Audit & Assurance

Building Trust in the Accountancy Profession: The Australian Experience

Andrew Conway  | 

Building trust with the public is exceedingly important for our profession, as addressed by Andrew Conway, Chief Executive Officer of the Institute of Public Accountants in Australia. Most notably, he highlights how this was addressed in Australia through the combined efforts of professional accountancy organizations, the government, and other organizations, all of which worked together to enact professional liability reform and an improved regulatory model. 
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Portrait of a man standing and wearing a suit with a pink tie
Andrew Conway

CEO, Institute of Public Accountants

Prof. Andrew Conway, FIPA, FFA, joined the IFAC PAO Development & Advisory Group in January 2019 after being nominated by the Institute of Public Accountants (IPA).

Andrew has been the Chief Executive Officer of IPA since May 2009, which at the time made him the youngest CEO of a public entity at the age of 28. He has been recognized for IPA’s transformation from its former name, National Institute of Accountants, into a leading and legally recognized professional accountancy body in Australia and the region. His leadership of IPA led to the organization’s recognition as the most innovative accounting body in Australia by Business Review Weekly (BRW).

Prior to working with IPA, Andrew was an Australian Government Treasury Ministry Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor and began his career in education and as an accountant for an insolvency firm. Andrew holds academic appointments as  a Professor of Accounting at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (honoris causa); Adjunct Professor Deakin University and Vice Chancellors' Distinguished Fellow at Deakin University. Andrew is also regularly called upon to speak on a range of topics including small business policy, wellbeing and artificial intelligence having completed a post-graduate degree in AI in 2022.