When I joined the Association for Inclusive Peace (AIP) in Geneva as Managing Director, I was initially hesitant about working with their back-office team in the Philippines. With my experience in large UN organisations, I was acutely aware of the critical importance of high-quality financial management and reporting and I was under the impression that this should be an in-house function in order to maintain quality control.. I was used to working side by side with Operations Managers who could provide timely financial reports and analyses, both on a regular and ad hoc basis. Replicating this level of responsiveness across multiple time zones seemed uncertain, and I had serious doubts.
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However, within a few weeks, those doubts disappeared. I developed full confidence in our Filipino CPAs and came to truly value our collaboration. Their extensive experience in managing grants from institutional and governmental donors, their high professional standards, combined with their reliability, team stability, availability and excellent communication skills, made them an indispensable part of our operations.