News > Madrid Meeting (September 25^th -26^th, 2009)

Accacia had its Annual Meeting in Madrid on the 25th and 26th of September 2009 which was the Eighth Annual Meeting since the inception of Accacia. This was the first meeting which was directed by the new Executive Director of Accacia -Philip Gardinier-.

Most of the people who attended agreed that it was the largest and most productive event the network had up to now. The meeting was attended by the partners of existing members and by invited representatives from selected companies who have indicated interest in joining Accacia.

All together the participants perform operations in 16 countries and employ a combined total of over 1600 professionals and staff. As Accacia is dedicated to client service, the meeting started with a focus on the client.

Patrick Shannon of Standard Life gave a presentation on “A Client’s Point of View” which illustrated clearly the needs and expectations of the multinational client which Accacia focuses on. This presentation was followed up by a presentation by the French Development Agency Orly that explained the role they serve for multinational businesses wishing to invest in France.

New Member and Candidate Members from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Czech Republic and the UK also gave presentations on their practices in their respective countries. It was instructive and exciting for the participants to learn about a variety of successful strategies to develop prosperous operations as described by several countries.

The common element portrayed being the focus on internatonal business driven by a common understanding that in a globalizing world service to customers needs has to be transnational as well and that networking creates new opportunities. In addition, there were technical sessions to share experiences on “Growing the Portfolio”, “New Partners and Succession Planning”, “Understanding Profitability Drivers”, and “Developing Large Accounts”.

One of the member firms undergoing an in depth transformation gave an unadorned overview of the challenges and benefits of their transformation. All in all, the meeting was thought provoking and beneficial to those that attended.

The meeting should be considered a milestone in the development of Accacia becoming a real global network as Brazil signed the Adhesion Agreements during the meeting and with only one exception all of the other participating candidates a short time later on expressed their desire to join Accacia or to accelerate the already ongoing procedure of admittance.