Q&A: Mazars audit partner Andrew Jones

The upcoming audit reforms look to restore trust in UK audit and corporate governance, marking a period significant change for the auditing profession.   

Andrew Jones, financial services specialist, joins Mazars with 20+ years of experience across a wide range of financial services disciplines, including life and general insurance, investment management, retail banking, and mutual entities.   

Speaking to Accountancy Age, Jones reveals his excitement for growing a regional team at Mazars and how his vast experience will assist him in his new position.  

What can you tell us about your new role?  

I’ve joined as a partner in the UK within the financial services audit practice, with a particular focus on insurance audit which has been my background for many years.  

What are your priorities for this role in the coming months?   

Mazars has been growing really quickly and it’s had a great success over the last two or three years. I think there is a couple of reasons as to why this role exists: 

• At partner level we need the additional capacity to make sure that we are supporting our clients properly, supporting our teams properly, and making sure that we can continue to deliver excellent, high-quality work that stands to external review by the regulator. So, making sure we have got sufficient partner capacity to lead that work and take ultimate responsibility for the quality of that work is paramount and fundamental to doing that.  

• I am passionate about growing something regionally. Mazar’s insurance team is certainly a London-focused team now and speaking to David Herbert ASR UK and global head of audit, he was very keen that we create our presence outside London. I have been in Yorkshire for more than 20 years now. It is going to be fantastic to have the opportunity to build a team up here, not necessarily all based in Leeds, but certainly, a team that is regionally based. We have done similar on the banking side under another partner, David Allen and he has grown a team of 27 in three years. He has had huge success and I am keen to do the same.    

You say you were inspired by Mazars’ cultures and values; can you expand on this?  

I have obviously known about Mazars for a long time, and I am a big fan. I have friends who have been here a long time as well. They have all spoken really warmly about the way Mazars works and supports its employees and they are focused on getting the best out of people and giving everyone a fantastic opportunity to be successful in their role.   

So, getting people the opportunity to step outside pure audit delivery, and do some more attenders which for me has always been one of the most interesting parts of the job and that I get to meet these businesses and must learn about them very quickly and build relationships.   

Mazars has a fantastic supportive and encouraging environment and I have seen that already. Just in the way people have welcomed me and have helped me to get up speed with clients. I have also picked up some new technical things already, which was freely offered, but very much gratefully received as 

You say you have a passion for growing a team regionally. Where do you think that stems from?   

I think the regional market is a really interesting place. You get to meet some really involved business owners, and because of the size of the clients, you can have quite a different relationship to what you may have with PLC (Public Limited Company). You need to remain independent, but you can have a productive working relationship with audited entities and the management of those places. But I think there is a huge amount of talent in that market. 

 There are some interesting businesses, and the chance to work with those is just as interesting as having the chance to work with some of the multinational businesses, it’s just a different role, but they deserve the service and the attention just as much. 

You’ve amassed 20 years’ experience; how important do you think that experience will be in this role especially with the current economic climate?  

You are learning all the time, whether you are a first year going through your first set of exams all the way through to our most senior partners and engagement quality review partners. So, I think having that experience behind you, like challenging client engagements. Looking at the ones that have been more successful, then being able to take the best out of those times and shape the way you deal with what comes next. I think what is really important is actually being able to reflect on what went well, what was it that was a challenge and think about how you would approach something different or even to be able to spot a challenge coming down the track and being able to head it off.  

I also think being able to share that experience as well. We are nothing without the next generation of talent coming through and being able to coach and support those people and share the experiences you have had and how you dealt with those. I think for me, that is a key part of my role.  

How would you rank the last few years in terms of challenges you have faced in industry, with the pandemic and the current economic climate?  

I just look at the impact on staff, and how we have had to work really hard to keep in contact with people to make sure people are properly supported. Particularly through lockdown when you might have had lots of people in a in a flat share or trying to share a kitchen table which is especially challenging. We had to invest a lot of time, making sure we did not ignore those things.  

Then you look at the wider economic environment, there is an impact on the way we do our work, we must think very carefully about going concern, for example, or the judgments that managements are making and whether we are addressing those in in the right way. That is a constant challenge that we must think carefully about to make sure we are getting good audit evidence, robust audit evidence, and that we have challenged management in the right way to really make sure we have a robust audit opinion and the evidence to support it.