AccountDads

Nobody is blocking your promotion. Your manager just can't afford to lose you. If you disappeared for four weeks and everything broke, you're the most valuable person in the room — and the least promotable. Kev and Ash unpack the competence trap: why being reliable, fast and cheap to deploy quietly locks you into the role you already have, especially in the flat org structures most finance...

"Sales were down due to lower volume." If that's your month-end commentary, you haven't actually explained anything. In this episode, Ash, Kevin, and Hubert (all Chartered Accountants) break down why variance commentary is one of the most common finance outputs — and one of the easiest to do badly. This is where finance stops being reporting and starts driving decisions. They get...

100% of this panel started their careers in auditing — and they've got very different feelings about it. In this episode, Kevin, Ash, and Hubert (all Chartered Accountants) break down whether audit is the smartest way to launch a finance career, how long is too long, and whether they'd ever hire a career auditor onto their own teams. They get into: - Why 20–30% of accountants start in audi...

Ops doesn't ignore finance because they're difficult. They ignore finance because we keep showing up after the decision has already been made. In this episode of AccountDads, the boys unpack the gap between what finance reports and what operations actually does — and why that gap quietly wrecks your credibility as a business partner. We get into the month where margins "collapsed&quot...

Most of us are driving a supercar in first gear. Same AI model, same power, but only a few finance leaders know how to actually configure it. In this episode, we walk through the exact setup I gave my own team: how to turn Claude from a glorified chatbot into a genuine thinking partner for your business. Accountants don’t have capability gaps if they put in the work…remember, you are already brill...

"I don't think I'll ever hire a financial accountant again." That's a real CFO, talking to a real recruiter, about a real decision he's already made. Tom Hunter runs Story Recruitment and hosts The CFO Track. He spent months interviewing Australian finance leaders about how they're actually using AI — not the LinkedIn version — and packaged it into a free practical wo...

This is a practical discussion based on real-world experience, not management theory. Based on the previous episode, the AccountDads reflect on areas such as organisation maturity, team, sporting reflections, recruiting to collaborating. What’s worked and what's not worked. You get the real insight from the leaders who have navigated their own paths and created their own styles. 

We get asked in interviews sometimes what management style do we prefer. Now is this something you have thought about. It is said that “People don't quit jobs, they quit bosses”. So what style is the right style. Do different styles work with different people. Today we will explore some of these styles and discuss why they do work or don’t work. 

If you're not getting hands-on with AI tools and rethinking your own processes, you're making yourself replaceable, and someone else is already doing it. This one's for finance managers and leaders who suspect the game is shifting but haven't felt the urgency yet. The trigger was a real conversation with a peer finance leader, and it opened up a live debate: are senior leaders wron...

The government said they wouldn't touch the tax rules. Then they came for CGT, negative gearing, trusts… and gave us a $250 offset that doesn't even kick in until 2027. 🙃 This week Hubert finally gets his 30 minutes to vent about the budget — and Kevin and Ash don't hold back either. We dig into what actually changed, why there's so much hate towards it, and whether ANY of it make...

Everyone's talking about CGT, negative gearing, and the 30% trust tax. But there are 10 other items buried in this budget that quietly change the game for Aussie businesses, founders, and accountants, and almost nobody is covering them. We break down what is buried in the fine print — no spin, no opinion, just what's actually in there and what it means for you. If you're a business own...

We gave AI our messy ERP data, a budget model, and a list of management decisions. Here's what happened. This is Part 2 of our AI series — if you missed Part 1, go watch that first (linked below). In this episode, Kevin and Ash take the next step up the AI maturity ladder: from sifting transactions to actually building and updating a full financial model using Claude Projects. We walk through...

Claude AI is becoming the most powerful tool in an accountant's toolkit, and most finance professionals haven't touched it yet. In this episode, we break down everything you need to know to get started with Claude as a finance manager, CFO, or business owner. We cover our 7 layers of AI adoption (and where most accountants are stuck), a simple trust framework for validating AI outputs, and...

Why does change feel so slow in so many businesses? Operations wants speed. Finance wants certainty. And somewhere in the middle… nothing happens. In this episode, we unpack the real tension between finance and operations, why spreadsheets become a comfort blanket, and how value creation and value preservation often pull in opposite directions. We cover: Why finance is wired to slow things down Wh...

Is AI about to replace finance and accounting roles — or is that just clickbait fear-mongering? In this episode of AccountDads, Ash, Hubert, and Kevin break down the real impact of agentic AI on finance teams. We cut through the hype and talk honestly about what AI actually replaces (manual tasks), what it doesn’t (business partnering, leadership, judgment), and why most AI implementations fail be...

We’ve worked under some exceptional CFOs — and a few we learned from for all the wrong reasons. In this episode of Accountdads, we break down the real traits and skills that made the best CFOs effective, trusted, and influential — not just technically strong. This isn’t theory or textbook leadership. These are hard-earned lessons from watching CFOs operate under pressure, in boardrooms, and throug...

We just wrapped up Day 2 of the Accounting & Business Expo 2026 in Sydney — and we presented our first ever live session on the CFO'preneur concept. This is the debrief. We talk about how the session went, what surprised us (spoiler: every question from the audience was about AI), our favourite presentations from the expo, the best stalls, the best merch (yes, the umbrella won), and what w...

We presented live at the Accounting & Business Expo 2026 in Sydney on a topic we've been building towards for a while — the CFO'preneur. The idea is simple: accountants and finance professionals need to stop being scorekeepers and start thinking like business owners. In this session, we unpack what "value creation" actually means in finance, why most analysis never moves the...

In this episode of AccountDads, Ash, Hubert and Kevin unpack one of Australia’s biggest recent accounting controversies. Corporate Travel Management (ASX: CTD) went from ASX200 success story to trading suspension after auditors uncovered significant revenue recognition issues linked to UK contracts and customer refunds. What actually happened? Was it fraud, poor controls, or accounting judgement g...

We’ve been on the AI hype train. While governments and boardrooms lean alarmist… we’re choosing to be AI optimists. In this episode of The Accountdads, we move from theory to practice: • How to create a safe “sandbox” AI environment  • Why training and prompting skills matter more than the tool itself  • Why most AI risk traces back to human judgement  • How mature data environments accelerate AI...

Is AI really the biggest risk to your organisation — or is it how leaders are reacting to it? This week on the Ash, Hubert & Kevin Podcast (The Accountdads), we tackle one of the most uncomfortable conversations in finance leadership right now. When companies ban AI tools to “stay safe”…What actually happens the next day? People don’t stop using it. They just start hiding it. We unpack:   • Wh...

It’s Day 1 as a finance leader. New role. New team. Big expectations. No real playbook. In this AccountDads episode of 2026, Ash, Hubert, and Kevin break down what actually works when you step into a finance leadership role — why rushing change backfires, how to earn trust fast, and how to lead people before  processes. If you’re a new (or future) finance leader who wants to make an impact without...

Sending a P&L doesn’t make you a business partner. A conversation does. This is the first AccountDads episode of 2026 and the first since our rebrand — and we’re kicking it off by breaking down what REAL business partnering actually looks like. We share why reports get ignored, why finance teams struggle to influence decisions, and how accountants can move beyond monthly emails to become trust...

In this episode of The Ash, Hubert & Kevin Podcast (Accountdads), it’s just Ash and Kev holding the fort while Hubert’s off in the US. We dive deep into Chartered Accountants ANZ’s 2025 Talent Shortage Report — and we don’t hold back.📉 Do we really have a shortage of finance managers and management accountants?💼 What’s broken in the recruitment pipeline?🧠 Can you actually teach strategic fi...

In Part 2 of our chat with Phil Diasinos, we dive deeper into what it takes to shift from corporate 9-5er to entrepreneur. Phil isn’t just a business coach and founder of Agora Farm — he’s a former 9-5er who turned his financial & commercial acumen into a vehicle for impact. In this episode, we explore: Recap of Part 1: Entrepreneurial Foundations with Phil Diasinos→ Reflection on Phil’s journ...