AI born beats AI retrofitted

What does it take to build a business where AI enhances human expertise?

In this episode, Pippa Dussuyer and Dean Farthing of Unity Advisory discuss how they helped build a firm designed to grow with AI from day one.

For most businesses, bolting AI onto old structures magnifies existing problems as it highlights broken data and siloed teams. Pippa and Dean share how a culture built on open information and a single P&L creates an environment where AI is not a threat but an accelerator. It allows teams to build solutions in hours, removes internal politics, and frees people up for higher-value thinking. 

This episode shows you what the future looks like. 

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About our guests

Pippa is a Founding Partner at Unity Advisory and a veteran of business transformation with over 20 years of experience. At Unity, she’s building an AI-born consultancy that elevates human expertise to provide more impactful results for clients.  Pippa helps corporate and PE-backed business to optimise holistically across Lead-to-Cash, ensuring that Commercial and Finance teams work in tandem to drive revenue and EBITDA.    

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pippa-dussuyer-80006a12/ 

Dean is a Founding Partner at Unity Advisory specialising in employment tax and incentives for high-stakes moments. Dean helps CFOs and boards design reward plans that work for both the business and its stakeholders.  

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dean-farthing/ 

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About Chat CFO: 

Chat CFO is a podcast featuring honest conversations with CFOs, COOs, and CEOs about the decisions that impact businesses. The focus is on what leadership looks like in practice, including what worked, what didn’t, and what leaders learned along the way. 

Produced by STOIX, Chat CFO is proudly supported by Unity Advisory as headline sponsor.  

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About our hosts: 

This episode of Chat CFO is hosted by Neil French and Carolyn Cole. 

Neil is the Co-Founder of STOIX. Over the last 19+ years, he’s worked closely with leaders across interim and permanent mandates, often in moments of transition: new ownership, new strategy, broken teams, or first-time leadership hires. He works with CFOs, CEOs and investors navigating scale, complexity and change, typically in PE-backed, VC-backed, listed or founder-led environments.  

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-french/ 

Carolyn is a Partner at Unity Advisory, where she works closely with CFOs and finance leadership teams on finance transformation, ERP strategy, and operating model change. Her background is rooted in helping organisations translate ambition into practical delivery, especially where people and process collide. 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-cole-98485610/ 

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About our sponsors 

Unity Advisory is a next-generation CFO advisory firm, grounded in experience and built to evolve. The firm supports complex, ambitious mid-market organisations with integrated, AI-enabled solutions across finance operations, tax, transactions, digital and transformation. Free from audit conflicts and legacy constraints, Unity Advisory helps leadership teams move faster, scale with confidence and deliver sustainable enterprise value.  

Learn more at https://unity-advisory.com/ 

Transcript

Speaker: 0:06

It's really hard to describe exactly how it feels because if I think back to my previous work it operated in a very narrow band and this is so different from day to day. Today we sat down with several founding partners of Unity Advisory to discuss the early stages of the business, why Unity Advisory is different and what they're proud of so far. There's a real need in the industry but amongst other professionals, something different. The empowerment that's there is real and it's quite infectious. There's almost this flywheel of creativity happening. It really just is this a kind of that that's infectious enthusiasm to create. I think CFOs, finance functions, fall office, businesses need a different approach. I think they need a different approach and I think that we can bring that. Good afternoon. I'm pleased to be joined by several of the founding partners of Unity Advisory this afternoon. I don't know if you could just briefly tell us who you are and what you do please. Sure. I'll start. I'm Pippa Dussuyer. I mean, I guess firstly, we're all one team which is brilliant so I don't even have to say I'm from this part of the firm or I'm from that part of the firm so that's refreshing from the outset. What I focus on is commercial transformation. That's front office but very linked to finance transformation into CFOs and Chief Commercial Offices. I'm Dean Farthing. Similarly, we don't have to. It's really refreshing. I have to say and I'm from this part and I do that that I focus on particularly around incentives and employment tax. I'm Carolyn Cole and I work with CFOs and their teams to help them modernize and digitize their functionals. Super. You've all joined Unity at a really early stage, really exciting part of the journey. How does it feel so far? I'll take that first thing. It's really hard to describe exactly how it feels because if I think about it in my previous life work, it operated in a very narrow band and this is so different from day to day. If we go back to first seeing the office actually being built, we had no carpet. There was, and now we walk in, there's desks. There are lots of people doing great things and you get such an amazing hire off of seeing that and seeing what they do on a day to day basis. There's new things happening all the time. It's really fun. I like that. Fun would be my main word. It's fun. It's daunting as anything but it's fun and I think it's an incredible learning journey. It's just in the time I've joined and the journey up to joining. The learning journey around just the leap in terms of embracing real AI but embracing a completely horizontal collaborative culture and then just learning about yourself as well and learning more about your peers. I'd say fun and there we go. I've finished with Liberated. I've been very liberated. I feel very privileged to be part of this at the very beginning. I think that is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I feel very privileged about that. I'm in the journey. I'm enjoying the ride. There's so much to do and every day is different. I think what I love the most is most of my time is spent with clients, talking to clients, working with clients, thinking about client problems are not being distracted by some of the distractions. The noise of the bigger machine. The noise from a bigger machine that they don't add any value to clients or to ourselves personally. And decision making is so quick. So when we want things done, there's processes but the processes are short and it's really focused on what is the need for the client for this and you demonstrate this is why we need it and it's okay how do we make that work? Very much how do you just make things work? I do like the honest debate as well. There is a glory. Yes, very healthy. I say very heavy, respectful but passionate debates, I think amongst us amongst our teams. And actually the environment is very it welcomes. It welcomes us because we all want something different from this experience and this opportunity and actually I'm enjoying that part of the environment. Obviously, very different environment to maybe those that you've been in previously growing up in. Is there anything else that's really surprised you since joining Unity? I think there's maybe two things. I pleasantly surprised because I didn't have joined if I didn't think these things would both come out eventually. But I think the first is the genuine excitement from clients that real embracing, we still have a huge amount of proof, right? No doubt. But that real embracing of our philosophy of the way that we show up, of our expertise, of how we've embraced technology. So I think that that kind of real genuine, even just watching clients react and saying that is what we've been missing. And so I think that's the first thing. And then the second thing would be just the energy from the teams. I mean, we've got a lot of energy. We've having a lot of fun. But the teams who joined us as well, they are, and you talk about kind of decision making and the empowerment that's there is real. And it's quite infectious. There's almost this flywheel of creativity happening. And I'm sure you'll hear from a lot of them later, but it really just is this kind of that that's infectious enthusiasm to create products, to create flows that make, just drive at real outcomes for clients. So that's been cool to see. Just picking up that client's piece. It's been, you hope you've got relationships with people that they would want to help you. And I've just been pleasantly surprised by the number of people who really asked, how can I help you? This is really interesting what you're doing. How can I help you? Who can I introduce you to? And here's what I think about sort of what you're doing. So helping us to shape our thinking with some real honest feedback coming from the place of we want you to succeed. That's really good. I think also that honesty is so important because it works both ways. We're really inviting honest feedback from anyone who's given to us, which is great. But there's a real, to pick up your point about being liberated, there's a real liberated honesty for us. When we are responding to clients requests, we are not leaning on a crutch of case studies of this is work that we've done. Everyone recognizes we all bring deep, deep collective expertise. But as a team, this is where we are, we're new. And so being able to be really honest about that, to say, this is what we collectively bring. This is who we are. And this is where we're learning, is really refreshing. There's no pretense. And I think that's probably been the biggest, the biggest change. And I think my best, I think what I was proudest about the most just was the level of interest from talent. So we've all worked in a lot of places. We've all been in the industry and doing these things for a long time. So collectively, we know a lot of really, really good people, but they're really, really good. And they've got, you know, they were very, you know, doing very well where they were. But actually there was a real need in the industry, like, kind of multi-other professionals for something different professionally. And I was really, that for me was again self, self, kind of rewarding that we've made the right choice because it's not just us, it's actually there's a whole plethora of professional people that are looking for something different. And I was quite as far as initially by that. I think it's that thing you, we all went into this, or certainly I did thinking, this is the right time to do this from an industry perspective. It seems the right opportunity in terms of the leadership, the back-in for it. And then when you get that validation with people, you know, so we'll put out a linked impulse and we're hiring this and the recruitment team just got a flood of people coming through. And we only now get to see the people that they're sifted through. And you go, wow, these are really good people. I'm glad I'm not applying with them because sort of I'd hire them. You want to watch this? Absolutely. But the talent that is coming through and the people we've not been able to hire yet. It's just fantastic. Yeah, super. For any of you, was there a real sort of pin drop moment where you thought, actually, yes, I've got to join these guys. So I went through, I was looking at a number of other opportunities and I had a way of thinking through where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do. Not a spreadsheet. It was there in a digital format that was available for me, it's really flexible. And I had a coach here, I was talking to, and she said to me, where would you regret which opportunity would you regret not doing? And instantly, I said, well, whilst there was a here's what I wanted to do. And it was just, yeah, this opportunity was so different and so appealing. And possibly, it won't happen again. Certainly my career. And so there was just that crystallization moment of, well, yes, it's the hat. Yeah. I think for me, it was selfishly what opportunity is going to keep me relevant. Because I kept where I was before unity, all this AI technology was out there, I wasn't using it myself. And it wasn't until I joined unity that my, yeah, my application of AI increased dramatically through self, self preservation situation. But it was a, for me, that was, where will I go next that's going to keep me relevant, that's going to put me on a really exponential learning curve and pushing me out of my comfort zone. And this was it. So obviously, we've heard about the challenger, the brand, the investment, etc. What is it that you genuinely think you can do differently? I've been thinking about this a lot, actually, because it is multifaceted. And all the things that have been focused on in the media are, they're all relevant. So there is, there's some phenomenal expertise in our founding leaders. There's the very strong investment backing and the credibility that comes with that. There's this focus on being AI native, not AI retrofitted. And all of those things contribute to us being different. But I think the thing that makes the biggest amount of difference is our very, very deliberate culture. And if you're reflecting all the stories, the reasons why we have joined, and as Karen mentioned, some of that healthy tension in the beginning was just this collective, strong, strong focus, that this needs to be different, and it needs to be built differently in order to deliver something that is much more valuable to the market. And that culture comes through in it's just getting rid of any sense of factious or siloed behaviors, huge degrees of collaboration, single P&L, so that what we're doing is we're collectively solving clients' problems. And our use of AI is, it's just in eight, right? It's everywhere. We all, you know, we have to use it, we want to use it, we love to use it. But what that actually does is that allows us, it elevates the expertise, it gives us so much more time to spend on client problems. And so I think it's the culture and in the intent. It's that that culture piece, when we first got together, we spent more time thinking about the culture that we wanted to have for the business than anything else. And everyone who contributed to that was very, we don't, we're all doing the same page, but it was then often culture, you get some great words, but what does it really mean? How does that come to life? And we did talk about how we would make it real. And one of the things that has been really good from my perspective is that it's really easy to do when there's 10, 12, 15 of you. Now we're up to 65. We've maintained that. And I think if anything, it's got better because we're doing it more and it's it's it's there on a day to day basis and it really is lived. And that piece around sort of no silos is really for me is one of the most important parts of that. We've just worked on that. We I think there's two things for me, the tech enablement and the breaking down the silos and the collaboration that we're able to we responded to a proposal, the other people and myself and another tech, one of other partners who's a technology implementation partner, we responded within 24 hours to a proposal and in the past that which wouldn't been heard of and there would have been so much debate about who was owning the revenue, who would be sharing the room. It would be so much conversation around that and not about what problem what does the client need and how do we bring our collective skill sets together to make it really impactful. And how do we do that really quickly so that we can respond to the 24 hours of giving us, you know, and and and we would never have done that in our part. So for me that is that is from we just lived through that like very, very recently and that for me is really special. I'm really proud of that. It is it is partnership in the truest sense of of the word and I think that makes a massive a massive difference. And AI native is a lot of AI hype at the moment. AI is bolted on to everything. Can you tell me what does that mean or AI born is another phrase that I've heard sort of thrown around. So what does it mean? I think the like I mean AI is it it's here right and it's and it's here to stay and it is it's a fundamental shift in the way that the whole professional, you know, services industry needs to work and needs to adopt it. I think the I mean there's probably sort of two parts to that question. I think sort of AI native versus AI retrofitted comes back to that point of of culture and silos. One of the most interesting things that AI does is it actually really exposes how an organization works versus how you think an organization works because it shows you which teams don't talk to each other, which data doesn't flow into systems like that. It's it's a real lesson in organizational honesty and trying to retrofit AI into an organization that is already factually siloed is is an uphill battle. It's like wading through treacle and and we've given ourselves a phenomenal platform. Not to have to do that by virtue of the fact that we're brand new. So AI native means that we are you know we're not only building AI into the makeup of what we are. So it's it's not even a in a way it's not even a thing like our teams just use it so fluently that it's not a thing it's an enabler to just make us quicker, faster, stronger in the market. And I yes I think that's kind of the the main difference is that we it's it's plugged in right from the beginning but it's also plugged into an into a culture that is so intentionally joined up to avoid us needing to retrofit at a later stage. So if I compare and contrast how I do things today then in the past say in a past a project would come in you talk to the team and the conversation would go along the lines of it's a bit like the project we did remember when. It's different because it's different because of A, B and C and if you get that report and that probably gives you the starter for whereas something comes in today and the first thought that you have is how are we going to get this done quicker? Where can we apply the technology to help us do that and how can we get more insight? So you start off from a completely different place and because of the team someone will come up with all I think we can do you know I saw this on a I was trying to want to somebody work with paper and they did this on that and so they chat with them and someone that has spun up a proof of concept that enables us to do something which I think I can do things in half an hour now you set me five hours and it's sort of just because we had the conversation and one of the thing went oh I know how to do that and next thing they've spun it up you check it it works yeah it's there and it's just it's also just the transparency I mean one of the simple things we've done is is a product that helps us internally around you know we're constantly going to different client meetings and and it is it's a product whereby we can voice download the you know the outcomes of those meetings those that is disseminated and you know crystallized into interesting points action points and then everyone in the firm is able to refer to those so getting up to speed is not a thing anymore everyone is always up to speed to the next level we're actually then using that insight to actually collate what RCFO is telling us collectively because exactly and it's actually then you we're using that into intelligence for our CRM campaigns it's linked it's actually linked into our CRM in that system that's that piece of that product was took 20 minutes to you yeah design yeah deliver one Friday afternoon and we rolled it out it's moved on several versions since but it was rolled out really quickly and and now it's better I'm sure we'll six months time it will look different yeah it's that sort of you know you get something you get it to work you refine it yeah you know where I came from before things were delivered you know x months later they were perfect for six months ago and the world has moved on and again I think just culturally what that means is that teams are not reliant on a partner giving them the time of day to download the meetings that they were in right because then you often get in in sort of other larger firms I think a quite an unfair sense of information dissemination it's often about proximity or it's about luck and that removes that from us and all of our teams are constantly better informed which means that it takes presumption out and assumption out and we all know what you know happens when you do too much of that and just we're better informed which means that our clients get better value and culturally that's culturally it's transparency so things are the assumption is information is available to all certain circumstances where it can't be but yeah well it's it's you know you don't have power because you hold information yeah yeah so critical I think the end here I'd like to just finish a win it comes to AO and native for me it's it's not about having and we do have a we have a fantastic AOI factory that was incredible that come with incredible skills around building products and things but but actually for us it's not about having a theory on the side it's actually our people everyone in the business are developing and leaning into using this technology and building it around problem statements from statements for ourselves in terms of how we deliver our services and have more of an impact when we're delivering with with our clients but also specific products around client client problems that that we believe are going to be really impactful what what we're not what we're not doing is passing all of that onto a a COE to say off you go and create something we're building it up to a point of kind of proof of concept and then very quickly so kind of far you know fail fast but but then but then if we if if we need that additional kind of real techie skill set to it's there and it's being used wisely and that's one of the things we learned early on was that the best way to get information out of our heads onto how do things work so how do you think through a problem was to get that proof of concept spun up and by doing that that got the sort of the technical content that we have around how you solve problems into a way that our product and AI factory could understand ask that's what you do and then they could say we've seen that problem elsewhere so here's a really good way of solving that but we it's sped up that process you know whereas if you've written down a I want to do this I want to do that and sort of try to describe it to them in a process way that would have taken much longer and we learned that really quickly super um looking forward then and I'm sure we'll get more into the the detail of some of those topics and products etc in future discussions but what what are you most excited about looking forward over the next couple of years at UA so I think the opportunity for us is huge the you know the reason we exist is to serve those complex ambitious mid-tier organizations and I genuinely don't think that there is somebody doing it in the way that we do it at the moment and so it's you look at that market and you think there's going to be some really interesting jobs there and it's going to be fun yeah yeah I think for me it is I mean obviously the the the growth is is fun we've grown so far I think the the as you said the potential and the growth that comes with that is hugely exciting I think I'm really also I'm really looking forward to clients seeing the value and you know those outcomes being being proof points and then that just kind of feeding our model and feeding our growth and not just for us you know I genuinely hope this becomes a catalyst for change across across the industry because it is it's great to be at the forefront of that and it is it's it's desperately yeah I'm excited just to yeah I think for me to to people's point I think that the industry needs a change I think CFOs, finance functions, fall office kind of businesses need a different approach I think they need a different approach and I'm you know I think I think that we can bring that and I'm you know very excited to to be working with clients and making a difference I think making it making a difference I can imagine in five years time looking back and saying do you remember when we used to do that like that I know scratching our heads and saying really you know yes we yes we used to do it that way because it's moved on yeah but I think to you the first point fun I'll just I'm really I'm really enjoying this it's so fun it's very important and it's very intense but I am having I am having a lot a lot of fun and I'm just looking forward to continuing I think you'll find it's fun oh yeah and I think finally it's also just um I already see like I feel like our teams just walk a little taller around the office because they are developing and creating stuff every day there's a real sense of of pride ownership enablement and I'm looking forward to that continuing I think they will be far better partners than than than we ever you know have been or will be because they you know they've got the privilege of growing up in an environment that that gives them an opportunity that is unparalleled. Tuka I think we could keep going for some time starting this. We've only scratched the surface today maybe as a sort of a parting shot today is there one final thing you might say to anyone considering their next career move in the professional services world that you might want to think about with you A in mind. Goodness I mean hopefully anyone listened to this would realize that we have a lot of fun we feel really passionate about it I think maybe this might be really controversial I I don't I don't like the comparison of old model new model yes we're a challenger brand but we have you know we have a sort of real very real sense of where we want to deliver value in the market and I think the there are many brilliant people who are in you know brilliant firms elsewhere and and there is still there's so much room for everyone kind of to play and coexist so I you know I know brilliant people in in competitor organizations and if they are enjoying themselves and doing great work and delivering value to clients then then that's great for anyone who is intrigued about a different model or sees the need for change then yeah we're delighted we're hoping to grow so I would say two things for anyone looking for any stage in your career and looking at which do next you want to have fun and you want to learn and you should look for places that where you can get both of those things yeah so if you look at us and think I could learn there come and talk to us hopefully we'll show you that it's a for many people not everybody but for many people they can have fun as well super thanks everyone it's btz thank you thank you