Welcome to the first of the Leaders Interview series, where we dive into conversations with some of the innovators shaping the landscape. Launching this series is Eelco van der Enden, CEO of Accountancy Europe. He is a true trailblazer in the ecosystem, who joins us to break down his unique approach to the future of accountancy and beyond.
Capitals Coalition) The accounting profession is continually evolving. What are the most important changes that you are seeing in accountancy and how does impact valuation fit into this?
Eelco van der Enden) Impact valuation fits into the current evolution of accountancy perfectly. New fields of interest are emerging, driven specifically by social, economic, and environmental developments. Investors and society now demand different information than they did 15 or 20 years ago—information that is more closely linked to the value and impacts that businesses have on society and the environment. We accountants, as builders of trust and advisors, need to possess that specific information to build trust with the users of that information. But that also means that, if we want to assess topics of interest to investors and the wider public, we should at least have a basic understanding of the social, economic, and environmental topics they are assessing.
These topics typically require more predictive analytics than the classical approach of merely looking back at the last financial year’s impacts. Today, the scope of the profession is broadening: who would have thought that our communication would reach a point where we have to interact with social scientists or marine biologists? This is now part of the daily occupation. This shift necessitates a more curious mindset. And then, of course, there has also to be a willingness to embrace the digital transformation that is happening. Certain things become easier to assess, I believe that, in the future, the focus will shift away from data input toward the algorithms, machines, and tools used to assess it.
CC) Do you mean that the profession would focus more on how these tools are designed? So, for example, what kind of questions do they ask rather than the data?
EVDE) Yes. Data analytics will be mostly automated, which means assessing the output of the automated process and the engine itself, extracting the data to be analysed. While tools like AI are already changing the way we work, they do not change the essence of what we do, much like the introduction of Excel spreadsheets decades ago. What it means is that if you cannot keep up with the pace of change in how we work, then you have an issue. The profession is in motion.
CC) Do you see the accountancy profession as the primary architect of an economy where ‘value’ is measured by its contribution to the planet and to society, rather than just the bottom line? Do you think that accountants can or should lead the charge in redesigning our economic system?
EVDE) How people get, absorb, and assess information is, today, profoundly distorted. I think the role of accountants and auditors is even more critical, as they are essential validators of the quality and robustness of information and processes in a society currently driven by mistrust rather than trust. Indeed, the traditional role of the profession has been to enable businesses, governments, and regulators by validating their information and processes to ensure they are sound andsolid. This role needs to grow as society demands better, more agile data assessment.
It is true that accountants have a reputation for being rather conservative and risk-averse, which, I think, is one of the big challenges for the profession to overcome. It comes to a cultural change and a mind shift. The role I see moves toward becoming more and more “builders of bridges” between those providing information and the users of that information. This is because we assess the infrastructure of information providers, we are able to advise on and provide input for legal frameworks and balanced legislation. I’d say we are becoming co-architects of new infrastructures, and this involves moving beyond “good old-fashioned input” to focus on the validation processes and tools themselves. We are witnessing a fundamental shift in the accounting landscape as leading firms integrate risk management with consulting to deliver a more holistic value proposition. By embedding predictive analytics into risk assessments and expanding audit scopes to include non-financial impacts like ESG, we are effectively redefining the nature of assurance. However, this evolution requires a level of investment and scale that the industry is still striving to achieve. This necessity for scale is the primary driver behind the current private equity wave. By consolidating smaller practices, these investors are providing the capital and infrastructure necessary to professionalize the transition, ensuring the industry has the right depth to meet future market demands.
CC) Accountants bring robustness and confidence to decision-making and value creation. One of the challenges we face is consistency in the approach to impact valuation. Where can accountants help with this, and which areas of impact valuation should we be focusing on?
EVDE) In many ways. Accountants can support businesses in assessing their positive and negative impacts within existing strategies and business processes. Having said that, I think there is a tremendous responsibility also for regulators. It can no longer be just about supporting businesses in better compliance, now it’s also for regulatory bodies, and this is where we can build the bridge to change the planet into a better place for all of us, because that is the end objective. By using predictive analytics, the profession can help put longer-term strategic policy objectives in place and assess the effects of current decisions more structuredly. This involves sitting in boardrooms to explain the longer-term impacts of short-term decisions and validate predictive analytical tools. We must also act as guardians to financial markets—not just regulated ones, but also non-regulated parallel markets like private equity and private credit, which can have a tremendous impact on the economy. Consistency requires moving beyond “small little boxes” and budgets; we must consider the actual value-add of a transaction to an organization’s long-term strategic objectives. The focus should be on impacts—including non-direct financial topics—and explaining what true resilience looks like.
CC) Going back to the bridge you just mentioned, in a recent discussion with PwC about governmental institutions, you pointed out that there is a lack of trust when they lag behind technological and market changes. If institutions are moving more slowly than markets, is it again the role of the accountancy profession to act as a bridge?
EVDE) Dysfunctional institutions create an environment where there is no driver to change behavior. We can help by supporting governmental institutions to work with a more business-oriented mindset where behavioral aspects of misgovernment are taken into account. We can bridge the gap by explaining the issues businesses face when meeting reporting requirements like the ESRS. This makes the accountant something similar to a “neutral broker” between regulators and businesses. For the profession, this means taking on the role of critical factors in social-economic cohesion and helping rebuild trust in a “trustless society”. If institutions underperform, they threaten financial and societal stability, making our role as validators even more crucial.
CC) You’ve said you are committed to being more vocal in the market to support decision-makers, and Accountancy Europe represents a uniquely broad platform for fostering progress. How do you plan to leverage this to create the connections needed to navigate the changes happening in the market?
EVDE) We have been silent for years out of fear of being accused of self-serving, which has created a distorted image of the profession as “old men with calculators in a room full of files”. It’s absolutely not true. It is a very modern and dynamic environment to work in, but we need better marketing. We need a far better marketing strategy. We are a critical factor in the social and economic cohesion, in Europe and beyond. Accountancy Europe is moving from playing on the “back foot” to the “front foot,” driving political discussions rather than just responding. We are breaking down silos to provide a blueprint for the entire infrastructure, an integrated plan, such as the single European Capital Market. We must find a compromise between the risk-averse European model and the bold, value-thinking American model to make capital available for sustainability projects.
CC) Is the accountancy profession ready to tell decision-makers that the current definition of profit/success is incomplete?
EVDE) While the profession has a reputation for being conservative, the big challenge is to embrace technological innovation as an opportunity. We are becoming more vocal because we have the market insights and experience to contribute significantly to these shifts. We are getting more and more involved in predictive analytics and the sustainability side of business and regulators’ actions. So there’s a big future, but also a very big responsibility for the profession.
CC) In this big future, if impact valuation is the core of the global economy, what does the ‘true’ cost of business look like in ten years?
EVDE) Thank you for this question – we need to talk about long-term visions and discuss what it really looks like. So, the “true” cost of business will look like a set of integrated methodologies that businesses use in order to assess the longer-term value of their strategy. There will be a global baseline for assessment methodology that allows auditors to clearly calculate and visualize the positive or negative impacts businesses have on how they pursue their strategic objectives. We need a standardization of methodology in line with what we have seen with International Accounting Standards, making it part of a revitalized integrated reporting system. This infrastructure should be overseen by major organizations such as the OECD, the World Bank, the IMF, or the ESMA here in Europe, avoiding the trap of “multi-stakeholderism” in trying to please everybody, when designing these practical, workable solutions.
This is the direction. A global baseline for reporting and impact valuation will reduce the cost of compliance, increase comparability, and ultimately increase trust in the system, and reallocate investments toward value-driven outcomes.
