Catch up on the CA Summit 2022
Watch the video sessions from each day of the CA Summit
ICAS’ award-winning three day virtual conference, the CA Summit, returned on 4,5 and 6 October. The event gave attendees the opportunity to hear from some of the best and brightest minds over three days, with sessions grouped into the overarching chapters of Learn, Grow and Inspire. Speakers from the worlds of finance, business and academia delivered thought-provoking topical debate, expert insight and thought leadership on topics such as diversity, sustainability, and the post-pandemic outlook.
To refresh your mind or catch up on any sessions you may have missed, watch the recordings from each day of the conference below.
Watch Day One: The Learn Chapter
Session one - In conversation: Lord Kim Darroch and Mike McKeon CA
Two experts from government and business kicked off the CA Summit with a topical discussion on the economic, social and political challenges affecting the UK, covering a range of issues, from ongoing Brexit trade deals to the war in Ukraine.
They also touched on the leadership race in the US, with Lord Darroch suggesting that it would be a “knife edge election” and we should “not rule out a Trump, Biden re-run.”
Session two - Putting disability on the board agenda
Caroline Casey stressed the underrepresentation and discrimination facing the 1.3 billion people worldwide living with a disability and shared the personal story which led her to found the Valuable 500.
She urged the audience to think about disability when they consider the future of business. “I ask you to think about what we can do collectively when we have the courage to ask the questions. The day to make the business case for disability is gone. This is now about risk proofing ourselves, our businesses, and the societies that we want to live in.”
Session three - How industry forces are changing leadership
Director of Leadership at Saïd Business School, Dr Andrew White, tapped into his experience and insights from research he conducted with EY to examine how changes in industry are affecting how leaders operate.
Dr White explained that to adapt to these forces, leaders and their organisations “need to learn how to live in a continual state of transformation.” Driving such transformation “requires a different form of leadership, different managerial interventions and different mindsets.”
Session four - New ways of working
ICAS President, Indy Singh Hothi CA, hosted a fascinating panel with Elizabeth Uviebinené and Bruce Daisley exploring the ‘great shift’ happening in workplaces.
Bruce described the increasing trend of employees recognising their boundaries. “A major study estimated that people who work on devices gave mental availability to their job for 70 hours a week. The notion of quiet quitting is people saying enough is enough.”
Elizabeth added her thoughts on finding purpose in work and the workplace of the future. “It’s so important that people feel like they can show up as their true and best self at work, the ability to be yourself is a superpower.”
Session five - Mental health in the workplace
To close the Learn chapter, Solution Based Therapist, Gin Lalli, reminded us of the five lessons we’ve all learnt about mental health as a result of the pandemic. Work gives us purpose, we need a sense of community, loneliness is a mental health issue, workplace friendships are vital, and we must tackle our residual stress.
Gin believes that if we take these lessons forward, “step by step, one person at a time, we can change the world of work.”
Day one Learn was sponsored by 
Watch Day Two: The Grow Chapter
Session one - "I needed to make sure my life was worth saving"
Dame Stephanie Shirley opened day two of the CA Summit by reflecting on her truly inspirational journey, from her experience as a Holocaust survivor and child refugee, and facing prejudice as a woman in the 1950s workplace, to giving away her wealth as part of her philanthropic work to support neurodiverse people.
“As a new generation of child refugees come to Britain, I see in them the same distress that I remember from my own arrival here in 1939, but I also see hope for the future. My dream is of a more equal, inclusive, and resilient post-pandemic world where we celebrate and cherish diversity.”
Session two - How can we rebuild the UK’s tourist economy?
Helen Brocklebank, CEO of Walpole, the body which protects, promotes and develops British luxury, shared fascinating research discoveries into what’s needed for the UK’s high-end tourism sector to recover and thrive.
Helen argued the case for focusing on high-end tourism, revealing that in the UK high-end tourists “spend fourteen times that of mass market visitors.” She stressed that implementing the recommendations of Walpole’s report, which include simplifying the visa regime and re-introducing tax-free shopping, could be “the key that unlocks exceptional growth potential and job generation in the UK.”
Session three - How to grow a sustainable business
ICAS CFO, Chris Barber CA, interviewed Michael Stausholm on his involvement in the sustainability sector, how he is combating the challenge of greenwashing through the use of transparent technologies, such as blockchain, and the vital role CAs will play in the future of sustainable business.
Speaking of the inspiration behind his company, Sprout World, Michael said that he “saw the plantable pencil as a fantastic tool for illustrating what sustainability is all about and inspiring other companies to consider giving second life to their products.” Looking to the future, he highlighted that “sustainability has moved from nice to have to need to have, with the C-suite now recognising that it is business critical.”
Session four - Leadership in 2022 and beyond
Panellists Natalie Campbell, Buki Ishola CA and Alison Cornwell CA delved into an interesting discussion examining how leadership has changed in recent years.
Natalie recognised that leadership “has fundamentally shifted in a post-pandemic world”, with leaders and their teams considering “their purpose, what they are doing to put people and planet first, and how they can show up as their authentic selves.”
Buki added that “one of the key emerging trends is that the expectations of our leaders are changing, with employees challenging them to take a substantive stand against social issues.”
Alison emphasised that “a far more inclusive and collaborative approach, where people feel valued”, in combination with “the adoption of a leadership style which is reassuring but honest” were critical in her own experience as a leader.
Session five - “This is what a mentally healthy workplace looks like”
In the final session of the day, Alastair Campbell presented the steps that businesses can take to support the mental health of their employees and shared his own strategies for managing his mental health.
Alastair stressed that “given the pandemic and the current fears about the future, it is inevitable that the prevalence and reporting of anxiety and depression has increased.” He believes that “business has an important role to play in stripping away the taboos around mental health” and making difficult cultural changes to “create a sense of openness, where employees feel they can be as open about their mental health as their physical health.”
Watch Day Three: The Inspire Chapter
Session one - Better governance for better business
James Barbour CA was joined by Dr Margaret Casely-Hayford to open day three and discuss the better business act, an initiative supported by a coalition of over 1,400 UK businesses which aims to create a cleaner, greener, and fairer future for all.
Margaret explained the four key principles which the campaign seeks to have incorporated into the Companies Act and stressed the importance of “creating a balance to ensure that directors think about people and planet, as well as profit.”
Session two - Resetting the economic system
ICAS President, Indy Singh Hothi CA, talked to Paul Lindley about why the UK’s economic system is unfit for purpose and how this can be adapted to become sustainable and fair for all, with the help of CAs.
Paul listed the cost of living in comparison with earnings, widening wealth inequalities and the regulation around the structure of capitalism not being nimble enough to adapt to societal change, as just some of elements that the current system is not grappling with. Paul shared that his “utopia starts with creating an economic system that is designed for the interdependence of a healthy planet, people and profits”, and his belief that “with the brains of accountants and others we can build an economy that is fit for this century.”
Session three - The forgotten market
In his session, Mike Adams highlighted the broadening definition of disability out with the recognised wheelchair symbol, presenting the statistic that “80% of disabled people have a hidden disability.” He shared that although 14.1 million people in the UK have a disability, “less than 10% of businesses have a defined strategy to access the disabled market.”
Mike brought attention to the Purple Tuesday initiative, which aims to improve the disabled customer experience by sharing and promoting practical solutions that businesses can apply to increase accessibility. Mike believes that if more attention is brought to these solutions, “together we can make disability the forefront, rather than the forgotten market.”
Session four - Innovation and the metaverse
Andy Silvester hosted an insightful panel with Hamisha Mehta CA and Tom Grogan, exploring the opportunities and challenges presented by the development of new technologies, such as NFTs, the metaverse and DeFi.
Hamisha shed light on the concept of Web 3.0, explaining that “it has an ownership aspect, unlike Web 1.0 and 2.0, that gives power back to the people who create and contribute content on the internet.” She added that “technological innovation is happening in the background, but it’s not public and won’t become mainstream until regulation catches up.”
Tom shared that many of his clients are “wrestling with how to make emerging technologies applicable to their business” and the “priority is figuring out the why, and aligning that with your corporate strategy.”
Session five - Transformative leadership
Giles Hutchins closed the CA Summit by exploring the “metamorphosis” we are currently experiencing in relation to shifting leadership mindsets and dynamics.
He introduced the concept of becoming a regenerative leader and working with the grain of nature, rather than against it. “What we’re seeing emerging is a reinvention of organisations and a step into regenerative leadership, where we have distributed decision making, encourage adult to adult relationships and listen in to the organisation as a living system to find it’s evolutionary purpose.”
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