One of the SPA Executive’s tasks this year has been to replace Lady Doreen Lawrence as President given that her term has, sadly for us, come to an end. Lady Lawrence has made a wonderful contribution to the work of the SPA and we are grateful for her support. We are delighted to welcome Lord Prem Sikka as our next President. As members will no doubt know, Lord Sikka is renowned for his research on accountancy, auditing, tax avoidance, tax havens, corruption, corporate governance, money laundering, insolvency and business affairs. He has been published in international scholarly journals, books, newspapers and magazines. Prem holds the Working for Justice Award from Tax Justice Network, Accounting Exemplar Award from the American Accounting Association (AAA), Lifetime Achievement Awards from the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA) and PQ Magazine, Personality of the Year Award from Accountancy Age and the inaugural (in 2017) Abraham Briloff Award from The Accountant and International Accounting Bulletin for promoting transparency and public accountability of businesses and the 2024 Public Understanding of Social Policy Award from the Social Policy Association. In January 2019, he was named by Accountancy Age as one of the 50 most influential individuals in the world of accounting
Lord Sikka has been a member of the UK House of Lords since October 2020. He is also Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and University of Sheffield. His research on accountancy, auditing, tax avoidance, tax havens, corruption, corporate governance, money laundering, insolvency and business affairs has been published in international scholarly journals, books, newspapers and magazines. He has appeared on domestic and international radio and television programmes to comment on business matters. He has advised and given evidence to a number of UK and EU parliamentary committees. He advised the UK House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee for its investigation into the collapse of BHS and Carillion.
We are delighted that Lord Sikka is willing to serve as SPA President, and very much look forward to working with him.