without the AGN link? I'm sure we could, but would we have done it anywhere near as well? Almost certainly not Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then towards the end of my time as EMEA regional chair, in the autumn of 2021, agn was able to put on a conference again. There'd been 18 months without any conferences. Normally AGM have a European regional conference and then a world conference six months apart, and AGM had had to go 18 months without a face-to-face conference. And at short notice, agm were able to organise the 2021 EMEA regional conference in Amsterdam First week of October I think it was 2021.
Speaker 2:It was the first week that amsterdam and the netherlands opened up, I remember the fun and games we had trying to get all the the various paperwork that we needed to prove that we had all the vaccinations we had to have.
Speaker 1:Uh, remember there were two types of tests. There was an antigen test and, uh, something or other. I forget what it was, but we had. We had five tests in three days. It was crazy, it was a real experience. It was when we were in Amsterdam. There was a brilliant presentation by an American Dutch lady called Rochelle Clark who at the time was working in conjunction with AGN. I think Rochelle's now working in the USA, but this particular conference in Amsterdam she hit the nail on the head and it really resonated with you and I didn't it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It was one of the best presentations I've sat through, if not the best, from an AGM perspective just focused on something that was well. It's always an issue for all accountancy firms and that's succession, but it was looking at succession through the prism of how did the different generations view succession? How do they view themselves as individuals? How do they relate to their roles, their jobs or their careers? How do they think when they're addressing life? That was so insightful for me and it's something I'd never really considered before. As I sat through this presentation, I was thinking oh yes, she's spot on.
Speaker 2:I do think that way, and I do think that way, and I do think that way, and I do think that way, and I do think that way, and martin thinks that way does he.
Speaker 1:Well, this is, this is what we firmly discovered that um, I am a boomer. I'm born in 1963 I'm gen x. We're only five years apart for, for boomers it is who will I be when I'm not me, when I'm retired and I'm no longer me? Who will I be, whereas never even comes onto your register, brian?
Speaker 2:No for Gen X. We are doing this.
Speaker 1:Whilst we're doing this Once, we're not doing this, I'm doing something else now, and I think it was that conference that really kicked off in my head my succession planning. It was three years away from retirement Actually, it was four years away from retirement. Planning really, for me, kicked into gear after that. One of the things which I remember Rochelle saying was that everybody had come through the pandemic and everybody had lost 18 months to two years of their life and, as a result, there'd been this thing called the Great Depression, where, you know, I've lost two years of my life, I'm two years older, my career's stagnating, and at that point, she warned us of what was coming.
Speaker 1:Next, in her view, was something she called the Great Resignation, and we thought she's talking nonsense, scaremongering, but I think DAFNs, along with just about every other professional service firm in Europe, suffered in 2022 with the Great Resignation, where a number of members of staff moved on. We lost some good members of staff in that period of time, but equally, we picked up some good people as well. But it was a period of time that was unsettling and not one I look back on with any great fondness, but we were starting to get prepared because of the insights and the new learning that we picked up, the next era, possibly the final and current era I would call the AI era Brian.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're referring here to our very interesting presentation we sat through when generative AI was first being released. I think that was October, November 22, was it.
Speaker 1:Maybe the conference that really this all crystallized for me was the EMEA conference in Bratislava in June 2023. Yeah, there was a keynote speaker called Christoph Kieser, the executive vice president of a big publishing company in Germany called Axel Springer, and Christoph Kieser is very well known in Germany and we're exceptionally lucky to have him as our speaker at the regional conference. One of the things that really resonates for me is he was talking about ChatGPT.
Speaker 2:I don't think ChatGPT 4 existed at the time.
Speaker 1:No it was 3.5. 3.5. He was saying that in April 2023, chatgpt sat the US bar exam and narrowly failed it, but it would pass it, he reckoned, by September, and he would be getting a perfect score by the following year. And there was a partner in a Dutch accounting firm, somebody who's well known to both you and I, brian who put his hand up and asked the speaker, christoph, where he could buy a book to tell him how to use AI. And Christoph Kieser responded with a phrase which has become almost a rallying call for us, which is I'm ringing to let you know that the high-speed train left the station 10 minutes ago and that really brought it home to us that, with AI, the point at which you start to learn how to use it or you start to explore what it may be, you've missed the boat. The high-speed train left the station 10 minutes ago.
Speaker 2:But there is that further well-used phrase these days when's the best time to start using AI? Well, yesterday, when's the second best time to start using AI Today? Yeah, agn has been phenomenally powerful in highlighting these major global movements. Ai is one of those. Esg is another, which we've focused on an awful lot. The environmental discussion is one that's ever evolving. We have certain directions of travel that are pulling it back a little bit at the moment, but undoubtedly it's going to remain front and centre and will be something that we have to keep dealing with, and we, as accountants, have a very important role to play in that we, as DAFNs, we are not ESG experts.
Speaker 1:We don't advise clients over ESG. However, the insights and perspectives and experiences that we've gained through being members of AGN and connecting with other AGN members the people that we've met have put us in a significantly strong position as ESG signposters.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Yeah, we take that role very seriously. We don't call ourselves experts in ESG, but we're very interested in the subject matter and we're making sure that we know the people who are experts.
Speaker 1:So so our clients need that support we can signpost that absolutely, and it's esg has been the subject of two of our previous uh podcasts together. Yeah, and there's an esg resources page that leverages very heavily of the experiences and contacts that we've we through AGN International With the various places that we've been. I've been very, very lucky. As you know, I keep a note on my phone, in Apple Notes, of all the events I've been to with AGN. I only classify events where I've needed a passport or had to get on an aeroplane. Okay, and my AGN board meeting in Paris last week was my 35th and final event with AGN before I retire as a DAFN's partner. I don't know how many events you've been to, but you and I have been to just about every single EMEA and World Conference in the last 10 years. I think we only missed one where we in 2017, we couldn't justify to ourselves or our wives going to Bangkok. That's right.
Speaker 2:Beyond that, we've been to all the conferences in 2017, we couldn't justify to ourselves or our wives going to Bangkok.
Speaker 1:That's right, but beyond that, we've been to all the conferences. It must be approaching 20 for me. I've been immensely lucky Together, Brian. We've travelled the world. We've seen cities such as Vancouver and Washington, Tokyo, Rome, memorably Nashville we both bought the cowboy boots in Nashville.
Speaker 2:We did and wore them.
Speaker 1:We both walked around the grounds of the White House by the ellipse at two o'clock in the morning. Probably wasn't a great idea, but we did it anyway.
Speaker 2:No, we managed not to get arrested, thankfully.
Speaker 1:But again, this is all about experiences and insights. We've worked hard, we've played hard. I think as a result of being in AGN, we've got a broader perspective. We're more rounded business advisors. It's positioned us to better advise our clients, better manage our staff and run an accounting firm in the UK that's fit for purpose.
Speaker 2:I know that sounds a bit pretentious to say it, but it's true. I don't make any apology for that. It really does make you a more rounded individual when you're experiencing so many different perspectives, great conference programmes, seeing the world and just having an opportunity that you couldn't possibly have when you sit here in the UK and only stay in the UK.
Speaker 1:But name checking a few of our valuable connections, but just sort of walking around the world. We have friends such as Thijs from DK, accountants in the Netherlands, cor Pynemberg from Q Concepts unfortunately a former AGN member but still a big Daffens connection Eric Savos and his partners from BM&A in France, pierre-olivier Conte from Cadere-es-Martin in Paris, schaffer and Partners in Prague, tony Sokic in Canada. Brandy from Wyndham Brannan in the United States, brian Franklin from Weinstein Spira in the United States, rob Watts from Vancouver. These are all people that we know that we've done work with. Yeah, we have travelled the world, we've learned a lot and we've seen a lot. Those that go to AGN conferences talk about AGN moments, which are those head-scratching moments when you are somewhere or you're experiencing something or seeing something that you have to really just stand there and just scratch your head and just try and get your head around the fact that you are where you are with the people you're with and anything that particularly stands out for you. Brian.
Speaker 2:I think first walking down the strip in Nashville would stand out for me. Goodness me, it is wild. So much noise and colour and light, just incredible Live music being played in every bar as you walk past Off the scale.
Speaker 1:I was hugely impressed with Washington. The hotel was 400 yards from the White House or something silly, and at the time, washington did seem a bit weird. This was 2018. It was the middle of he who must not be named first term as president. Yes, looking back, it was a fabulous experience and one I'd love to do again, but I doubt is ever going to happen in the same way.
Speaker 2:Yes, the place to visit, it was fantastic Some of the things we saw. The lincoln monument um yeah, just really quite something. Tokyo was brilliant, unforgettable experience walking around tokyo I was so struck by how clean it was. Yes, yes, tidy clean, and they're so polite.
Speaker 1:So polite as well. Um, we went out for dinner one night there was you and me and we went out with daniel from bkl and his wife. Daniel had lived in tokyo for a period of time, maybe 10 years ago, so he most importantly, he knew his way around the subway system yeah, in his wife took us to this japanese sushi restaurant. Goodness knows where it was. It was like five metro rides away in the middle of nowhere. It was absolutely astonishing, it was brilliant. But the authenticity of travelling on the metro in Tokyo at night.
Speaker 2:Tokyo was a world apart. You have to experience it, at least some point in your life, I think.
Speaker 1:Also really sticks out for me was 2016 in Munich. When we came in, we went past the Olympic Stadium where they held the 1972 Olympics and 1974 World Cup final, and I thought to myself I'd love to have a look around the Olympic Stadium at some point. Two days later, we went for dinner at the revolving restaurant at the top of Tower 180, overlooking the stadium, and after dinner somebody said oh, you know, if you go up those stairs, there's an observation platform, paul McCartney's in concert down there. I remember going onto the roof of Tower 180, standing there and all you could see was the floodlit Olympic Stadium below with hey Jude and Band on the Run blasting out. Yeah, one of those real sort of memorable moments. It's a little bit self-indulgent, I know, in terms of us talking about all the fun that we've had with AGN, but there's been significant benefits to DAFN, significant benefits to our clients. You were mentioning one of your clients, a large Coventry-based firm currently doing quite a lot of work with one of our Dutch connections.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've been totally UK-focused until recently, but now they're looking at European opportunities and there is one particular contract that requires goods to be sourced from the US, want to bring those directly into Europe somewhere in order to avoid a double duty charge on import into Europe. I spoke to at short notice my friend's DK in the Netherlands and they spoke to my client, got them in the process of registering them for VAT and also speaking to a warehouse and logistics partner to set up the whole operation as a footprint in the EU. We couldn't have done this prior to AGN, but now we are able to work with people that we know and trust and we can just refer our clients to them with absolute confidence that they're going to be well served.
Speaker 1:This is something AGN really majors on. If you're looking to do business in a particular country but you're not there at the moment, you can be introduced to an AGN member who can help sort out a lawyer for you. Find you a bank, agn members can really help provide a turnkey solution to enable your business to start doing business in just about any city in Europe and in most of the world, and we've helped overseas clients do exactly the same coming into the UK. One other thing, brian, which I would really add in as a significant benefit to DAFNs from AGN has been the people development, and AGN has run two very successful programs for prospective directors and partners. The first two were called ALP, which was the Advanced Leader and Practice Management Program.
Speaker 1:The acronym was produced by a German. That explains it Alp. But joking apart in terms of the name, alp and its successor have been significant components in the promotion through to DAFN's leadership team of two of our current partners and directors, lucy Hatton and David Hulkit, preparing and learning what they need to know in terms of how to be a partner and the leader in an accounting firm and also making a connection with other professionals at the same stage in their career and, hopefully, connections which are going to stay with them all the way through their careers as partners and directors yeah, that's hugely valuable.
Speaker 2:It's a. It's a big change moving away from being an employee to being part of the leadership team, and if somebody can give you a big leg up on that, you should grab it absolutely. And obviously the AGN programme gave us a ready-made route into that without the need to try and design something ourselves.
Speaker 1:If you're a big firm, then you've got the need to try and design something ourselves. If you're a big firm, then you've got the resources to be able to do all this in-house, but a medium-sized firm such as Daffens, we don't, and therefore tapping into the experience and resources that AGN can provide has been very very useful and the contacts that they've made along the way that they could last or stay with them for years and years to come.
Speaker 1:At Daffens, we like to think that we are authentic, agile and connected, and the connected part has got AGN written all over it. It is all about who do you know, who can you do business with and who can you introduce your clients to, to make business life, in particular, easier and more frictionless.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Agn is a huge part of that. Of course we are always looking to make connections in our local community as well, but the AGN connection gives us that reach into international communities.
Speaker 1:So, as I say, last week's EMEA board meeting in Paris was my final encore with AGN, my 35th trip with a passport. But yeah, 10 years of traveling the world with DAFNS has been a huge privilege. In the first 10 years we've given back to AGN at least as much as we've got out of AGN Absolutely. We've committed ourselves fully to our membership and dived in in the deep end in many cases, and I'm sure it will continue under your tenure as one of the two new joint managing partners, brian.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:we've already got Lucy who's joined the committee, and my role within AGN has always been You're the thought leader, you're the intelligent one, brian, you're the tax guru, what people know and respect you for in the UK and in Coventry and Warwickshire over the last 10 years, agn members have learned the same thing that you're a sage-like figure, but somebody with a very good sense of humour. I hope so. And also, you know travelling the we've, we've been, um, we've been good traveling companions over the years we have.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna miss that me too.
Speaker 1:With that, I think it's probably time to wrap this podcast up. We'll be back probably in about a month's time. Even though I'm retiring as a daffodil's partner at the end of june, I will be continuing as the host of the daffodilomics podcast for the foreseeable future, so I'm sure our listeners will be continuing as the host of the Daphnomics podcast for the foreseeable future, so I'm sure our listeners will be very relieved to hear that.
Speaker 1:Once again, thank you, brian. Please check out the Daphn's website, Check out our international page, where you can see all about AGN and see some examples of the work that we've done for our clients and for AGN clients over the last few years. So with that, thank you very much, brian. Thank you Martin. Here's to another 10 years.