Newsroom

MGI Worldwide with CPAAI member firms from across Europe and beyond gather for the first virtual European Central Circle meeting

MGI Worldwide and CPAAI network and association members gathered together on 25 May for their first virtual European Central Circle Meeting, attracting an impressive 75 participants from across the European region, UK & Ireland and as far as Africa and South America.

MGI Europe Central Circle coordinators Dr Michael Grüne, from Germany-based member firm Menold Bezler, Thomas Althoff, from Germany's RLT Ruhrmann Tieben & Partner, and Zoltan Paksy, Regional Director for MGI Europe, welcomed attendees to the first virtual Central Circle meeting.

The 2020 European Central Circle Meeting was due to take place in Zurich, with 29 delegates already registered to attend, but the global pandemic meant that the meeting had to be cancelled. The organisers made the decision to go ahead and hold the meeting online, adjusting the planned Zürich agenda and adapting the content to a more concise format.

The virtual event attracted a remarkable 75 members with attendees joining not only from the Central Circle countries but also from across Europe and UK & Ireland. We were particularly happy to see members joining from CPAAI as well as from countries as far away as Brazil, India, Congo and Benin.

Why did we move online?

Because we believe that trust and friendship thrive and grow through personal engagement and wanted to find out if a virtual event could substitute a 'real' meeting.

What were our goals?

The objective was that during the event, members would be able to:

• Chat with fellow MGI or CPAAI friends
• Share news
• Listen to what others are doing
• Access knowledge
• Join for a coffee or lunch break with fellow MGI CPAAI colleagues.

What have we learnt?

Attendees provided useful feedback on this first 'virtual' meeting. The main comments were that:

• Cybersecurity was a relevant topic - many members appreciated Ivano Somaini's keynote talk on the subject.
• Members valued the smaller breakout discussions.
• Everyone who attended the meeting was already familiar with Zoom remote meeting platform which made engagement easy

However:

• A virtual event cannot replace in-person engagement.
• Members missed not being able to have a person-to-person conversation during the event.

Thank you

In this challenging year, in which face-to-face meetings are not possible, thank you to everyone who joined the event and helped make it a success.

For more information please contact MGI Europe Regional Director Zoltan Paksy at zoltan.paksy@mgiworld.com.

MGI Europe is part of MGI Worldwide with CPAAI, a top 20 ranked global accounting network and association with 10,000 independent auditors, accountants and tax experts in some 460 locations in almost 100 countries around the world.

Read more on Meeting highlights and Europe