Steve Vamos: Xerocon London Day one – human at heart

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Steve Vamos with Dexter, our digital tax advisor at Xerocon London 2018

It’s been a BIG day here at Xerocon London. We welcomed over 3,000 accounting partners and bookkeepers from the UK, Ireland, South Africa and further abroad, who heard from inspirational speakers including our very own UK managing director Gary Turner and Chief product and partner officer Anna Curzon. We finished the day on a high at Xero UK 2018 Awards – a big congratulations to all of the winners!

What I love about Xerocon is the incredible energy and engagement of our partners, and the passion we share with them to help small businesses grow. This has been evident at every Xerocon I’ve attended, both before and after I became CEO.

How did I come to join Xero?

It all started when Rod contacted me, back in 2011, to help him find a leader for Xero in Australia. Around the same time, my bookkeeper Tracy Howitt introduced me to Xero to manage my accounts – and I’ve been a Xero customer ever since.

Why is Xero for me? I’ve had a life-long interest in and passion for technology and digital media, and I’ve held senior roles in tech businesses like Microsoft, Apple and IBM. The thing that drew me to Xero, was our purpose and people and our commitment to helping small business thrive. Small businesses traditionally have been underserved, and considering they make up 99% of all businesses in the OECD, there’s immense potential to make a real impact.

Getting ready for Making Tax Digital

With Making Tax Digital (MTD) for VAT landing in the UK in April 2019, we put the spotlight on compliance this Xerocon. Those who attended today may have seen our mascot, Dexter the Digital Tax Advisor doing the rounds. We created Dexter to help small business owners and their advisors become aware and prepare for MTD.

As Gary and Anna announced in their keynotes, Xero now provides best in class tools to help get accountants and bookkeepers ready for MTD. As part of this, we announced today that Xero has acquired Instafile, a cloud-based accounts preparation and tax filing solution that connects UK accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses to UK compliance bodies (including HMRC).

Fintech disruptors

We’re also accelerating our fintech strategy, announcing five brand new integrations with leading UK fintechs: Tide, Starling, TransferWise, Revolut and Soldo, all of which were made possible by our new full-featured Bank Feeds API, announced at Xerocon Brisbane earlier this year.

These new feeds mean that small businesses and their advisors can automatically receive insightful data to track foreign exchange payments, manage expenses and uncover deep insights about business’ performance – all at no extra cost and through their Xero dashboard.

Human at Heart

We hosted a range of incredible guest speakers at Xerocon, each taking their own unique take on Xerocon’s “human at heart” theme. Gerd Leonhard, CEO of The Future Agency spoke about the important balance between technology and humanity in today’s connected world. Lucy Adams, CEO of Disruptive HR explained why traditional people practices are outdated, and Ben McBean, an ex-Royal Marine shared his experiences losing two limbs in combat, and how this sharpened his drive to embrace life, no matter what. We’ll share blogs from each of these presentations tomorrow however – I encourage you to take a look!

That’s a wrap for day one, thanks to all who came along – I’m looking forward to Xerocon day two tomorrow.

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