Episode 8

Guest Interview Highlights: Kevin Lord (Head of Practice Enablement at FreeAgent)

Episode 8. Rob sits down with Kevin Lord (Head of Practice Enablement at FreeAgent) to discuss the changing landscape for accounting firms and the effects of digital tax initiatives like MTD.

Kevin has worked with small businesses for nearly a decade to raise their awareness of the benefits that digital tools can bring and to assist them through times of change. At FreeAgent, he works with accountant partners to promote awareness of the revolutionary business improvements that cloud accounting software can offer. With a career that spans a high-growth technology company and the SME banking industry, Kevin has a wealth of business knowledge and experience to inform the advice and insight he provides. This includes how online accounting software like FreeAgent can help to keep clients compliant and how accountant partners can maximise the opportunities that digital tools can bring to their practices.

Key shownotes from the whole interview include:

➜ The importance for accountants of having fintech experts who can simply the language of tech

➜ The need for good advice on legislation, tools and resources around digitisation for accounting firms

➜ How the landscape is changing for accounting firms and how the profession is in 'a perfect storm'

➜ The effect of the data hungry 'passion economy' and consumerism on accountants and their clients

➜ The problems with how little the accounting profession has advanced over many years

➜ What questions business owners are asking accountants who they want to be a lifeline

➜ Ways in which accountants have been at the forefront of change but how that leads to overload

➜ Who is driving the change agenda for businesses - vendors, accountants, regulators?

➜ The impact of the younger generation of entrepreneurs making different demands on accounting advisors

➜ The restrictions of fintech vendors not being able to innovate faster than accounting firms can adopt

➜ An honest assessment of what shape the general ledger and practice management accounting vendor landscape is in right now

➜ Why FreeAgent's proposition works especially well for small and micro businesses

➜ A response to some vendors trying to marginalise the role of accountants in serving their business clients

➜ What makes Free Agent a great place to work and how it keeps hold of its best talent

➜ Why accountants play such an important part in the success of small businesses

➜ The future for Free Agent, particularly after being bought by top UK bank Nat West

➜ The special link between accounting software and the banking sector for business success

➜ Why, amidst the tech, it's the people who make selling accounting software fulfilling

➜ The biggest frustration in the accounting profession (hint - it's on the qualification/academic side)

➜ Advice to accountants dealing with the overwhelm of tech choice and client demands

Kevin Lord on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinlord1986

Kevin Lord website https://www.freeagent.com/aip

NOTE TO LISTENERS:

This is a condensed highlights version of the full interview (usually 20-30 mins long), which you can catch as a bonus episode at the weekend.

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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.