ATIME FOR CHANGE
I am proud to be leading a comprehensive BDO Financial Services practice in South Africa. Our team includes a large number of highly skilled and experienced professionals who specialize in banking, insurance, asset management, stockbroking and fund administration. I am confident we have assembled a financial services team and developed an offering to rival the best in the market. The 48 partners, associate directors and managers currently in the Financial Services business unit has more than 350 years of financial services experience between them. Not only has BDO been the fastest growing professional services firm in the world for a number of years now, but BDO South Africa has during the last 18 months become a much bigger and more prominent player in the South African professional services industry following the merger with the Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban offices of Grant Thornton. The firm has established policies, systems, procedures and has employed appropriate human capital to ensure our audit quality, risk management, training and operational systems are of a very high standard. Our CEO, Mark Stewart is determined that we will continue to grow the firm responsibly, further increase our collaboration with BDO’s comprehensive global network in 167 countries, maintain the highest level of ethical behavior and never compromise the public trust in BDO. We have been in the fortunate position that we could be very specific in the type of person, skill and experience we have recruited and will continue to recruit for our Financial Services business. Our culture is one of passion and energy, team work and collaboration, building meaningful relationships with our clients and a relentless drive to innovate. The team is very ambitious and our plans to further grow the BDO Financial Services business in size and quality, is measured, balanced and very achievable. In a world of exponential change and innovation, especially when it comes to technology solutions and offerings in the financial services industry, we know that we must invest in new and emerging cloud and machine augmented technologies. Our Financial Services technology team has my full support to continue to develop their skills and expertise to support our audit and advisory clients in this developing digital age. The financial services industry is heavily regulated, and those regulations are continuously being challenged, reviewed and updated.We understand the pressures that management of financial services organisations face in such a closely monitored environment. Our team has the necessary knowledge and practical know-how to appropriately advise our clients.We are also fully committed to maintain a healthy and supportive relationship with the various regulators. BDO South Africa is very serious about playing a leading role in transforming not only our firm, but also the broader accounting profession. Both gender and race transformation goals and objectives are viewed as a business and social essentials for BDO.We will actively work to help ensure that our young professionals are sufficiently trained and upskilled to enable them to become business leaders and role models in our broader society. This is a very important part of our purpose. Our Financial Services team is driven and extremely passionate about delivering exceptional client service, whilst maintaining, and holding ourselves accountable to the highest levels of public trust, integrity and audit quality. In summary, we are rethinking the traditional service line and functional business model of professional firms, and putting the needs of our clients first, giving our clients and stakeholders access to deep financial services expertise, specialisations and innovation, through a single point of contact and consistent quality of service.
Experience has taught me that being an expert is more about a passion for what you do rather than what you have done or where you have come from.
Pierre Jacobs Head of Financial Services
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BDO FINANCIAL SERVICES
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