From Practice to Business - Financial health

From Practice to Business - Financial health

From Practice Pulse by Pat Delbridge

March 18, 2026 · 52 min · Season 6 · Episode 7

About this episode

Alistair Barlow shares his journey from corporate life to co-founding a modern accounting firm and discusses the impact of AI on the profession.

In this episode hosted by Carl Reader, Alistair Barlow of Ascendant shares his journey from corporate life at PwC to co-founding and then exiting Flindr — a modern accounting firm built on data, insight, and innovation. Starting with just £500 each and a blank canvas, Alistair and his co-founder reimagined what an accounting practice could look like. Rather than defaulting to traditional models, they built a business focused on niche sectors, client feedback, and meaningful data-led insights. We explore the realities of scaling from startup to exit, the emotional complexity of stepping away from something you’ve built, and how AI is reshaping the accounting profession. At the heart of the conversation is one powerful idea: finance data tells us what happened but accountants can use operational data to tell clients why it happened. Want to watch the vodcast instead? You can find the vodcast series playlist here . This podcast is hosted by ZenCast.fm

People in this episode

Host: Carl Reader

Guest: Alistair Barlow

Topics covered

  • financial health
  • accounting
  • business scaling
  • AI in accounting
  • startup to exit
  • data insights

Keywords

  • accounting
  • financial health
  • AI
  • business scaling
  • data insights
  • startup
  • exit

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Ascendant, PwC, Flindr

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