6 must-listen podcasts for accountants

The leaders’ insights: Books to the Boardroom

Host Sumith Dissanayake speaks with finance leaders and C-suite folks with accounting backgrounds about their paths to leadership and the lessons they learnt along the way.

Highlights include Flight Centre’s Karen Young on her path from big four grad placement to Global Tax Director, and on what martial arts taught her about releasing her potential; Heritage Lifecare CFO Peter Nijmeijer on the two moments that shaped his career and leadership style; and a wide-ranging conversation with the podcast’s first US-based guest Judy Farcua Serra, CFO of an online car dealership group.

See the series.

Only going to listen to one episode? Make it the chat with Judy Farcus Serra – her leadership reaches well beyond the bounds of finance. She discusses how she sets ambitious growth plans in action, launches customer and employee engagement initiatives, advocates for her industry, and more.

Real life insights: Aly and Andrew’s All Aussie Accounting Adventures

Each month, hear from two hosts who are both also founders of small business accounting and advisory practices – Aly Garrett of All In Andrew Van De Beek of illumin8. Aly and Andrew share a warts-and-all view of practice management and the path to it, including growth, branding, work/life balance and making the leap from junior to senior roles, then from senior roles to running the show.

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Start here:

High-tech low-down: AAAA Tech Edition

Aly and Andrew’s semi-regular discussions of accounting firms’ tech tools have provided fantastic insights – and a spin-off.

Hosts Amy Holdsworth, Clarity Street founder and CEO, and Jack Thiel, Early Adopters Hub co-founder and head of AU/NZ, talk all things accounting tech each month, including the technology that’s on the horizon for accounting firms.

Recent episodes include a simple, digestible discussion of the benefits of all-in-one platforms compared to best-in-class tech tool ‘stacks’; a deep dive into the surprisingly complex world of document management including storage, workflow, security, signatures and more; and an overview of the considerations that must be settled ahead of making tech decisions for a new firm.

The only downside of this podcast? It’s a bit irregular – sometimes there’ll be four episodes released in a month, then none for a couple of months. The last episode, as of March 2024, came out in December 2023.

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Listen to the December 2023 discussion – Amy and Jack discuss the local and international apps and startups they’re excited about:

From the coalface: Accounting Industry Insights with Mark Holton

Accountants in practice, tune in to hear IPA Fellow Mark Holton in conversation with a different guest each month.

Conversations cover the shift to advisory services, growth tactics, generative AI, sustainability reporting and more, and guests include Holton’s peers in public practice, small business accountants, fresh graduates, experts in related fields and more.

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Start here – an discussion of the opportunities generative AI will create for the accounting profession and how it will change the needs of small business owners:

An archive of goodness: Accountants on purpose

Accountants on purpose is no longer in production, but the back-catalogue of Sarah Bartholomeusz’s monthly-ish episodes is a wealth of fascinating conversations with business leaders.

Discussions include of the impact of health and wellbeing on business success with accountant and then-ANZ Head of Health Brendan Rinaldi, the importance of continuously building skills and knowledge with then-SA Water Senior Accountant Laura Taylor, and the challenges of starting a new business with serial entrepreneur Annie Flannagan.

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Start here: Conservation Capital Operations Director Frances Carter talks sustainable finance, funds management, auditing and more, sharing lessons from her international career in international development, conservation and financial services.

Proof that accounting is fascinating: Planet Money

There’s no better evidence that accountancy is so much more than boring number crunching than an episode of NPR’s Planet Money. Get ready to hit that share button, because you’ll struggle to keep this to yourself.

Find out what finance has to do with the Oscars, and whether buying and selling organs would make transplants more efficient. Learn about how US federal tax policy started the ‘Rum Wars’ between Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

Dive into the economics of renewable energy – why is wind-turbine technician projected to be the fastest-growing job in the US even while offshore wind farm lease auctions are complete flops?

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Start here, with an absolute classic from 2015 – The Chicken Tax. How did post-WWII Germany’s taste for cheap American frozen chicken shape the US auto industry today? How did a 1960s tariff known as the ‘Chicken Tax’ stifle car manufacturers’ innovation? How did the Trans-Pacific Partnership threaten the Chicken Tax? Find out: