Having transitioned from a chartered accountant who experienced burnout to mentoring and coaching finance professionals – from university students to executive leaders – I have come to a powerful realisation: investing in your wellbeing and personal growth is one of the highest-return investments you will ever make. THE ASPIRE METHOD — focusing on abundance, spiritual,…
Professional education has taught us to study hard, pass exams, master standards, and prove ourselves through competence. While that investment must continue, the world has moved on. To stay relevant and effective, the profession now needs to invest equally in the human capabilities that technical training alone cannot build. LEADING IN A FIRM TODAY is…
Investment trends continue to highlight the growing influence of technology, artificial intelligence (AI), human capital, training, and changing monetary conditions. While these trends shape where capital is invested, they also provide an important signal to universities about the capabilities employers expect from future graduates. AI IS TRANSFORMING INVESTMENT ANALYSIS. Investment professionals increasingly rely on AI…
He was the kind of man who genuinely and visibly champions women in leadership. So when he said it, nobody in the room flinched, including me. The alarm only finds you later, when the quiet of the early morning finally gives the thought enough space to breathe. This man was celebrating women, and he meant…
The other day I was having a conversation with an acquaintance from a technology company. They noted that it is so frustrating dealing with their auditors, testing items on a sample basis when they have the technology and the means to test the entire population. Moreover, it can probably be performed in real time, to…
Internal audit often assumes a position of relative safety. After all, who audits the machines if not the auditors? Yet this confidence may be misplaced. If internal audit continues to define itself by control testing, sampling, and retrospective assurance, it may discover that AI is not merely assisting the profession − it is replacing large…
The Value-Added Tax Act 89 of 1991 (VAT Act) is legally complex due to its readability, which makes it challenging to teach, apply in practice, and administer. My PhD empirical investigation establishes that the lengthiest section in the VAT Act is section 17(2) (denied input, entertainment). The study further cites several sections in the VAT…
Do you remember your first day of articles? How nervous you were? Did you know then what you know now? I ask these questions because I often observe new managers welcoming trainees into their organisations while completely forgetting that not so long ago, they were once in the same position. At a time of heightened…
Leaders today are striving to show up with more confidence, influence, and clarity. Yet the biggest barrier isn’t skills, it’s identity. When behaviour rises from an outdated self-concept, performance changes remain shallow. Real transformation begins with who you believe yourself to be. Most leadership development focuses on skills. The leaders who thrive today aren’t those…
Confession time: AI helped draft this piece. Shocking? It shouldn’t be. We don’t send handwritten notes with balance sheets to prove our arithmetic. We don’t scatter typos in drafts to prove we didn’t use spell check. So why treat AI like a guilty secret? I’m old enough to remember the calculator debate at school. ‘You…