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Special Edition: Adrian Blair (Chief Executive Officer at Dext)

Special Edition: Adrian Blair (Chief Executive Officer at Dext)

On today's deep dive special edition episode, Rob Brown of the Accountants Influencers Podcast interviews Dext CEO Adrian Blair, about the rebranding from Receipt-Bank, their bold vision for growth and their plan to put accountants at the heart of business.

Prior to working at Dext, formerly Receipt Bank, Adrian was the Global Chief Operating Officer of Just Eat and the only executive team member to serve throughout the company’s transformation from start-up to FTSE 100. Before this, he led business development for Spotify in Europe and spent six years in commercial roles at Google in California and London. He is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of Circl, a next-generation leadership development programme for students from deprived backgrounds. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Oxford, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Key shownotes from the whole interview include:

➤ Why the rebrand from Receipt Bank to Dext with a more rounded proposition for the accounting market

➤ An overview of the ecosystem at Dext with over 1m users in 700,000 businesses and almost 11,000 accounting firms as subscribers

➤The three reasons why Dext exists - their value proposition for businesses and the accountants who serve them

➤ The importance of making accountants the heroes of the business story, and calling out some software vendors who don't

➤ Explaining the trust that exists between bookkeepers/accountants and their clients to make tough commercial decisions

➤ Why there is no automation or AI that can give businesses the information and decision making power they need like human accountants and bookkeepers

➤ Why accountants and bookkeepers should 100% own the client relationship, and why some vendors want to bypass that

➤ Asking what accountants can do to serve their small business clients better

➤ Thoughts on how software vendors differentiate themselves from competitors, with examples like Dext Prepare and Dext Precision

➤ Who has the ear of accounting professionals and who has their best interests at heart

➤ The two vital components that make accounting firms successful when compared to competitors

➤ How well the accounting profession has responded to the challenge of the Covid pandemic in serving their clients

➤ What some accounting firms have got wrong during Covid and how they have let their clients down

➤ The big silver lining of the pandemic for accounting professionals who use the data in the right way and make themselves more relevant

➤ The reply to accountants who say "I'm too busy to manage all of this data and stay on top of all of these changes"

➤ The number one thing accountants and bookkeepers should be doing with the extra time freed up by better technology

➤ The main thing the accounting profession truly needs to serve their business clients better

➤ Advice to accountants, bookkeepers and accounting firm leaders everywhere to look after their clients better

Adrian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianblair

Dext website: https://dext.com/uk

NOTE TO LISTENERS:

This is a full-length interview (usually 20-30 mins long) from which the highlights show earlier in the week was taken. You can listen to this on a previous episode.

Martin and Rob love to hear from the show's 5000+ listeners in 138 countries around the world. If you have any questions, suggestions, comments or success stories, just type sayhi.chat/aip into your browser and leave us a quick and easy voice message. We may just feature you on the show!

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About the Podcast

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Accounting Voices Podcast
Accounting Voices helps people in the accounting world stay relevant visible and vocal. Host Rob Brown interprets trends reshaping the profession and gives listeners insight to build authority influence and a stronger voice in firms and markets.

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About your host

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Rob Brown

Rob Brown is the founder and host of the Accounting Voices Podcast, the flagship solo show of the Accounting Voices Network. Each episode offers sharp analysis and commentary on the trends, ideas and people shaping the global accounting profession.

Through this Accounting Voices Podcast, Rob helps accounting firm leaders, decision makers and professionals stay relevant and make sense of disruption in areas like AI, automation, M&A, private equity and soft skills beyond the tech. His perspective blends clarity, insight and curiosity, making complex issues relevant and practical for professionals and decision makers across accounting and finance.

He also leads two monthly panel shows, Accounting M&A and Accounting AI, which bring together senior voices to explore consolidation, strategy and the impact of technology on firms and people.

Rob is the author of the bestselling book Build Your Reputation (Wiley) and a TEDx speaker whose talk The Personal Brand of You has more than 400,000 views. Over his career he has hosted and moderated more than 1,000 conversations with accounting and fintech leaders worldwide.

Based in Nottingham UK, Rob is a stroke survivor living with epilepsy, a black belt in kickboxing, a decent chess player and an average player of four musical instruments.