Leading with Curiosity, Communication & Hope

Speaker A: I think it's very easy to get lost in that sort of slough of despond. But actually there's so much there that you look at the opportunities that people have. They've got a chance to work in an environment that's actually a really exciting new horizon. It's changing the way that things have taken place and they'll be part of that.

Speaker B: Welcome to the latest episode of the new PL Principles and Leadership and Business podcast series. I'm Paul, I'm your host and I'm very grateful you've joined us today. Just before I introduce this week's fantastic guest, I wanted to remind listeners again that our 2026 cohort for the new P and L Executive Leadership program has opened. It's a six month one to one leadership program focused on building the leadership capabilities that directly impact on team performance, decision making and and organizational outcomes. Each of those months is framed by a thematic leadership arc that will build progressively on one another over that six month period with focused assignments issued in between each of those sessions to ensure that those themes and insights are uh, translated into action in a practical work setting. The program this year is focused on middle managers right through to senior leaders. So if you think this might be of interest to you, just get in touch using the details and the notes that accompany the podcast. Okay, so now to introduce today's guest. Francesca Lagerberg is the CEO of Baker Tilly International, the eighth largest global accounting network with over, uh, 50,000 people across 147 territories and revenues of 6.8 billion. Based in London, Francesca was appointed CEO of Baker Tilly in 2022. She's the first and only British woman to lead a major accountancy network. Francesca is also a big advocate of purpose and people led leadership building culture with principles, purpose and people at its heart. And during her tenure, the network has been named among times world's best companies of 2025 and network of the Year at the International Accounting Forum and awards in 2023. Francesca herself was named Personality of the year at the IAFA in 2024 for her outstanding leadership in the profession. So Francesca, a very warm welcome to the new pl. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us.

Speaker A: Absolute pleasure. Good to see you.

Speaker B: Thank you. You're CEO, global CEO of Baker Tilly International, which is the 8th largest accounting network in the world. Uh, it's an extraordinary role and a multifaceted role I would imagine and very complex role to oversee such a broad network of organizations across 147 teams, territories, I think it is. What do you believe are the core characteristics of a leader in such a high profile role such as yours, particularly now with all of the challenges we see out there in the market?

Speaker A: Well, all these roles are a privilege and you sort of need to make sure you don't lose sight of that because they are extraordinary and interesting and stimulating and they're never ever the same from one day to the next. So, uh, lots of rebellions needed in these. But I think the biggest factor about any network, because we're a network organization, it's all about connection. Obviously you're looking to grow, uh, looking to grow in a sustainable and profitable way. You clearly are very, very keen to protect quality trust, make sure that each part of the network is working as it should, but connection's right at the core of it. Um, if you don't trust each other, if you don't collaborate together, you can't be successful. So a huge amount of it is creating an environment where people trust each other, want to work with each other and share.

Speaker B: I always find it fascinating with global organizations, whether they're a network of independent businesses such as Baker Tilly, or whether it's part of a global brand. How you manage the balance between creating principles and values that spread across that organization, but also giving enough, allowing enough nuance for people to develop and build their own culture within their organizations at a local level. How do you balance that? I know it's probably a particular element for a network because it's a slightly different mechanism to a global brand. But how do you manage that sort of contrast?

Speaker A: It's a huge part of it. There's a couple of things that are your north stars that are common values. Um, integrity, that's a common value. Nobody in a network like ours wouldn't have that at the heart of what they do. But then other pieces are quite culturally nuanced. How the east works compared to some of the ways how north and south or even two countries that are right next door to each other but could become from different planets. Um, so sometimes it's referred to as freedom in a framework, but broadly it's about having some common north stars that you align around, you agree on. Those are kind of your non negotiables. They're your sacred part of what you do. And then other things you've got a little bit of flexibility and freedom because you're fundamentally with us, we're a commercial organization. Clients are at the heart of what we're trying to do and looking after our own people. People first. Clients are Part of all of that. So you've got to make sure that you've got some flexibility to operate in a way that is locally nuanced. So globally able but locally nuanced. It's a huge part of what we do.

Speaker B: You use freedom and framework in the middle of that answer. And that's a phrase I use often. So it's lovely to hear it, uh, recited to me as well. You touched on integrity at the beginning of it, uh, one of those non negotiables. And I wonder how you measure that, how you assess what integrity looks like. Because everyone has a slightly different view of all of these values that we undertake. And some of those are cultural and some of those are uh, ah, global. But how do you measure something like integrity?

Speaker A: I think there are some very tangible elements to it. For example, if I look at one of our key service lines, which is audit, um, integrity is measured by the regulators. Are you meeting the regulatory standards? And you may want to go higher than the regulators want to go, which is never a bad thing. But you have got some very set rules. And so there, the measurement is key. Um, we go and check all our firms, make sure they're living up to those standards. But there are sort of clearer parameters. There's a million and one different rules and regulations that set the guardrails. But when you're looking at something that doesn't have that regulatory framework in quite the same way, a lot of it is back to basics. Are using things that are good for the clients. Are you doing things that uh, are appropriate in the parameters that we work in? Um, are you meeting ethical standards that not just standards set by a regulator, but ethical in terms of how your organization is? How do you want to be seen, how do you want to behave? And are you role modeling that? So some of it is set. Other bits I think are, uh, kind of the common practices you have within organizations, an accounting profession, tend to have quite a lot of commonality to them because you're the one that's meant for giving independent advice. So you're not just doing what the client wants, you're giving them advice to help them do the right thing.

Speaker B: How do you measure or how do you ensure that values like integrity are uh, explicit in the conversations you have rather than implicit? Because if they're not entirely, but if they're largely led by regulation within the organizations, within companies and countries as well, they could just fall into the implicit bucket. Which means a lot of those values perhaps people forget about, they don't see it in their Daily lives. They don't see what it looks like at 11 o' clock on a Tuesday. How do you make it explicit in your conversations?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's lots of elements to that. And in terms of the conversations that happen between advisors and the client, I think there's a lot of explicit explanation. Uh, we're doing this because this is why you need m to make sure you're meeting the standards, you have to do this and you should think about doing that. I think that does happen in those types of engagements. But I think in terms of our profession, it's so much part of how you're trained. You go through quite a rigorous training program, but then how you operate and the processes operate within the firm are all around that, all ah, around the guardrails about making sure we do things. And um, actually those of us who belong to institutes get ethically trained every year on top of that as well. And that's a good thing because, you know, it keeps it fresh, keeps you remembering and then new things come along that you haven't experienced before and oh my goodness, it's quite useful to have that. Ah, uh, okay, that actually could be a bit of an issue. We need to make sure we're looking at that, we're training people around that and that we personally are really alive to it. So knowledge based industries, it's a continual process of meeting the standard, raising the standard, doing what you need to do. So I think it's with professions, it's part of what you are and part of what you do. So it's re emphasized constantly.

Speaker B: So one of those new things, uh, which is a lovely segue into our next question, one of those new things is AI. Um, at least in terms of the public consciousness of AI over the last few years, it's an evolution of technology. But right now, since the launch of ChatGPT and everything that's come, since it requires I think a bit of a revolution in our consciousness and the way we deal with it and work with it. I don't think it's going to be an existential crisis, but I do think at the moment for many organizations it's an adaptability and a capability crisis. How do we understand where it, where it can benefit, where it may not fit in, what those guardrails look like, how we train our people and critically how we communicate. The adoption of AI in organizations. How are you and the team at Baker Tilly International? How are you preparing from a leadership perspective for the scale of this AI driven change?

Speaker A: Well, as you can Imagine it's a topic we talk about a fair amount. Uh, I think everyone wishes that of the silver bullet and we could all work it out straight away. But I think what you're seeing is that everybody is trying to find a way through that's practical, sensible, goes at a pace that is realistic, but also a recognition that certainly in our profession, a whole bunch of things haven't even been automated. And never mind jumping to AI, there are some quite basic things that we've been talking about for 30 years that haven't actually happened. So it's a massive shift. It's a huge pace shift. Like you, I don't think it is an existential crisis. I think what it is is a, uh, a realistic usage of some amazing tools and technology that help us get to a place quicker than we previously thought was possible. Um, lots and lots of things happening in terms of how do you build that out. One is recognizing that the world is changing so fast that what you think is right today might not be the right technology tomorrow, or even quicker than that sometimes. So there isn't a single answer to any of it. But how do you use it? How do you embed it in what you do? Um, I think probably three things stand out for me in that question. One is that you don't need to be scared. You just need to really look at how you can most usefully take this technology at a pace that you're able to deal with. So rather than getting frightened about it, um, what is it that you need to do? And there's a lot there around people being tech curious. Yeah, um, some people are never going to be the world's most, um, advanced AI users, but they need to be curious about it, what it can do, understand it, and, um, be able to articulate what it means for the client, but most importantly for their own people. Because I think a lot of people quite scared about its implications of what it can mean. So how can you talk to that? I think the second bit is accepting that nobody has the answers. So you may try some things that just don't work. You may try some things that work a little bit too well. You go, whoa, actually, we need to work out how to deal with that. And you may also just not find an answer at all straight away. You know, there's something that needs to happen and you're working your way through what the right answer is. But for me, it's a lot about the capability that we have to use these incredible tools. How can we get ourselves to a stage where we're building it into our training that people understand how to use, get value from it. I mean, even from, um, a copilot or a ChatGPT or Claude, whatever is your AI of choice. Gemini, whatever you're using, you're probably using a tiny fraction of it. So how would you make sure that you're using it in the most effective way? And how are you really harnessing what it's good at and not over relying on it, where that itself, uh, lends to a range of problems. But there's so many exciting things about what it can do, how it can help you, how you can make it part of the learning process for people. And I think we've just begun to scratch the surface of that.

Speaker B: I'm, um, a firm believer that the more rapid and the deeper the digital transformation, whatever it happens to be AI or otherwise, the greater the need for basic human communication. And I see it quite often in a lot of organizations that I go into that we may be standing up as leaders and talking about AI adoption and deployment and how wonderful it is and the productivity and efficiency gains it's going to create. But we're sometimes a little bit tone deaf to the narrative that all our employees are hearing outside those four walls, which is AI, uh, is coming for your job and all of those other things. I wonder whether as a result of AI in the last few years, whether you feel your definition of leadership has changed. The necessity to communicate with more clarity, consistency and context is sort of elevated. Do you think leadership has changed as a result of AI coming into our consciousness?

Speaker A: I think leadership has changed for a whole bunch of reasons. And it's not just driven by AI. I think the whole empathy element of leadership has rightly got elevated because you're absolutely right. I think it's quite hard to communicate around some of these things when you don't quite know gonna happen and where they're gonna go. Um, and there is a real sort of fear factor in there. Is my personal job going to disappear? I look at what I do, how's that going to alter? How's that gonna change? And it's possible the leadership have no idea, um, that they can make a guess, an educated guess. But there's also something about recognizing that people are fearing that and explaining what we know, and also perhaps being very transparent and honest about what we don't know. But I think also there's a whole piece around, are you giving people the skills to cope with the new environment? So, um, in an organization that hasn't, that does A lot of training. It would be very strange if they weren't getting really good training on how to use this technology, how to make sure that it's valuable to them, how it could impact and help them. So it's an enabler in many, many ways, but also not shy away from those difficult conversations. So if you go back several years to become a great tax practitioner, you'd probably start by doing, I don't know, outright hundreds, hundreds of tax returns. Did you need to do that to get your learning? Um, all you need to do some of that to get your learning. And if you're only going to do some of that, what does that mean in terms of the numbers of people you need? What does that mean in terms of the type of training you need? But also if you don't do any of it at all, how does it help that person coming in beginning of their career to get the experience, to understand some of the next stages? So there's a real tension between not boring someone to death, doing the same old thing over and over again as part of their learning process, but, but also giving them enough to help them learn. I think that's the piece that accounting firms are all looking at, is how can I upskill people quicker, huh? But how can I make sure I am upskilling them? I am giving them the tools. So it's really, really challenging. The way that we train people is really challenging the way that we approach the work that we do. But fundamentally, that human experience, that human element remains so important. And some clients don't want to have much interaction with you. It's just, I want to get the job done, thank you very much, I'll pay my bill. Done. Um, but as you get into more interesting work, as you get into more advisory work, as you get into higher value work, client readers want to know you. They want to understand that human element. They want to get that sense that you're understanding their issues and that you can't do with technology. So there's a really important human element that becomes, as you go, as you get more and more experience, that human element keeps coming out stronger and stronger and stronger. And yes, technology's easy. I mean, my goodness me, it's got rid of so many really dull tasks, but it's still that human bit is massively valuable. So harnessing the two feels like a really important learning process for everybody.

Speaker B: I think that's a really, really valuable point because I know when I first started in marketing and brand reputation management 35 years ago, and I started in a PR agency. And for the first six months to your tax return example, I was just giving annual reports to proofread and it was incredibly boring at the time. And you know, you'd be banging your head on the desk almost literally and figuratively. But the foundation that those things gave me about why detail matters and all of those little things I still take pride in now and I wonder, that is I think where the key challenge is. How do we ensure that young people coming into these organizations, to all of our organizations have enough of that stuff? Because that is the foundation of why you and I have succeeded in our own rights. I think because we've had that foundation and they talk a lot about diamond shape organizations now rather than Triangle. But uh, I think it's very, very short sighted because the diamond doesn't become a diamond in the end if we're not feeding people into it. So I think the balance of what we do and how we use AI, but how we also ensure that people are trained effectively, I think you're absolutely right, is one of the biggest challenges we have. What cultural shifts do we need to make within our organizations? What are the hardest to drive or to change or to turn in order to help leaders and employees to recognize that balance? Where does that culture change happen in your, in your view?

Speaker A: I think that is by far and away the most important thing that we're working on uh, at the moment is that you want to give people a sense that there is a really still a very exciting future. Because there is, I mean my profession, it's amazing profession, it's got so much opportunity, so you don't want people to go that's just going to be taken over by, by bots. Uh, there's no future for me in that because it's just not. The profession's a lot more to offer than that. But then how do you get people comfortable with the upskilling? How do you get people comfortable with doing the things? And as we've just been talking about, how do you get them to know, understand the basics, because until you know the basics, you can't do the next bit and the next bit and next bit. So I think culturally there's a real shock bug, uh, because if I go back to my training that, that now looks very outdated. But that's what I knew. But I can't expect that to be what a trainee coming in would do today because it all looks a little bit like, oh my gosh, it looks a little bit like dinosaurs roaming across a planet. When you look at what we did, um, and then you go, well, what is the difference piece? So you begin to look at things like simulated learning. Can you use some of this amazing technology to simulate some of those learning environments so they get the confidence to try something safe environment, it could get it completely wrong, but get instantaneous feedback from that learning experience. So can you use that? What skill. Can you do something where you say, well, actually there are some bits of the process that we do want you to do manually because that's going to help you learn. You just don't need to do thousands of them, you just need to do some of it. And can we change the way that we train you? So rather than asking you to do some incredibly tedious exams, um, do we ask you to do micro learning? That's really how we learn anyway. And stop thinking you're going to learn a whole bunch of stuff out of a textbook which you will never look at again for the rest of your life. How do you use the technology to help you? And that is a big cultural shift, because it's a shift from, I read something, I will learn it, I will write an exam and then I'll put it into practice. It's a much more flowing, um, process where you might just learn bits, learn a much more tighter modules, learn bits, activate them, practice them and then expose them, use them, execute on them. And I think also it really changes the way that you do things, Become. I was reading something the other day. It really sort of struck me. It was saying, well, it's madness to try and just automate what you've currently got. Isn't this the perfect opportunity to rethink what you're doing 100%? Why would you just take things that perhaps are a little bit broken and just stick some tech behind them, but still do the same broken things? Why wouldn't you rethink the process? I think that is quite a challenge because you're going saying, well, m. What's the difference? You've got to put a lot more thought into it. Straight automation is clever, but changing the process is really smart. So I think we have to be realistic about the pace we can all go, but not be underestimating how amazing it could be if we get it right. So there's a lot of learning in that.

Speaker B: I, I agree. And I think, you know, again, you've touched on a really critical point that I think some of Us are seeing AI as just another tool, like a SaaS or whatever it happens to be, or CRM, but actually it's not Just functional. It's foundational to our business. We've got to rethink the way business is delivered, not just the way we solve problem A with tool B. I think, yes. How do we maintain our curiosity in this process? So if we're outsourcing some of this to an algorithm or to an LLM, it's not just what's on the page that is important, it's why it's on the page, whether it's numbers, whether it's words, whatever it is. And I'm always worried that the more we outsource the process to an AI tool or an LLM, we lose a little bit of that natural sense of curiosity, of asking why those things are there, rather than just what's on the page. How do we ensure that we don't lose what is essentially a big part of us and what makes us individual, our curiosity, our creativity, our analytical thinking in the drive to just make things a little bit more efficient?

Speaker A: I think the curiosity piece, if you're working in certain environments where really they're intellectually challenging, you've got inbuilt curiosity, or else you wouldn't have been attracted to that profession. I think the curiosity gene stays there. Ah. And I don't know, um, trying to think of an example recently, you know, I punted something through Claude and had a look at it and just, oh, I don't really like that. And then that doesn't. That doesn't quite resonate for me. My prompt was probably not very good. So let's go back and look at that. So I think you can still be very smart around how you look at some of the outputs from that. You should be challenging. No different, perhaps, from when you're looking at a client's books and you go, I don't quite understand that. So you've still got that element within it. So I think curiosity can live within that environment. I was listening to an author the other day, I went on to a bookweem and they were talking about the rise of AI. And obviously you probably see what do they call the AI slop, where you get sort of these sort of terrible books, but brought out with sort of speed. And she was saying one of the things that she does today, she takes, um, her work and she uses AI to do all the clever things it can do, to try and check. Her verbs are really punchy. All the great stuff to help it enable her. But she said what she's been really, really careful to do. She never writes the first bit using AI. She always her ideas of thoughts down and then bit like the diamond conversation, you just polish it, you keep on polishing and polishing, but what you end up with is something that's still very much your own creation. You've just used it, uh, to do that. So I think there's a variety of different ways that you can stop using AI as a crutch, but use it as a helpful enabler. But I think the moment that you just pass it all over to AI, you get like that sort of apocryphal story where people went into court and the AI they were using had made up a whole case which didn't fit. And that's where you've just taken your own professional judgment and just gone. I'll just push that to one side and I'll just take what I get because I'm under time pressure. So I think the piece there around your human judgment, your human challenging and, and Also, just because AIs created something doesn't mean it's the most perfect exam.

Speaker B: Very true.

Speaker A: Something.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: It's all right. But actually I prefer what I did. Go with her.

Speaker B: I host a lot of roundtables in the UK and around Europe and often there for professional services, accounting, lawyers, financial services and so on. The big question that continually comes up in those conversations is around professional firms who have traditionally sold expertise by the hour, uh, are having to rigorously rethink the value creation when it comes to AI, because it dramatically compresses some of the time needed to deliver high quality work and so on. Where does the value and the profit, I guess, lie in professional services when clients, I think, increasingly are, uh, questioning A, whether it's been done with AI, B, whether there should be a reduction in the price that they've received as a result, and C, whether the integrity and the trust is still there, uh, as a result of AI being involved in that process.

Speaker A: A very live issue. An interesting press story not too long ago about a well known accountant asking its accountant to reduce the fee because then you used AI going whatever, shoot yourself in the foot moment if ever there was one. Um, well, I think there's something very interesting about the whole value billing, if I can describe it generically as that. We've been talking about that for 30 years. It's not driven by AI, it's driven by what is the perceived value, what you're providing to the client. AI is massively accelerated. Um, but if you're using AI to deliver something, you've had to pay for the AI, you've had to Train for the AI, you still had to use your own judgment. Have you really reduced your costs? You might reduce your time, but have you really reduced your costs? So it's a very interesting sort of dilemma. Are you really providing something that's costing you hardly anything, or actually have you invested millions and millions and millions in a much better system that enables you to free up time to do other things? I think value billing has always had a huge attraction. What is the actual value you were getting from the advice you're delivering? You may have spent half an hour doing something, but it's amazingly valuable. Massive intellectual property. You use someone with oodles of experience, you're bringing something that's quite creative and thoughtful and tailored. Does that just get judged at 30 minutes of time? Equally, you could have spent 10 hours doing something that quite frankly is pretty routine, not that exciting. Um, but you've delivered it, well done, you know, hurrah. But is that something that really you could justify a very high price for? Chances are that's the sort of thing that a client will go, that seems a lot of money for that. So billable hours has always been quite a sticky point when you're looking at the higher level work. So what's the value you're providing to your client? The real root of this is the communication with the client at the outset. And sometimes it's possible to say, it will cost X, end of, that's what it's going to be and nothing's going to change it. Other times it'll be X. But if we hit some buffers along the way, we may have to charge more because we have to go and do more work. They'll give you more value and you keep communicating the client all the way through. A billing exercise should never be an exercise in surprises. It should always be an exercise in, this is what you expected, this is what you got to do. And very, very little work really should, um, be impacted by AI itself. It's more about what is the value you're providing.

Speaker B: I want to ask you a personal question and it's, you know, you've got to a pinnacle of a career looking objectively at your, at your success. And I wonder whether when you look back over the trajectory of your career over the last few decades, whether there's something that, a red thread that binds your roles and that trajectory together. You know, when you look back with the benefit of hindsight, I've done it before with the new P and L and I can trace it right back to when I was 7 years old in an instant encyclopedia. I won in a raffle. Is there something that binds your career and your success together when you look back with hindsight.

Speaker A: Oh gosh, Paul, that's such a good question. You see what I find a little bit challenging about that question is. I don't think there is because when I was seven, I think I wanted to be an astronaut and I'm not sure I managed to achieve that. And then um, when I was sort of in my teens, I wanted to be a writer. I'm not sure I have had a single rig. What I have realized is that I really, really like opportunities. So I've had some amazing opportunities. My goodness, I've been so lucky. Um, and I have had a very strong appetite all the way through to give it a go. So I left a big four accounting firm, amazing accounting firm and went to work on a magazine. I mean seriously good that as a career choice, um, someone in their early 20s, uh, that's what happened. But those amazing opportunities come along and I have, if I have any red Freddis. I do like saying yes to new opportunities. I do like giving things a go. And I think I've been able to change my career many, many times while still working within the same profession and seen something that's been amazing and had a chance to do it as opposed to it being a, uh, rather than being a stare way approach to wherever I am today. I see it more as a bit of choose your own adventure. It's been more of a meandering. I've been in the forest, I've been up on the mountain, I've been down on the wasteland. I've done lots and lots of different things over my career. But I, I love the thought that you got inspired by an encyclopedia to do what you do today. But I, I don't have a, I don't have a moment. A nugget that drove me.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean I, the encyclopedia didn't start it. It's sort of with me looking back I can see this sort of line of curiosity, creativity, desire to learn that lifelong learning sort of thing. And I think it's always interesting just to, as you've said in that answer that kind of get out and give it a shot and try it and what's the worst that can happen and all of those things. I think sometimes that's the best career advice of all because it, somewhere in the middle of it all you find yourself, don't you?

Speaker A: I think, I think you do. And I think it's uh, ticket Today, when you've got so many choices, Yes, I think it's quite overwhelming. And someone goes, well, I don't quite know what I want to do. I was going, well, I didn't know what I wanted to do till I was about 50, so I wouldn't m. Worry too, too much about it. Me, m too, you know, maybe I'll find something else that will suddenly spark my enthusiasm. But I think that's right, you don't. You don't have to have a single goal all the time. Some people have that wonderful vacation and I really admire that. But I think most people are just kind of going, I think I quite like this bit and this bit and this bit. If I could get those together, the perfect role. And sometimes that happens for you, and other times you get 80% of it. That is a pretty good life.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think sometimes it doesn't happen quickly. You know, it can take a long time, it can take decades for that to happen. But you've got to hold the faith somewhere and somehow, don't you?

Speaker A: I think, yeah. And take pleasure from the things that you do, really learn, and then see how much more of that you can keep doing and, um, how much of the stuff you don't like you can get rid of.

Speaker B: How do you stay informed and intellectually curious in your role and as an individual, you have to have your finger on the pulse as a CEO of a global network. But even personally, in order to get there, you've had to maintain a level of intellectual curiosity to get to that role. How do you maintain it? What do you do? What. What is. Is there a framework and a freedom to this?

Speaker A: Oh, uh, I. I think I just find it really interesting. Yeah, I find all of this, the work, the world I work in, really fascinating. So I don't find that too hard. I read a phenomenal amount. I try and read quite broadly as well. You know, sometimes read things that I know I'm going to wildly disagree with, but to sort of challenge myself. I love talking to people around the globe. So be it talking to someone in Latin America or Asia or Europe or Africa, you get very different views on the world as well. Um, different from what you might read about real life. What's really bothering them. I find that utterly fascinating. And then people do tend to tell me a lot of stuff. And I love that you get a little. A little email comes popping in or, uh, someone messages you on LinkedIn, you go, oh, that is fascinating. How's that working? But I think it is just by nature of the world that I work in, people are always doing interesting things. So it does spark you. Um, but what I love is when someone says something to you and you just go, never thought of it like that. That is really fascinating. Should we be thinking about it or actually, is that just a really terrible idea? But it's an interested idea. Um, how does that work? So I think we have to endless access to data. The difficult bit is making sure you don't drown in it. How do you manage all those different sources? In a thoughtful way. But I have a great senior leadership team and they're very different people. They have very, um, different views on life and different things they bring. And what we try and do is spark in our conversations that kind of, well, what else could we do? Where else could we go? Whatever things should we be thinking about? And someone might be actually just this morning, before we've started chatting, um, I had someone telling me all about a, ah, very unusual thing about a football game they were at and somebody else telling me about a book they read and then somebody else saying to me, well, actually, I'm going to go to this intriguing event later on in the week. And you get all those things, uh, aspects of how the world that we work in and live in today and how they make you rethink where you're at and what you need to do. So I don't find the attempt on keeping informed that difficult, but worsening out exactly what to do with it and execute on it is just a perennial challenge.

Speaker B: So I want to expand on that a little bit more because I think that's really interesting because as a global network, I guess there's a responsibility at some level to also encourage innovation. You don't run the companies, but you do lead the network. And it's in the company's interest and in the network's interest to consistently innovate and learn best practice and all those other things and sit on the edge of where we're going rather than follow. How do you encourage, as a hub or as a collective, how do you encourage innovation across that network?

Speaker A: Yeah, the innovation is fundamental to how you keep on moving and growing. Actually, sometimes we're quite happy to be the fast follower. We don't always need to be cutting edge because sometimes being cutting edge is, you know, uh, you're sitting there going, well, I've just invested tons of money and it didn't quite work. Where is she? Coming up behind you Go, okay, I can learn from that. Uh, so we're quite content to be a Fast follower in many ways. But I think the piece around innovation is you create environment where innovation's encouraged. You don't hammer people when it doesn't work because most of innovation has some failure in its path as it gets. There, uh, nothing wrong with that. Fail fast, learn from it, move on. Um, but I think also we try very, very hard to share the innovation that happens. So for all of our firms, so you're not on your own, you're not having to do this, uh, by yourself. You may be the one leading the way, but the chances are you might in many cases be the one that goes, I've got this issue. Who else has dealt with us and what do they learn from it? So we do an awful lot of connectivity. Um, we share a lot. And those firms that are leading, brilliant at sharing again, well, we've gone through all this process. Here you are, guys, use this. And the best of the best, we massively promote. And then often at the various events that we do, we showcase really amazing examples of things that are happening. But also for those brave firms like Jeff and the most inspiring firms, they go, well, this is what we did and it didn't work. And this is why. And that is a really, usually they're the best sessions because everyone goes, oh yeah, I really get that. And then what did you do and how did that work? And those are, uh, brilliant ways of really understanding how you can take innovation, which might be something quite small but really meaningful and other times is just huge. But all of that is about creating a culture where innovation is encouraged.

Speaker B: I agree. Um, we've touched on a lot of leadership characteristics through the course of the conversation around creating those curious cultures, purpose led leadership, empathetic leadership and so on. I wonder if you were advising the next generation of emerging leaders, those entering professional services today, with all of those considerations that we have discussed, technological advances and otherwise, what mindset or capability would you be advising them, encouraging them to invest in above all else? From a leadership perspective, what is the most important characteristic moving forward?

Speaker A: We've touched a little bit on it already, but curiosity remains vital. Right about that. And, um, I've got three children, two of whom actually have got accounting, uh, in their skill set. Or one of them is working in the accounting profession. And I look at all the opportunities that they've got, fast and amazing and wonderful, but you just have to remain curious about it. Where's this rule going to take me? What else do I need to learn? How do I keep current? And I think the other really massive part of it is, don't get too dispirited if things just seem to be taking a bit of time, because I think the curse of the modern age is that everybody looks at everybody else and thinks they're doing better than they are. We live in a social media world where people curate their lives in a beautiful way, but it looks as though it's super easy and everything's smooth that goes along and it's just not the way it works all the time. There's lots of bumps in the road, but if you. Working hard still remains vitally important. Really trying to understand better, um, in our profession, to understand better your clients and understand better the team that you work in, keep those really fundamental to what you do. And then also just keep on asking questions. Never stop asking questions. There's never. It's very rarely stupid questions, but keep on asking those questions. So that's how you learn. Um, don't just sit there and accept everything. Ask some questions around it. And that can be quite daunting sometimes to do that because you go, just need to keep my head down and get on. But actually, you don't need to be the wallflower. You can be the person who just says, I'd just like to understand that a bit more. And that's how you grow and learn. But also the generation coming through, they're so smart, crazy smart. And they are native to the technology question that we were talking about earlier on. For them, that's probably one of the easier parts. And they're working with people who actually aren't as good or as adept at that. So they can reverse mentor as well. They have this amazing opportunity to actually help the people that they're working with to embrace that new world that we're going into. And they understand that a lot better. Now, people like me, I think the

Speaker B: questions piece is 100% spot on. I think, you know, we're probably guilty, all of us are guilty of not listening with enough intent. And all of the answers are out there. And all of the questions that we need and want to ask to get to where we need to be are out there, but we just need to listen with a little bit more intent. I think that's where a lot of the answers come from to the questions that we either verbalize or just think about. Um, when I launched the new P and L series, the latest, uh, series earlier on this year, so this is our sixth series, I think now, been running for six years, I wanted to underpin the principles and leadership concept with talking a little bit about hope because it's, you know, there's an awful lot of noise out there at the moment. We've touched on some of those things today. But hope, societally and professionally feels a little bit in short supply at the moment. We think about Obama's book, uh, 20 years ago, the Audacity of Hope. We've almost gone to the absence of hope in 20 years. In some regards it underpins, um, everything in our lives, but it's one of the most underestimated cultural components, I think, and leadership responsibilities as well. So in your view, how do leaders deliver hope to employees today when the noise and the narrative seems so contrary to hope?

Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a great question. I think it's very easy to get lost in that sort of slough of despond that everything looks a bit miserable and oh, um, my job's going to go and I'm going to have nothing to do for the rest of my life and I'm never going to get paid as much as my parents got paid or my grandparents got paid and everything's a bit miserable. But actually there's so much there that you look at the opportunities that people have. They've got a chance to work in an environment that's actually a really exciting new horizon. Um, it's changing the way that things have taken place and they'll be part of that and they'll be the natives in that land. It won't be the people who've been around for 20, 30 years. They'll be the natives. And that gives them a huge, huge advantage. And also they can see that there's certain skills that they're so adept at, so much more able at because they usually are very, very good at written communication. Um, they are very in touch with how to be connected because they've been connected with each other in a way that is very different to how people connected years ago. And there's still enormous opportunity. If I look at my own profession, you can recreate your career three, four, five times easy, even with one organization. But you can also move and use those skills in lots of different places. Um, you've got something that's worthwhile, you've got, ah, a deeper knowledge. That's still a skill set that's going to be valued. And m. Yes, some things are going to change a bit, but there's other things that are going to come along that will be maybe even more inspiring or more useful. And I think the key is that we, we don't uh, concentrate too much on all the negatives because it's really easy to go, well, um, it's not going to be the same, that thing's going to change, that's going to be different. But here are the amazing positives that they have that are, ah, inspiring and all a great opportunity for them are a great. If you're a natural learner, something like the counter profession is brilliant because it's a knowledge learning environment and a lot of professions aren't like that, but this one is. And so there's so much to go after there that I think it's a. I think it's incumbent on leaders to be realistic and transparent, but also to showcase that there are so many amazing things that are available and will continue to be available. And I don't also think, um, we have quite a emphasis on negative press, negative media because that's an easy story to write. Uh, some of the great, great publications out there are uh, really, you see many of them now on social media which are about, hey, there is some good news out here and I think it's good to get that balance in your life to make sure you are reading and looking at some things that are fantastic and not just looking at things that go, oh, that's all a bit dreary and terrible. So I think you also yourself personally have to look for some of the things that really are utterly amazing, like eradicating some diseases, improving children, childhood poverty, some of the extraordinary things that are going on today that just weren't true even 10 years ago. So there is much that is amazing out there and you probably, for your own sanity and well being, need to seek some of those out yourself.

Speaker B: I think that's actually brilliant advice because we can't expect hope to come to us. We do have to find it as well, don't we? The responsibilities incumbent on us. Francesca, that's been a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for your time today.

Speaker A: It's been an absolute pleasure. Paul, thank you for asking me.

Speaker B: No, my pleasure, my pleasure. For those who would like to learn more about Baker Tilly and the work you do and the values that underpin it, where do they find you?

Speaker A: We're on BakerTelly Global, so go look at our global website and that can take you to the different countries. If you want to know about another firm as well, you can follow me on social media. Uh, I'm on LinkedIn, it's my favorite one, but you can, you can see us all over the place and um, we'd love to hear from you lovely.

Speaker B: And I'll include those links, uh, in the notes that accompany the podcast as well. Thank you so much for your time today. It's been wonderful.

Speaker A: Good to chat. You take care, Paul. Speak to you real soon. Bye. Bye.

Speaker B: That was a fantastic conversation with Francesca. If you'd like to learn anything more about the work she does with Baker Tilly International, you'll find the links in the notes that accompany the podcast. And thank you for listening to this episode and all of the episodes of the new PL that you listen to. If you enjoy them, please do take a moment to rate us or review us. It helps with our ratings and our rankings. Once again, if you're interested in the Leadership Program, the Executive Leadership Program the new P and L Institute is running, those links will also be in the notes that accompany the podcast. So thank you once again for listening this week. I look forward to speaking with you again in a couple of weeks. Have a great day and thank you for listening.