“Relevance, reputation and resilience”

Derek Blair, Partner

Derek is quite a humble chap but we couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask him a few questions about the appointment.

How did you feel on the day of your inauguration, with the members of your team and your family with you?

Proud. Very proud, but you can only do any kind of demanding job like this with a solid support network. So, it was a joyous occasion, but this is also when the hard work starts in earnest.  I’ve been lucky enough to go to Rome, Paris and Birmingham in the last three weeks, and whilst these are interesting locations, you’re seeing it from the back of the taxi as you dash between meetings. It’s all new and exciting, but it only really started with the inauguration ceremony because up until that point Malcolm was the President, and he continued fulfilling his duties right up to the official handover.

How do you feel that your position as the partner of a small practice, will inform your leadership style in your role as President?

The roles are very different; at Pinkham Blair I have a partner, we have staff, we’ve got an employer/employee relationship, although I always think of us a team. My role at the Institute is technically to be the ‘senior volunteer’; I’m effectively leading a team of volunteers and although there is a lot of staff interaction the President is entirely non-executive. I can’t direct a member of staff to do anything, I can suggest, strongly suggest and make statements of wishes but I can’t direct a single employee at the Institute.

Engagement with the membership is a key part of the role. and it’s something you feel strongly about, yes?

Absolutely, but I’m not attempting to meet every member; I can’t do it. and let’s face it not all the members will necessarily want to meet the President either … I don’t want to impose myself on people. The target I’ve set myself is for members to create small self-supporting communities; I plan to meet enough members so that I can be the catalyst for that. If I meet a thousand members and each of those – or even a small proportion of those – takes away the idea of creating these communitities then they between them can reach many more members than I can reach myself.  I’ll give you an example; we were in Brussels for the Accountancy Europe conference last week. and at the end of the conference, we arranged to have a meeting with members in Belgium. We’ve got just over 100 members and about half of them are retired; the others are working and active. One of the things I was encouraging was for them to connect with each other so they can have a community in Belgium of ICAEW members … the retired members think it might be particularly useful for them to have their own little group opportunity. There were some people there who were asking for lists of members which is difficult for us to give – all sorts of privacy and GDPR issues, and also some members wouldn’t want their contact details shared – but my suggestion was that people connect on LinkedIn because if you put in ICAEW Belgium or Brussels then you’re going to see a high proportion of the members in the country. And even if they can’t reach everyone directly, perhaps they’re just two connections away from pretty much everyone who’s a member in the country.

What do you see as the key challenges for an organisation with the breadth and history of the ICAEW? It’s quite a big old ship to turn.

It’s a lot easier if there’s a lot of people leaning into the turn as it were, because, let’s face it, there’s nothing I can do single-handedly. I haven’t got a steering wheel or a gear stick, I can’t suddenly do anything to change either the pace or the direction of the Institute single-handedly. We’ve gone through a relook at our vision and have launched Direction 2030, which is our new strategy. It’s on the website and we’re very proud of it.

During the process we identified that we’re interested in – and not just because it illiterates – the relevance of our members, the reputation of our members and the resilience of our members. Take that up a level to the member firms like Pinkham Blair when that also contributes to the relevance, the reputation and the resilience of the Institute itself. As the 121st President in the Institute’s 146th year, part of my job is to make sure that it’s still around in its 147th year and hopefully it’s 290th year. I won’t be here then but hopefully the Institute will be and so this is a crucial building block; if we can help members to retain their relevance, build their reputation and strengthen their resilience it will all build into the same for the Institute itself.