Conway: No more ‘chip on the shoulder’

At a glance

• The IPA has launched a new 2030 Plan based on member feedback.
• This plan aims to shift the IPA from a challenger brand to a respected leader.
• It focuses on three core themes for the future: growth, value, and leadership.
• A key goal is growing the number of qualified members to 30,000 by 2030.

As IPA CEO Andrew Conway tells the story, his moment of clarity came during a standard lunchtime consultation in the IPA’s New South Wales office. A few dozen members had gathered in a classroom-style setting for sandwiches, coffee, and a discussion of the IPA itself.

IPA staff had intentionally set up the white-walled room for raw, unfiltered feedback. The members could make anonymous comments, electronically; those comments appeared on a screen behind Conway in real time.

Conway posed four open-ended questions about the IPA and its future. Members seemed to be talking frankly. They valued that the IPA was “less stuffy” than its competitors. They appreciated the grassroots connection and sincerity.

Then came the comment that crystallised everything.

One unknown member wrote that the IPA had always shown respect to its stakeholders – to members, competitors, and government. But now, they wrote, “it’s time for us to be respected”.

For Conway, that encapsulated the new direction. “I thought: That’s the essence of it. We’ll continue to show respect, but it’s also okay to expect the same in return”.

As that lunchtime session was repeated through months of consultations, Conway heard and saw the same message coming from other members, too: the IPA needed to be bolder. It had earned the right.

From challenger to leader

The result of those consultations is the IPA’s new 2030 Strategic Plan. Conway is sharing with members during a national roadshow in August and September. The plan, he says, is a direct response to member feedback. It’s about shedding any “residual chip on the shoulder about being the smaller of the three [accounting] bodies”.

The days of being a challenger brand are over.

“There are many aspects of our profession that we lead in,” Conway says. “We lead in small business policy. We lead in providing services to small and medium practice. We lead in our IT innovations, our flexible entry and education pathways.”

For Conway, this is not about denigrating competitors. But while some professional bodies have occasionally wandered from their mission, the IPA has been able to consistently focus on members’ needs. Conway recounts the story of a new member who recently joined from another accounting body. That member told him, “I feel like I’ve come home, to where I should have been all along”.

A bolder blueprint

The new Strategic Plan is built on a simple three-by-three model: three strategic themes, each with three core objectives.

Growth

The plan sets a concrete target for member growth. The IPA Group currently has around 50,000 members and students, split evenly between qualified members and those aspiring to join. By 2030, the goal is to have 30,000 qualified members.

Conway is confident that can happen. He points to a doubling in membership in his time as CEO. “We’ve got the runs on the board, and we can rely on that experience to get it done again,” he says.

Value

For Conway, value is about ensuring that even as it grows, the IPA continues to provide services that are supportive and personal. He still personally contacts every new member with a welcome text or call. “I think if we ever lose that, we lose the right to retain that member,” he says.

“When we go to send out a member’s renewal notice with their fee invoice for the year, there really should not be a question for that member as to whether we’re adding value.

“And what I do say to members, if they’re sitting there saying ‘I don’t feel as if I’m getting value’, I say very openly: ‘You’ve got my number. Please reach out to me and have a chat and let me know how we’re not adding value – so we can change things.’” 

Leadership

The IPA has long focused on member outcomes over aggressive media promotion of itself as an organisation. That focus will not change, Conway says. And it is also, he admits, not his style: “My view always is that I’d rather see a member’s brand and image in the limelight.”

But members have given the organisation a mandate to be bolder in speaking about its successes.

This leadership extends to tackling the profession’s big challenges – from artificial intelligence to sustainability reporting and attracting new talent.

The human element

The plan is also a statement: the IPA’s work is about human impact, not just numbers. Accounting is currently attracting less and less graduates. “If we can put a human face to the work of the accounting profession,” Conway says, “almost instantly the attractiveness-­­of-the-profession challenge is overcome”.

The IPA, he argues, needs to highlight its role as an accounting community. “The days of joining a professional body to put a certificate on the wall – those days have gone … The view that I subscribe to is that what people seek to join and have access to is the professional community.” Members need to know how the IPA community will support them, he says, and how it will help them expand their capabilities.

So Conway is taking his thinking to members in a national roadshow through August and September. It’s a chance for members to see how their voice is shaping their Institute’s future – a future where the IPA is not just respectful, but respected.

To learn more about the CEO Roadshow, click here.