Opening 38. Russell Bedford Annual Global Conference, President Russell Bedford, Bruce Saward, welcomed almost 300 Members, including in a special way colleagues from new member companies from France, Canada, Bolivia, Ghana, USA, Switzerland, Senegal, Malta, Nepal, Nicaragua, South Korea and Italy.
Bruce presented an introduction to the new strategic positioning of Russell Bedford entitled “Going Further Together to a Better Future”, which was the network's constant goal throughout the 2021 Bruce stressed that while growth will be a natural result of the implementation of the network's vision, success depends on a cooperative approach, saying, "It is important that we all agree with our core values and share our obligations and obligations."
Unleashing the company's potential through diversity and integration (D&I) was a topic first The conference session, and the network had the pleasure of hosting a communication and cultural change specialist, Shola Kaye.
Revealing some extremely effective and practical strategies to increase engagement in organisations, Shola put forward arguments for improving diversity in the workplace.
She expressed the importance of managing with empathy, ensuring that equality and integration are a priority in creating a culture where everyone feels belonging to the whole organization, not just at the hiring stage. The benefits are hard to question.
The company's reputation may depend on a bad or well executed D&I strategy, and statistics suggest that the employees involved outweigh others by 21%. She left us a provocative description of diversity as an art of self-thinking.
Then there was a conversation between a partner from our member company in Malta, John Debattista and Jonathan Labrey (The Value Reporting Foundation), during which both discussed the prospects for future global extended external reporting standards.
Mouhammad Saleh, a partner at Lebanese member company Russell Bedford, led the last session of the day, a discussion forum on future audit.
The Mouhammada was joined by panelists Vanessa Albuquerque (Belo Horizonte), Mariam Bermúdez (San José), Gisela Coimbra (Rio de Janeiro) and Mahmoud Saghir (Beyrut), who shared their views on the subject.
Day second began by a report by President Russell Bedford, Stephen Hamlet, who revealed some of the impressive successes of the network from the last 12 months, including 18% revenue growth, while praising members of Russell Bedford for their constant help to companies. with impressive productivity and growth in these difficult times.
Philip Baker, QC, OBE (Field Court Tax Chambers, London) joined as first speaker of that day to share your personal view of the changing political landscape in a fun discussion on global tax trends in 2021.
Recently appointed to the Board of Directors Russell Bedford, Deanna Salo (Chicago), she led another session, a panel discussion on CPA's best practices, advising families and family businesses. The panelists George Grignano (Toronto), Scott Sagan (Boston) and Sue Redmond (Manchester) joined Deanna.
Closing the day second, The CEO, Stephen Hamlet, led a funny international financial quiz to help raise money for charity purposes, answering questions about accounting, auditing and taxes.
The third day of the conference began with Stephen’s opening remarks, which reminded members of important events on the network, followed immediately by an audit quality management update conducted by AQC consultant Russell Bedford, Jim Sylph.
Next was a presentation of strategic positioning Russell Bedford 2021, which included comments from each of the global board directors on the aspect of the future network strategy and was an opportunity for members to ask questions and discuss. The Ordinary General Assembly 2021 was chaired by Bruce Saward at the time.
During AGM, Bruce said goodbye to James Ngai (Hongkong), who resigns as a member of the APAC board, thanking him for his fantastic energy and great contribution, inter alia by facilitating the recruitment of many great companies in the APAC region during his term of office.
In summing up his work on the council, James said: “It is an honor to serve as a member of the Russell Bedford Board of Directors by the last nine years.
Travelling one thousand miles around the world, participating in many amazing events, I feel so happy that technology has enabled us to maintain a relationship, while we have dealt with the challenges posed by the pandemic." Referring to the topic of the conference, James added: "A well-thought-out strategy gives rise to a new era of Russell Bedford, in which we will go further together, to a better future."
Bruce welcomed new board members, including Andrew Lima (Singapur), who joined as director for the APAC region, and Deanna Salo, who joined as director for the North American region.
The conference ended with the introduction of next year's global conference to be held in Vienna, Austria in October. 2022. Speaking about the conference, CEO Stephen Hamlet said: "2021 was for the network a year of many contemplations. The strategic review process was thorough and comprehensive.
He considered the opinions and experience of experts from Russell Bedford, whom we are fortunate to call our members, our allies and our friends. He added: “I am convinced that our strategy will lead us to new heights of success.
Armed with this new strategic positioning, we are ready to move forward in the development and expansion of our global network, while ensuring that we acquire the right companies that are in line with the vision and mission of the network." Stephen concluded: “This year’s conference was once again a great opportunity to regroup and learn together.
This is an exciting time for Russell Bedford International and I am full of optimism and expectation of future opportunities that are facing our admirable network.”