Finding the ethical accountant

Finding the ethical accountant

The world has gone wrong when it comes to ethics, especially accountancy, according to Professsor Atul K Shah.

He told a packed Queen Mary University of London seminar that good leadership in accountancy should start and end with ethics. However, he said ethics is in direct conflict with greed and profit maximisation.

He felt we paper over this conflict, but the scandals don’t go away. Shah explained leaders set the tone of organisations and they need to be held account, as all they only seem to care about is themselves.

Meanwhile, Gareth Moss, FD of CIPFA, felt the vast majority of accountants are honest and trustworthy, and society is better for that.

However, he suggested that when things do go wrong and individuals go rogue we haven’t quite got it right in terms of dealing with that. Check out our film of the night here