Start me up … on a magical mystery tour of AP in the UK

Posted by Tom Bohn

Forget about William and Kate and the upcoming royal wedding. London was more enthralled with the IAPP-UK’s first-ever AP conference – or at least that’s how it felt this week at the Hilton Canary Wharf, where nearly 200 people gathered for the inaugural event. I had the privilege on day one of making the opening remarks to the audience at The AP Evolution: Redefining AP for Modern Business, giving them an overview of our plans (a London chapter, UK certification, additional training) and, more importantly, answering their numerous questions about our young association across the pond.

After 15-plus years working with global associations, I am still amazed how countries can be so different and yet still very much the same. Most of the questions regarding IAPP-UK and the AP profession surrounded four core areas. Tell me if you see any patterns here:

1)     AP gets little respect or recognition in the finance world.

2)     AP staff is often forced to do more with much less.

3)     How do we keep up with the fast changes in AP automation and AP tax and regulation issues?

4)     Who’s better, the Stones or the Beatles?

OK, so the last one wasn’t really a core issue for them, but I did my best to find an answer anyway over the 2.5 days I spent with this engaging, sharp, passionate, and brilliant group. The topics covered were as varied as those at any of our U.S.-based conferences and included everything from AP automation and data capture, to VAT compliance, profit recovery, benchmarking, master file, metrics and the overall financial supply chain.

The attendees were among the most focused and participative I have ever seen and were happy to see that AP was finally being given the time and attention it deserves. It also helped that we had many great instructors there including our own Mary Schaeffer and Eric Jones, as well as local instructors from Virgin Atlantic, Lloyds Pharmacy, Atkins Inc., and many more. We may have a 20-year start on them in the States and Canada, but I expect our British sister association will be closing in on us quickly!

And our vendor community absolutely shined! To be honest, many of them were initially there to support IAPP because of our close relationship in the United States, not expecting too much in terms of attendance or booth traffic. All of them, however, walked away 100 percent committed to making next year’s show bigger and better. Armed with leads and new contacts, they spent considerable time guiding the attendees through their numerous products and services. And for the first time at any IAPP event, the exhibitors ranked among the top three reasons why attendees benefitted from the event. Thank you to the 15 companies that helped make this conference so great.

As the week came to a close, I better understood how Nelda Barkley and the early pioneers of IAPP-U.S. might have felt some 20 years ago as a small but committed group of people dedicated to making sure AP got the recognition, training, and support it needed and deserved. It was a proud moment for our staff and me. And while we never got a firm answer on the Beatles versus Stones debate, we walked away with great respect, admiration, and high hopes for our friends in the United Kingdom. We tip our hats to you, old chaps!