Avani Desai, CPA, attended the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in January. It was her first visit to the mountain town’s famed event that brings together world leaders and subject matter experts.
In this episode of the FM podcast, Desai reflected on the lessons she learned and on the perspective she gained — as an attendee and a discussion moderator. Desai led a panel discussion on the intersection of artificial intelligence (AI), supply chains, and cybersecurity. She summarised some of the lessons she can apply to her role as CEO of a large US accounting firm.
What you’ll learn from this episode:
- Desai’s description of the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
- Details of the panel discussion that Desai led.
- The session that was “definitely a highlight” for Desai.
- The tie-in between AI and cybersecurity.
- Why the International Women’s Day theme resonates with her.
- How one mentoring experience changed Desai’s view of Schellman’s messaging about the profession.
- The lessons from Davos she has taken back to her firm.
Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:
— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.
Transcript
Neil Amato: Hello, and welcome back to the FM podcast. This is Neil Amato. Today I’m speaking with Avani Desai, the CEO of Schellman. Schellman is a major firm in the US. Avani recently made a trip to Europe, and that trip is the main topic of our discussion today.
First, Avani, thank you for being on the show, and I guess to set the stage for those who have heard that word, Davos, but maybe know a little bit about it but not enough: What is it, where is it, and why was going to Davos meaningful to you?
Avani Desai: Neil, first, thanks for having me again. It’s always great to chat with you. Yes, stepping into Davos for the first time is like stepping into another world. I was able to go, to be an attendee as a delegate of the Cyber Future Foundation for the World Economic Forum. I’m going to be honest with you, I felt a little bit fish out of water. I had all these questions like, what do you wear? Do I need snow boots? But thankfully, I had a great adviser at the firm who’s been there.
But let me tell you, Davos is absolutely stunning. It is in Switzerland. It’s surrounded by the Swiss Alps. It’s really an oasis in the mountain where thousands of people from all over the world — I’m talking about the who’s who of politicians, technology executives, entrepreneurs, philanthropists, entertainers. They all get together at — it’s actually the highest town in Europe — on an annual basis for an entire week to really talk about what is affecting the world from an economic position.
Amato: You mentioned that phrase, fish out of water. I think anyone going to Davos for the first time would feel that. But for the listeners who may not know your firm, where you’re based, is Florida. Even though it’s wintertime in North America, your experience might be different than someone who maybe is coming from an area with colder temps. Was that an adjustment at all?
Desai: It was. I mean, I can tell you that the advice that I got was they don’t salt the streets in Davos because it’s not great for the environment. I had to get something under my shoes called crampons, and where do you get that in Orlando, Florida? Thank goodness for online shopping.
But it’s true. It was snowing, and you don’t have cars there, and you’re walking from one place to another, it’s called a promenade. The big meetings were done at the Congress, but a lot of business and a lot of talks that I got to listen to — everyone from Bill Gates to [Volodymyr] Zelenskyy to Sam Altman — were done on the promenade. Yeah, walking there, and I’ll tell you, I did wear snow boots the whole time, which was also very strange being in the business world, where I’m not typically used to doing that, but that’s what you do.
Amato: Yeah, exactly. You mentioned the Cyber Future Foundation. While you were there, you led a panel discussion, I guess sponsored by that foundation. What were some of the themes of that conversation and your takeaways from it?
Desai: Sure. Well, one, the panel discussion, all panel discussions that were there at the Cyber Future Foundation and outside but, specifically, the Cyber Future Foundation was focusing on several themes. The one that I specifically led was the intersection of AI, supply chain, and cybersecurity. From an AI perspective, we were talking about how is AI reshaping the cybersecurity landscape, both as a tool for defenders but then also a weapon for attackers.
It was really interesting how AI-driven solutions are helping the world when it comes to threat detection, making sure that incidents are identified before they happen, predicting based on all of the data that we’ve had for years and years, predicting future attacks because there’s anomalies or there’s patterns. But the topic was really, with great innovations there’s a lot of responsibilities that come with that.
We spoke at depth about the challenges of making sure that the world is focusing on AI ethics, the responsibility of AI. How are we making sure as a world that we’re governing the trustworthiness of AI?
I’m someone who is deeply entrenched in the compliance space. The other thing that we were talking about, is there a balance between too much compliance or over-regulation and hindering innovation? I’m a firm believer that compliance should never stifle innovation, but you have to find that sweet spot of how innovation and compliance can really coexist in a harmonious way.That’s what we really talked about. Everything from AI is transforming cybersecurity on the world stage.
The other thing is, there is a place where AI is going to help from a world productivity perspective. We have heard, and I had an opportunity through the AICPA when I was at the Major Firms Group at the AICPA, they brought in a speaker who was talking about the next ten years. We talk about the pipeline for CPAs, but we are concerned. Birth rates are going down, fewer women are getting married. College acceptance rates may be going down, but graduation rates are also going down.
With all of that, what are we going to do to make sure that productivity increases? That’s what we talked about as well. We think that can we bring technology and automation for especially some of these tasks that maybe you don’t need a human to do or maybe a CPA is cutting and pasting. We should really be focusing on higher-level, higher-impact work. Can AI allow us to increase productivity on the world stage? A lot of things: risk, cyber risk, ethical implications, can AI be a multiplier for productivity? We covered all of that. I know, how do you do that in an hour? But I think we did a pretty good job.
Amato: It’s definitely a conversation that’s going on a lot of places and is continuing. You mentioned that Major Firms Group meeting — that’s US major accounting firms — that was earlier in January, I guess before you went to Davos.
We’re writing about and talking about AI and AI ethics in our articles, our newsletters; it is pretty much everywhere. I’ve joked on some other episodes. I mean, we check the bingo card if we mention GenAI or ChatGPT or whatever. Sure enough, we’ve done that again here.
I’ll get to some of the lessons maybe that you can apply to your firm, your organisation in a bit, but I’ll also go to another event or session that I guess stood out to you. It was titled “World Woman Davos Agenda”. In your LinkedIn post, you called it a “vital conversation”. We’ve talked in the past about gender equality, providing opportunities, especially in technology for women. From that event, what are the things that resonated with you?
Desai: One of the reasons that I made sure that I could attend that event is, you and I have talked about it in the accounting field and the finance field. But also, let’s talk about the problem. Women are vastly underrepresented at the highest levels of government and for business. Let’s talk about 2023. There were 2,100 men who attended Davos and about 600 women who attended Davos.
The good thing was, it was really exciting to say that there was more than 800 women who attended the World Economic Forum in 2024, but that’s still only 28% of the attendees at the forum [who] were women. The “World Woman Davos Agenda” and event was definitely a highlight of my time there. One, it brought a lot of inspiration and passion for gender equality and empowerment. I’m deeply committed to promoting diversity and inclusion here at Schellman, in our profession. And it is, I mean, it was the world’s stage. I was part of this, I think what you said was, a “vital conversation”.
This was an assembly of women leaders from so many different backgrounds. I’m talking about a woman from Africa who started her own organisation to bring microloans. There were editors from major organisations like The Female Quotient and Time magazine. We were able to engage in really open, candid discussions about barriers and challenges that women are facing everywhere. I’m not just talking about the US or in third-world countries. It’s every country, every sector, from tech to finance to healthcare. To be able to hear these first-hand accounts was eye-opening. We all had similar stories.
These were obstacles that all of us encountered in our professional journeys, but also at home. There is inequity in the way you raise children. What we really talked about was how technology can, but how also innovation and innovative strategies, can help us overcome them? One of the things that I’m very passionate about is, when you can change the life of a woman, you can actually change multiple generations. The Gates Foundation has a study on this, saying, when they provided education to women in African villages or they provided microloans to start businesses, the difference between providing that to women and men was women, when they made money, they actually put money back into the community, into the schools, into raising their children, and so forth. Multiple generations were affected. It was that trickle-down effect for multiple generations. That was very exciting.
One of the key themes that we discussed was really the emphasis of collaboration and multi-stakeholder action. We talked about the importance of — I mentioned this story of the African villages — it’s so many different alliances between so many different organisations. I feel it’s an intersection between public and private organisations. It’s governments, businesses, large tech industries, it’s NGOs, its stakeholders that really want to focus on change.
I can tell you, it was abundantly clear in that room that achieving gender equality is so multifaceted, and it’s not just us in that room. It’s such a collective effort, and everyone is playing all these vital roles because we really have to dismantle this systematic barrier. You’ve heard me say that at Schellman, we’re trying to create a more inclusive society. But it takes again, I think these public-private partnerships. I think the hashtag was Equality Moonshot. It was the initiative, and hey, it’s ambitious. But I felt after I left that room that we’re going to accelerate the progress towards gender equality to create more sustainability, more inclusivity, more equity.
Someone asked me the other day, how was that? It was like a rallying cry for action, and the power of collective determination was so great about the positive change. Probably my favourite meeting that I was able to attend that week, and I just know the connections that I made, and the datasets that I heard allows me to be empowered to make a change.
Amato: That’s great. The numbers are in some ways encouraging, but also in some ways still work to be done. Speaking of feeling that empowerment and rallying cry. One event, International Women’s Day, March 8. One, what does just hearing that phrase, International Women’s Day, mean to you? And, two, what do you think are some ways to keep it from being just that one-day rallying cry and being a rest-of-the-year solution for good?
Desai: Well, look, as a female CEO in the accounting profession and the technology industry, the theme for International Women’s Day this year is “invest in women”, which is very meaningful to me. I don’t think you can just invest in women in one day.
I’ve personally experienced the gender gap in technology and being one of the few women in my computer sciences class and even later, and you take a look at the top 100 CPA firms. I don’t know if it’s still the case, but I think I might be one or one of a handful of women of colour in our profession.
What International Women’s Day means for me is, investing in women reinforces my belief that there’s no time better than now in the belief in the importance of creating a more inclusive and equitable world for women at all places. I’m going to say, I think technology has the power to transform lives, and I think we can also promote gender equality.
We have to break down barriers, and we have to make sure that, when we invest in women, that means providing greater access to education, investing in healthcare, making sure that we’re investing in an increased number of economic opportunities. The US has zero weeks of parental leave for women who have children or who go through surrogacy, or who adopt, and that’s a lack of economic empowerment for women and girls in the US and I think around the world.
To me, I think International Women’s Day is an opportunity for education and for allies and for other women and girls, and I think the one thing I can say is we all should know that we can never stop striving for a world where everyone has equal chance to succeed regardless of their gender and background, and so we have to start investing now.
Amato: You have said to me in the past, when you were on our Journal of Accountancy podcast, one thing that I think is a key to you is mentoring. I’m wondering if you’ve had any memorable mentoring moments, maybe from the past year, that you think might be worth sharing?
Desai: I have definitely had one mentoring moment that has stuck out, but it wasn’t me as the mentee, it was actually me as the mentor learning from my mentee. I had an opportunity to mentor this young woman who is thinking about transitioning from technology to the accounting profession.
The insights she gave to me about some of her concerns about making that transition are things that I never thought that those that may be working for me or coming into the field would have. She just gave me so much to think about, that we have actually changed a lot of our messaging about why we think it’s such a great career choice.
I would’ve never been able to do that if it wasn’t for her candid, open, and honest response. She may be my mentee, but I felt like she was my mentor for that time. Such a valuable experience for me.
Amato: That’s great, thanks. Now, back to Davos. Were there discussions there that just surprised you maybe?
Desai: Yes, there were a lot of thought-provoking discussions. I met with the CEO who was working on AI in space tech, and I sat there for ten minutes just wondering if I was in a science fiction movie or if I was in reality. But I think one of the most surprising aspects was the pervasive focus on artificial intelligence and the transformative potential.
Even the theme was about building trust. Everywhere I turned, there were conversations from leaders like Sam Altman to Satya Nadella, all talking about AI. What really struck me was not the depth of it. We were not talking about technological algorithms. We talked a little bit about that, we talked about biases, but it was the breadth of the conversations around AI.
We talked about how this application goes around all industries: finance, education, healthcare. We talked about revolutionising productivity across the board. Outside of AI, there was a lot of focus on addressing global challenges such as climate change and also healthcare disparities and a lot healthcare disparities surrounded by women. I guess I didn’t know what I was thinking would be the topics. I knew there were going to be topics around technology, but how much we talked about AI and blockchain.
Even when we were talking about climate change and healthcare disparities, Al Gore had a great conversation about, if we don’t make a change in the next ten years from an environmental perspective, what is that going to be? He actually talked about utilising AI for more accurate predictions for giving us climate data. Then I heard from someone at McKinsey, who was talking about AI-driven diagnostics to improve healthcare access for underserved communities, specifically for women.
All of this has such a potential positive impact, and it’s so immense. People can say AI is good or bad, but it left me with a lot of sense of optimism about the potential of technology driving positive change in so many areas: disparities in healthcare, ESG, climate change, ethical AI development. I really liked that the theme was: How do you harness transformative power for the greater good?
Amato: One of those themes was rebuilding trust in this time of rapid transformation.
Desai: That’s right.
Amato: I don’t know how you think finance leaders can play a role in that, rebuilding trust. What do you think?
Desai: I think that’s a great question. When you think about our profession, there are a couple of words that you’ll hear. We talk about accountability, we talk about transparency, we talk about ethical conduct. When people look at accountants and finance professionals, what are we doing? We’re instilling confidence in stakeholders. We are rebuilding the trust in the financial ecosystem.
Innately, that’s what our role is. We should continue to focus on adopting robust governance frameworks, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, compliance with technology-driven solutions, enhancing transparency and integrity into financial operations and financial statements.
But I do think that, when people look at us in our profession, that we’re known as the financial stewards, right? We can contribute to rebuilding trust and confidence into so many different sectors that in the end is going to support sustainable economic growth.
Amato: What things that you learn at Davos can you take home and help in your role at Schellman?
Desai: For one, it was an incredible learning experience. I don’t want to say that I was in a stagnant place, but I was doing the same thing over and over again. That one week, it was so much amazing learning. Everywhere I turned, there was someone who was an expert in their field, who had something very thought provoking to talk about.
I do think there were numerous ways that I’ve been able to bring this back to Schellman. One, the discussions around emerging technologies and cyber trends, they were very valuable. It gave me so much comfort that our service offerings and the strategic initiatives that I am working on are the right ones. It also solidified that what we’re doing here at Schellman and what our value proposition is, we allow our clients to build trust with their customers. It’s still needed. Cybersecurity, building trust, helping our clients build trust with customers.
For decades, it’s always been a check-the-box endeavour. Now the entire world is talking about it, and the entire world is saying that there is a need from an economic position. That, I think, was to be able to solidify that.
Also, I think one immediate learning is we are launching a new service around ISO 42001, which is the first international standard on AI. Talking to politicians, world leaders, CEOs of tech companies, I know this is needed. Coming back after attending Davos, I made sure we quickened going to market with GAAP and readiness assessments. I wanted to make sure that we are taking this proactive approach with positioning us as leaders in the industry.
The other thing I realised is there were hundreds of our clients that were there, and the leadership of my clients were all in this one-mile radius, and having that opportunity to connect with a couple of dozen of my clients at Davos — one, I had never met some of these CEOs of some of our long-term clients, but it really opened up these great conversations around collaboration and partnership.
Honestly, it would have taken me two years to visit 30-plus company leaders if I was flying from Florida to California, Florida to New York, so it was very productive. Definitely, I hope I get invited again. I hope I get a chance to go again. I will be a bit more prepared this time, but such an amazing opportunity.
Amato: That’s a great summary. Thank you. I get the feeling of being able to be in-person with those key people you already have relationships with, but maybe haven’t met. Avani Desai, thank you very much.
Desai: Thank you, Neil. Again, always great to spend some time with you.
