Difference Makers Podcast
We created this podcast in order to celebrate the lives and work of people who have transformed communities, businesses, and the wider world, making a real difference in the lives of others. We call them "Difference Makers". Some overcame great personal adversity in their journey. They all showed the knowledge, perspective, skills and capabilities to lead, to achieve, and to make real change when it is needed most. Oh, and by the way... they are all Chartered Accountants!
Find out more at https://www.charteredaccountantsworldwide.com
Difference Makers Podcast
Best of DMD Live Season 2 - From Cape Town to the BBC: Journeys That Matter
Sinead Donovan reflects on hosting the Difference Makers Discuss webinar series, sharing powerful highlights from conversations with remarkable professionals who've made significant impacts beyond chartered accountancy. These inspiring individuals demonstrate how determination, education, and purpose can transform lives and influence positive change across society.
• Thembeke Maseko shares how her grandfather ingeniously motivated her education by having her teach him what she learned, instilling both academic discipline and storytelling skills
• Michelle Shuttleworth discusses her dynamic career journey through PwC, Virgin Entertainment, Burberry and the BBC, highlighting finance transformation experiences
• Jessica Fries explains chartered accountants' crucial role in sustainability, from robust reporting frameworks to translating net-zero commitments into practical transition plans
• Tinashe Kamangira addresses attracting diverse talent to the profession through new pathways like "earn and learn" models
• Brad Hook and Declan Scott provide insights on professional resilience, debunking multitasking myths and emphasising quality sleep for performance
Look out for future episodes where we meet more Difference Makers – people who've positively impacted communities worldwide. Don't forget to like, subscribe and share.
Hey, there I am Sinead Donovan, former President of Charged Accountants Ireland, and over the last year I have been proud to be host of Difference Makers Discuss, along with some guest hosts when I let them. Difference Makers Discuss is a webinar series and we got to meet and interview difference makers People making a mark not only in the field of charged accountancy but throughout society as a whole. I have loved it and I wanted to bring to you here a few snippets of the action in the last year. Last October I was delighted to meet Thembeka Maseko, an inspiring finance leader at Standard Bank South Africa. Fembeke has had an incredible journey from a challenging childhood in Cape Town to professional success, which highlights the power of resilience, education and mentorship. Here she talks about how her grandfather essentially tricked her into getting the best education possible.
Thembeka Maseko :He was a very intelligent man because, in addition to that, to him selling this dream to me, he said to me that you know, I actually would have loved to be educated, but I didn't get a chance to. So, when you go to school, you must learn so you can come home and teach me. This is how I'm going to get educated. You must learn so you can come home and teach me. This is how I'm going to get educated. And, unknowing to me at the time, what I didn't know is the skills that he was actually instilling in me while going to school, because now, when I got to school, I had to make sure that I focused, I listened, because I was not there to learn for myself. I had a bigger picture to live for.
Thembeka Maseko :I was getting an education for me and my grandfather. I knew that when I made sure that I understand things when I get home, I have an opportunity to be a teacher to him. And, secondly, it was. He was teaching me the art of storytelling, and little did I know that later on in life actually that's a rare skill and that people actually will pay lots of money to get that skill. And he was actually crafting this journey for me, even though he didn't quite know where it was going to end. But looking back now, I wish I was here to actually see that.
Sinead Donovan:Kembeke was a fascinating guest and a testament to determination, ambition, heart and the absolute belief that anything is possible. In November I was lucky to have spoken to Michelle Shuttleworth, a trailblazer in finance and a passionate advocate for purpose-driven work. Her impressive and dynamic career spans top companies like PwC, virgin Entertainment, burberry and the BBC. Here she is giving a peek inside the British national broadcaster.
Michelle Shuttleworth:And I went over to work for BBC Radio and look after the finances there under who is now the DG, tim Davey, who actually is a marketeer by trade, and he was a fantastic boss to have because he just had a very different perspective about how these things should run. You know, he wasn't a BBC lifer, he hadn't grown up in broadcasting, um, unlike many of the others, uh who were in leadership there. So that was really refreshing and I learned a lot from him, um. And then I uh had another baby and many of my jobs are punctuated with children in one way, shape or form.
Michelle Shuttleworth:So I came back from my maternity leave with my second into a big finance transformation programme. So we were doing some changes both to systems and to structures across the BBC and the finance team, and I led a part of that looking at management, information and analytics. And it was great because it got me out across the country visiting teams in all sorts of places looking at how we would make the financial information better and provide more information to people on the ground so people could use systems to put their own numbers in and, you know, would make finance more focused on partnering than just on producing. So there was an interesting set of change programs there and off the back of that I then became finance director of the non-broadcast stuff at the BBC, so all of the technology and procurement activity and finance itself and HR and others, so anything that was non-broadcast. I looked after um and it's yeah what I.
Michelle Shuttleworth:What I loved about the bbc, in addition to just having a fantastic team, was and still is the fact that I I referenced that, um, that sort of governance and funding model of the bbc frequently in um in work, because, um, it has a very interesting public-private almost dimension to it. You know this very relatively fixed income base from a licence fee that is not that malleable. But your focus can be around costs and delivering value and actually then how you report and present success in that is really challenging, and so lots of the stuff that we're doing with certainly the Crick now, but also with charities, really picks up on that, because you know you may have some commercial activity in a separate arm or whatever it may be that can give you back some income. But your core mission delivery is all about how you take a pound and deliver the most value from that pound that you possibly can.
Sinead Donovan:Michelle is currently CFO at the Francis Crick Institute, but as if that wasn't enough, she also runs her own sustainable kids clothing company called Boa Wool. Check it out. In season two, I reluctantly handed over the reins to some guest hosts. This next clip features the impressive Ainslie Van Onselen, who interviewed Jessica Fries, the executive chair of A4S or Accounting for Sustainability, for a special edition about the role of chartered accountants in sustainability. In sustainability.
Jessica Fries:Firstly, it is using its influence to help make sure that the frameworks, the standards, the regulations that are being put in place quite rapidly now are going to drive meaningful progress and action and really create that baseline of information upon which decisions have to be built. If I think of the work we do with investors, they really want to see that information being disclosed so that they can decide where they're going to be investing, and a lot of them have made net zero commitments or commitments around some of the social outcomes or broader environmental outcomes that they see as critical to the investments that they are taking. And so I think that enabling that flow of information is key. And, of course, accountants have huge skills when it comes to enabling and to looking at the kind of controls that are in place, looking at the systems, looking at making sure that the information that gets disclosed is robust and is underpinned. And then, of course, those who are in practice providing that advice to companies those who are in practice providing that advice to companies.
Jessica Fries:But I would say as well, one of the things that a lot of the accountants we work with also talk about is the fact that particularly accountants in business are often the ones holding the purse strings, but also from an advisory nature. Those in practice provide advice, strategic advice, often to organisations. So again, this isn't just about the reporting but really thinking about key investment decisions that might be being made now. So how can accountants really help to make sure that the analysis that's being undertaken really takes into account that full set of information, all of the different capitals that an organisation relies on, not just financial?
Ainslie Van Onselen:It certainly feels, I think, from a global perspective, that the world has sort of woken up from its chrysalis, almost, and there is, I think, a sense of agency and a sense of urgency to this issue. And chartered accountants obviously they're very good at ensuring that there's consistent, reliable, accurate data that can be measured on an even playing field. So there's certainly a role there to play to not only, as you say, do the preparing and the reporting, but also to advocate to the stakeholders that they influence, particularly in respect to strategic decisions in the ground up. So I definitely agree with that. In terms of what are you seeing as some of the key sort of global international trends or developments that chartered accountants should be aware of? Is there anything that you want to add there?
Jessica Fries:Well, we've touched quite a bit on the reporting side of things, I think, two other trends that are really key. One is around the whole discussion of transition planning and transition finance. So a lot of organisations, and indeed governments, have set net zero goals, and there's a huge role that the profession can play in helping whether it's organisations or indeed nations, to translate those goals into action, and that is particularly the measurement side of things. So how do you not, how do you go from what can be a very long-term target into embedded into the strategy, into the financial planning processes and also setting near-term goals? So we find that the accounting community has a vital role to play in making some of these commitments real.
Sinead Donovan:I think you'll agree that episode was superb and highlighted the critical issue facing us in sustainability. I personally am delighted to see entities like A4S trying to normalise sustainable business across the globe. Next up, we have a clip from the amazing and charismatic Tinashe Kamangira, a natural leader within the profession. I was lucky enough to meet with Tinashe face-to-face when I was in Australia and it is fair to say he is an absolute ambassador for the profession and what people can achieve at all stages of their career. Tinashe is a past president of Chartered Accountants Australia and New Zealand and a director at Deloitte. Tinashe spoke to me about attracting new and diverse people to the chartered accountancy profession.
Tinashe Kamangira:Yeah, so the decision is really based around that attractiveness piece, right, we're trying to attract more people to our profession and you know, when we sit around the board table it's about how can we do that. And you know there's multiple things that we're doing, whether it's campaigns at the cinemas, for example. But also, you know, this pathway has actually always existed in Australia and New Zealand. It's just that we probably hadn't highlighted it initially and we recognize that our pathway actually took too long, right. So this new pathway that we announced, which you know inevitably we announced, which you know inevitably because Australia and New Zealand most people come through that business commerce degree pathway I think rightly so. A lot of members were a little bit surprised initially, but when you start talking to our members about you know, the challenges that we're facing, they're much, much more understanding.
Tinashe Kamangira:So, you know, 10 years ago, 83% of students finished high school in Australia. That's down to 73% today. So the people going into university there are less people going into universities, and even the universities themselves are changing the pathways for people to come into the universities, right. So they're giving places to students while they're still in school, for example. They're not waiting until the results have been released.
Tinashe Kamangira:So there's this pipeline issue of people coming into the profession and you know I've been fortunate to go to a few schools to talk to them about accounting. Recently I went to one school in a, you know, in the lower socioeconomic area in Western Australia and the teacher said, out of all the students doing the year 12, less than a third of those students would even consider or choose to go to university. So from a professional perspective, if we can give some of these students the opportunity to earn and learn, for example, that gives them more of an opportunity, like I've said before, to give them the same opportunities that I've had as a chartered accountant and the same opportunities that you've had to work with some great people, great clients, to travel and just to enjoy the benefits of being a chartered accountant in this world.
Sinead Donovan:I absolutely loved talking to Tinashe. His journey from Zimbabwe to Perth and on to parenthood is so full on and inspiring. Finally, these next couple of clips are from a special edition hosted by D France in association with the Resilience Institute, which was broadcast in January. Dee is the head of the wellbeing hub here in Charched Accountants, Ireland, and is a true champion for mental wellbeing and the need for resilience. First up, we hear Brad Hook talk about multitasking and Ben Declan-Scott shares a few truths about sleep.
Dee France:So I think it's obviously important to look at the challenges within the profession and the challenges that came up in the study itself. Multitasking, hypervigilance and poor sleep quality were defined as challenges. So maybe, Brad, you could just share a couple of examples of how these would actually impact the day-to-day performance and well-being of the accountants that are out there and listening today.
Brad Hook:Absolutely so. I come from a family of accountants and I've seen this firsthand. I'm still surprised when job ads say multitasking is required. The research shows quite clearly that multitasking, for example, it rapidly drains our cognitive resources. It gives the illusion of productivity, but if you find yourself at the end of the day feeling completely exhausted, it's a real call to action to ask yourself was I multitasking? Some research suggests that if I'm working on five tasks simultaneously, five threads simultaneously, I lose about 80% of my time to what's called context switching. We're not actually running the tasks simultaneously, we're jumping from one to the other, to the other.
Brad Hook:A far more effective habit is monotasking, which is just focusing on one thing through to completion, potentially stepping back, taking a short break it can be a micro break of 10 seconds or one minute, if you can afford that and just recalibrating and then stepping into the next task. These types of rhythms of resilience can make a huge difference. Hypervigilance is the state of being constantly switched on, and it's a real challenge, especially in those last few hours before bed. Have you ever found yourself going to bed and then checking the phone one more time just to see if anything interesting came through? I often say in my workshops. I don't think anyone has received an email in the last half hour before bed. That actually helped them to sleep better. Yet we practice these habits.
Dee France:So why is sleep such a critical factor for resilience, and how can professionals improve their own sleep habits? So maybe, declan, you could answer that one for us.
Declan Scott:Yeah, this particular topic is fascinating and you know I've had the good fortune of working with many industries now and many companies. Um, just focusing on sleep, there's so much more to it than ever I imagined. And in our work we we reference experts like Matthew Walker great book called why we sleep, and you know he's a number of great resources online for people to follow up with. But you know, what I never realized when I was in the working world at that time is that I was very ad hoc. You know it was. You know it was never. There was never rhythm in it.
Declan Scott:And if we look at our life, we are, you know, we live in rhythm. Nature follows a rhythm. The seasons, days, you know hours, day and night is all in rhythm and every animal, every mammal follows a rhythm. And yet as human beings, we we have the audacity to think we're not, we don't need to. And in some cases, certainly in the past, it was like, oh, I can do it on four hours a night and I don't need. And that was seen as a bravado saying that you know I'm a superman or woman. And so you know when I really cottoned on to this and started to have some rhythm in my own sleep. It changed my life and you know, know.
Declan Scott:To use an analogy, it's like you're working in in your job and you're never doing a backup of anything. You're never consolidating the files, you're never, you know, calling the files. You're, you're, you're. You're not even thinking about having a backup storage facility or anything like that. You know the sleep in itself does consolidate and and even bring forward some of that creativity. We need it.
Declan Scott:It's an important you know that phrase sleep on it well, it actually does. You do start to think laterally during the night. That's where some of your best ideas may come, after having a night's sleep and then using that fresh energy and appreciating the rhythm of the day. Many of us, um, you know, will waste valuable time when our energy is high in the morning. That's when we come in and we do our aimless scrolling or look at our emails or, and that's your most productive time of the day. You know, when you follow your circadian cycle of 24 hours and see, actually the afternoon, by nature we're going to be losing energy and we shouldn't be going into critical performance reviews or meetings at that time in the evening.
Sinead Donovan:You know we are not at our best so I think you'll agree that's a pretty impressive roster of guests we've had on Difference Makers, discuss, and that's just season two. So I would urge you to maybe listen back or watch back on these episodes and all from season one. Wherever you are getting this now, please look out for future episodes where we meet some more Difference Makers people who've positively impacted communities worldwide. And finally, the words I have wanted to say since seeing my first YouTuber Don't forget to like, subscribe and share. Thank you so much for watching. I look forward to seeing you soon.
Tinashe Kamangira:Well done. Sorry about sitting you in the sunshine. No, it's all right. It's all right, that's great.
Sinead Donovan:So what that's just going out?
