Call for new members in Africa to join the Global Preparers Forum in November 2023

The Global Preparers Forum (GPF) is seeking new members to join the GPF from 1 November 2023. Successful candidates are expected to participate for a term of at least two years, with a maximum term of five years. Membership may be renewed for another term; the maximum total membership period, including renewal, is ten years.

GPF members are drawn from a variety of industries and geographical backgrounds. Members are selected on the merits of their professional competence, active practical experience (including responsibility for IFRS Accounting policy and/or external IFRS Accounting reporting) and knowledge of IFRS Foundation developments.

Given the current composition of the GPF and upcoming vacancies, the GPF Nominations Committee is particularly interested to hear from candidates based in Africa.

Profile of GPF members

The main qualifications for membership of the GPF are professional competence and practical, active preparer experience. A list of current members can be found here. Members are expected to maintain liaison with preparer organisations, national standard-setters and other related bodies in their local region. In addition, members are expected to attend and contribute to GPF meetings (which are conducted in English).

Candidates should be:

• in an active preparer role, for example, Chief Accountant, Chief Accounting Officer, or Head of External Reporting, with responsibility for IFRS policy and/or external IFRS reporting;
• sufficiently proficient in English to be able to conduct technical discussions in that language;
• able to cover their own travel expenses and be available to attend meetings (a candidate will therefore generally require the support of his or her employer);
• knowledgeable in IFRS and IFRS developments; and
• linked in with local IFRS accounting groups.

GPF members act in a personal capacity and do not represent their employers. GPF membership is unpaid and expenses fulfilling their role are borne by individual members themselves.

How to apply

Please indicate your interest by emailing preparers@ifrs.org, including a covering letter and a brief CV. Any personal data supplied will only be used in the application process for GPF candidate selection.

The closing date for applications is 15 September 2023.

New GPF members from the Americas and Europe

Sallie Deysel, Maria Alejandra Hryszkiewicz and Nico Wegmann have been appointed for an initial five-year term.

• Sallie Deysel is Senior Director of Technical Accounting at Spotify, a music streaming platform with its headquarters in Sweden, responsible for group accounting and reporting policies, the preparation of quarterly and annual financial statements, as well as several accounting operations teams. Before joining Spotify in New York, Ms Deysel worked at PwC in London, initially in the audit practice and then as an IFRS Accounting Standards expert providing consultations on complex accounting matters, as well as participating in global comment letters and correspondence with regulators. Ms Deysel studied politics, philosophy and economics at the University of Oxford, UK.

• Maria Alejandra Hryszkiewicz is the Global Reporting Director of Ternium, the Latin America’s leading flat steel producer headquartered in Luxembourg, with operating facilities in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, the southern United States and Central America. She joined Ternium in 2006 and held various positions within the reporting department and participated in M&A activities before her appointment to her current role in 2010, gaining extensive practical insights in the application of IFRS Accounting Standards in industrial companies. She is strongly involved in the preparation and analysis process of the financial statements of the company, and in the IFRS accounting policies preparation, application and training across the reporting and accounting teams from the diverse locations of the company in Latin America. Ms Hryszkiewicz is a certified public accountant in Argentina and a member of the Institut Luxembourgeois des Administrateurs.

• Nico Wegmann is the Executive Vice President Corporate Financial Reporting & Accounting of Bertelsmann Group, a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world, and is headquartered in Germany. He is responsible for the external and internal reporting of the Group, including the Group’s consolidated financial statements and for determining accounting and reporting policies. Further areas of his responsibility include the shared service centres with locations in Germany, UK and USA. He has more than 17 years of experience in the financial reporting and accounting field. Mr Wegmann studied business economics at the University of Augsburg, Germany.

About the Global Preparers Forum

The GPF is an independent body from the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the IFRS Foundation, with the specific objective of providing the IASB with regular input from the international community of preparers of financial statements.

The GPF’s members have considerable practical experience of financial reporting and are established commentators on accounting matters in their own right or through their work with the representative bodies with which they are involved. As noted above, members are drawn from a variety of industry and geographical backgrounds; but they are all selected for membership on the merits of their professional competence and practical preparer experience in order to contribute to the development of high-quality, global accounting standards.

The GPF meets with the IASB’s representatives three times a year, including one joint meeting with the Capital Markets Advisory Committee (CMAC). Meetings are currently held in a hybrid format with the possibility to attend virtually or in person at the IFRS Foundation’s office in London. In the future members may be expected to attend some meetings in person. Meetings are held in public and an audio recording is made available on the IFRS Foundation’s website shortly after each meeting finishes. Meeting material and access to the webcast is provided via the dedicated meeting page on the website.

Members of the forum:

• offer advice to the IASB on the practical implications of its proposals for preparers of financial statements; and
• provide input into concepts and proposals that the IASB is developing.

Further information can be found here.