A smooth transition from accounting to technology
Adrian van der Merwe is the CEO of North Wind Digital
What originally drew you to become an accountant?
At first, I wanted to be a nuclear physicist because of my interest in maths and the opportunity to “play” with the world’s most explosive material. Then I wanted to be an author, like Stephen King, because he writes the most vivid books, which have the ability to give you nightmares.
In standard 8 (grade 10), we played a stock exchange game and had such fun doing it, researching the companies and determining investment strategies, that I thought going into accounting would provide me with the best possible background, one in which I could be an entrepreneur and not be limited to a specific industry.
You worked as an accountant before starting North Wind Digital. What led to you making the change?
I worked as an accountant from 1997 to 2000, in Johannesburg, London and Copenhagen. I enjoyed accounting, but with the emphasis on accounting systems, and my programming background, I was asked to administer the reporting systems. I moved into technology in 1998. By 2000, when I joined KPMG in London, it was in a technology role, focused on the finance function. I’ve been consulting ever since, and with the technology available today, I saw the opportunity to further help clients.
How does a background in accounting help you at North Wind Digital?
Our vision is to implement the finance function of the future. My background has enabled me to position solutions for clients that address their requirements. The advantage I have with my background is I am able to understand the accounting requirement, and translate it into a technology solution.
What do you love most about your work?
It’s the art of the possible. Our clients provide us with complex problems. I enjoy taking a complex problem and implementing solutions to facilitate the process — problemsolving that makes a client’s life easier.
What would people find surprising about the work you do?
That accountants are technology savvy and able to talk about blockchain, bots and big data, and that robotic process automation (RPA) is not an actual robot. Perhaps the most surprising is that, based on how we speak, everyone thinks we are programmers, not accountants. When we say we are multilingual, it’s in programming languages.
What is the best career advice you have ever received, and who gave it to you?
Learn how to sell. All senior people in consulting are salespeople. The only way to progress in corporate consulting is to learn to sell. Domain expertise is important, but it does not trump sales. I learnt this from Paul Curitz when I worked at KPMG in London. Aubrey van Aswegen, from Knowledge Integration Dynamics, used to sit in management meetings, skip our income statement and zero in on our debtors’ age analysis. He would focus on cash that had not been collected. As CEO, you would talk up how well you were performing, and so on. Aubrey would take one look at your age analysis and make you sweat for not collecting your cash. He taught me the measure of performance was the ability to make and retain cash.