The PKF Africa Regional Meeting was recently held in the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya, and Petar Vlahovic, from our global team, attended. Here are Petar’s reflections on the event.
After a long flight, it was great to land in Nairobi and instantly be thrown into day-to-day life in the city. With the purpose of my trip being to attend the Africa Regional Meeting in Maasai Mara, I was lucky enough to also be able to celebrate 60 years of PKF in East Africa. 60 years is such a huge achievement! I won’t share too many of the details of the party here but it was a fantastic event and so great to meet Ritesh Mirchandani, Alpesh Vadher, Asif Chaudhry, Nishith Shah, Michael Mburugu, Larian Abreu, Kunal Bharadva, Charles Mukunu, Mustansir Gulamhussein and Kennedy Mokay, who are all partners at PKF in East Africa. There were so many more of the team that I met, I could list them all here but this would become a very long blog!
A couple of standouts from the party was being able to meet some of PKF in East Africa’s clients who attended. They all sung the highest praises of the firm. The other standout is that there were not only current partners of the firm attending but also previous partners. This really shows how the firm is moving forward with the times but also that there was so much hard work done by previous partners to get PKF in East Africa to where it is today.
The following day was the one thing that I was not looking forward to on this trip, taking a flight on a tiny plane (or what I call a flying pencil). But the reward made it worth it as we landed in the truly incredible Maasai Mara National Reserve. What an incredible place to have an event!
The Mara Serena Safari Lodge, located in the Mara triangle, had amazing sweeping views over the savannah and down towards the Mara River.
Over the three days that the event was held, it was really enjoyable to be able to sit in on many of the sessions that were held on such a range of topics. One of the topics that really resonated was that the PKF network has identified how critical it is for accounting firms to be able to innovate and keep up with the constant changes in technology, as well as in accounting in general. This is something at Silverfin that we really champion as well, particularly with the work we are doing in SAIL, the Silverfin AI Lab.
The Regional meeting brought together partners and directors from all over Africa, as well as event partners such as Silverfin. I was lucky enough to be able to present to all the attendees of the event in a panel discussion that was hosted by Papa Bathie Gueye from PKF Rubiks. Papa was a great panel host and we were joined on the panel by Caseware and Greatsoft. The topics that I touched on were how it is essential to have a single source of the truth when it comes to data used in compliance and reporting. I also spoke about the potential for all of the PKF firms in Africa to be using the same platform for their compliance and reporting needs but that it can be tailored to their particular legislation or firm-based needs; as well as how AI is going to be able to do some of the more monotonous accounting tasks and leave accountants to do the real rewarding work that they have trained to do.
Another of the sessions that I found very interesting was from Waldek Wasowicz from PKF Octagon entitled AfriGrowth. Waldek discussed how as growth is shifting through different countries throughout the world, the need for people to work in those countries is growing. This means that there is a lot of talent that is currently leaving Africa to go and work in Europe but there is still the need to have those talented people in Africa as well. It was a real insight into how that talent can be fostered in Africa and help both those people, and the region, grow.
From learning about the amazing work that PKF Zambia have been doing in their community (and how staff from PKF Arsilon and PKF Octagon are going to be heading to Zambia to help further this work) through to learning how the power of the PKF brand has helped PKF Djibouti grow in leaps and bounds, it really was a regional meeting to remember!
And of course I cannot forget some of the stars of the show, the wildlife.
It really was a crazy experience to be able to call something like going on safari work, but it was truly special. Seeing the animals for the first time in their natural habitat was really breathtaking. Every day was a new experience and I would wake up not knowing what animals I was going to see that day. Thankfully the lions were not too hungry when we would see them as I am sure some of them were eyeing us up for dinner.
There are so many people who would have been working behind the scenes to put on this wonderful event but some that I want to thank in particular are Debbie Dell, Theo Vermaak, Doug Woolley, Yolandi Peach and host country PKF in East Africa. We could not have asked for a better location or a more superb event. I cannot wait to attend it again next year!