TGS Africa, Middle East and Europe Conference Program 2024

Thursday Afternoon, May 16th 

Member Participation: TGS is run by and for its members sidebar

Frans, TGS member in the Netherlands, had said to me that he was reading Corporate Rebels, a book which advocates for more employee involvement. And he was saying to me, ‘yeah, well, you know, we get new students in our firm, and instead of telling them the training that they have to do we ask them what kind of training they think they need to be successful.’

Frans, hoist by his own petard, is co-leading the TGS Tax and Legal Conference Workshop with Marine. Thanks Frans. Thanks Marine

So in the same way, in TGS workshops, we are not telling the members what they need, but we’re getting them together to sit in a group and work out what they need and how are they going to get it and how can the network help them to do that.

It can be challenging to motivate network members to volunteer to facilitate workshop sessions. Workshops take time, effort and courage to create and facilitate well. But if you believe in a network where you’re putting in the work to make it something profitable for you, then you will be paid back.

It’s a cliche but a truism, ‘the more you put in the more you get out’.  So thank you, Frans. Thank you, Marine. Thank you, Pelumi, Alberto, Katie and Tony. Thank you for stepping outside your comfort zones and making TGS the member-led, value-driven success factory it is becoming. 

1pm: Professional Expertise Workgroups

On Thursday afternoon, we are into expertise. The network is made up of three key professions: auditing firms, accounting firms (Bookkeeping, BPO, payrolling…), tax and legal service providers.

If you are an auditor, you’re gonna be wanting different things from your network membership than if you’re an accounting firm. And you will have different expectations again if you’re a tax and legal service provider, so in the afternoon on Thursday, the 16th we have a series of workshops for each of those specialities. 

1-3 pm: Professional Expertise Workshops

The 50 participants will split into a profession-specific workshop. These sessions will be facilitated by TGS members. I often say that one of the key benefits of TGS conferences is that they are run by and for the members.  Participants don’t sit inactive and listen to speakers (which may well be inspirational, but inspiration is often forgotten as soon as you get to the bar). In the TGS EMEA conference you will be working with and learning from your TGS peers. 

• Audit Workgroup: facilitated by Katie and Tony
• Future of Accounting Workgroup: facilitated by Pelumi and Alberto
• Tax and Legal Workgroup: facilitated by Marine and Frans

4-7pm: Cultural (Networking) Visit

What’s the dress code?

After you have spent the morning in your professional workgroup and have worked together to decide what they needs to be done, how you need to do it, who’s going to what and what they’re going to do next … we have a reflective coffee break,  meet in the hotel lobby and we’re going to visit the world-famous Jardin Majorelle and YSL museum. 

TGS members are not only business minded but also cultural and stylish. As well as ‘What’s the ROI?’ one of the most common questions the TGS global hear during conference season is, ‘What’s the dress code?’. 

If you’ve got anything fabulous to wear, something particularly fashionable or a vintage YSL piece, do make an effort and dress up for the 22 minute walk from the hotel to visit the garden where Yves Saint Laurent took so much of his inspiration.

7-11pm Networking Dinner

At dinner, you get a chance to network with all these members again. Try and come ready not just to talk about the weather but ready to network. Don’t leave the money on the table of benefiting from the expertise of professionals.

Come ready to find the people you need to speak to. Who is your power network within the network likely to be? Make sure you make these connections during the dinners and lunches.

Are you likely to have business referrals from Belgium? Make sure you sit next to Alexander.

If you would like to be more successful at the conference, read this article: 5 tips to achieve a 10X return on investment in your conference participation. 

Friday Morning, May 17th

9am: Introduction from TGS member firm CKE: business and culture in Morocco.  

We’re in Morocco. So it makes sense that we talk about doing business in Morocco and get some local insights. 

9.45am: Focus on the three Pillars of TGS: Quality, Sustainability and Business Development

Now, the morning of the Friday of the conference is focused on the three pillars of TGS. And then in the afternoon, we focus a little more on the geography of TGS. 

What do we mean by the three pillars of TGS? Well, we’ve got a notion of Quality and Professional Core Competences (PCC), Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (ESG) and Business Development, Collaboration and Communication (BCC). 

Each of the TGS pillars have a nominated person in each firm. For example, when you complete your TGS Quality Review for the year, your firm’s nominated ‘Quality Person’ is responsible for filling in the questionnaires that we, in turn, use to generate insights from the network and produce your TGS Quality Report. This report helps you benchmark against other members and, as the name suggests, improve your quality. 

TGS and Quality

This year we’ll be focusing on Client Acceptance and we’ll be talking about codes of conduct. How do you accept and when you refuse a client? We’ll also be talking about ISQM1 and we’ll also be exploring Anti Money Laundering (AML) policies, frameworks and making sure that every TGS member firm is up to date. 

TGS and Corporate Social Responsibility

Again, in TGS each member firm has an ‘ESG Person’ who is responsible for reporting about economic, social and governance issues. 

As you know, we have been developing the TGS ESG Activator advisory toolkit, which is a collection of all the regulations and indicators which are currently globally active. This is not really a service to sell, but it is more of a tool for developing your advisory service provision. It’s a framework. It’s a toolkit. It’s constantly updated. And it’s keeping TGS members on the cutting edge of ESG advisory. 

There’s been a bit of pushback about ESG in recent months, but it will come back and it will affect all our clients. We will see more and more regulations that your clients will have to comply with. If you know what the regulations are, how your clients might be affected (and potentially fined) and your client knows what they are and you know how to help them comply: there will be more work for your firm. Again, don’t leave that money on the table. 

There are other ESG tools available but the depth and breadth of the ESG Activator content (constantly updated) is really incredible. Supporting the diagnostic questions, you have about 200 templates that you can use to support your clients following the feedback from your analysis. Problem identified, solution provided: client satisfied. 

TGS and Carbon Footprints

We have a workshop with our partner Econos Consulting about carbon footprints and it’s something that you can understand and use directly with your clients. Again, don’t leave that money on the table. Get ready to reach out into Carbon Footprinting with your clients. 

TGS and International Business Development 

We’ll also be talking about and with the TGS International Business Coordinators (IBC).

Who is the IBC in your firm?  

The IBC is the person in your firm who is responsible for logging referral business that you receive or you give to another member in the network. Your IBC is  also the person who’s responsible for being the interface to think about how we grow the network.  What kind of members do we need to be looking for? How are we gonna find bigger, better higher margin clients? Either working together or working individually, how can our member firms leverage their network membership?  

Your brand, your connections all over the world, your opportunities have to be identified and coordinated.  That is what your TGS  International Business Coordinator is doing. 

TGS International Business Stories

KG Somani, who are working with other members to develop their data analysis expertise, notably with TGS Romania. Rob, International Business Coordinator from the Netherlands firm Vermetten gave me a fantastic list of eight potential TGS member firms in Germany. 

12.30pm Networking Lunch

There’s been a lot of action and thinking  already. Your head will be spinning and then we’ll be having dinner to relax and think through what we learned.

These are the moments when you’re together, following a day and a half of shared experience, where you can make the connections, the friendships which will last a lifetime. This is more than a 20x return. 

3.30pm Africa Business Panorama and Network Development 

In the afternoon, we’ll be focusing geographically. We’ll be hearing from industry experts talking about the panorama of business in Africa.

As you know, Africa is going to be even more huge than it is already in the coming years. It’s an enormously young and dynamic population and is going to be full of entrepreneurs and opportunity in the near future. 

Growing the TGS Network in Africa

TGS would like to have more members in Africa. more dynamic members, just like the ones we have want to be on top of best practices for helping businesses work in and across Africa. 

We want to have Africa painted orange with TGS and to have firms that were delighted to meet and work with all over the continent. TGS regional leader, Fabrizio, and his team are working to make this happen. This afternoon will be a fantastic case study about the new TGS regional development strategy in one of our nine regions. 

We will be talking and exploring all regions, Europe, Middle East and Africa in Marrakech, The Americas and the US in Costa Rica and Asia Pacific in Singapore. 

6-11pm Networking Dinner and TGS Experience

At dinner, you get a chance to network with all these members again. Try and come ready not just to provoke a return on investment.

Not sure how to get the most out of an event like this?

Here are 5 tips to increase your ROI from participating in the conference.