Sir Brian Jenkins, ICAEW Past President and 1993 recipient of the Outstanding Achievement award, has died. A prominent and active figure within the profession throughout the 1960s-1990s, Jenkins was a pioneer in the profession when it came to the use of computers in both audit and financial accounting, paving the way for developments that have shaped the modern profession. 

Jenkins, whose portrait hangs in Chartered Accountants’ Hall, was already talking about the end of traditional double entry bookkeeping back in 1985, during his year as ICAEW President. This conversation is more relevant now as technologies such as cloud computing, AI and blockchain technology start to reshape the way the profession operates. 

His technological journey started by accident in 1966. Jenkins, who was working for Cooper Brothers (now PwC) was tasked by Baron Henry Benson to look into how computers could be used within the audit process. 

“I was simply told to do it,” Jenkins told Archives of IT in 2016. “We were beginning to realise in the accounting profession that computers were going to have a very important effect on the recording of data, the presentation of data and the control of these sorts of things, and so that’s why somebody had to do that, start that off. And my senior partner asked me to do it.”

This resulted in Jenkins developing a much deeper knowledge of computing and programming, which became a big part of his career. In 1978, he wrote ‘An Audit Approach to Computers’, which set a template for computer-based audit work and was translated into five languages. 

In his President’s Statement in 1985, Jenkins wrote about the future in a way that seems prescient today: “It is a truism that we live in a time of change. But it is true. Almost everything that touches our professional life is changing. New technology is having a radical effect on information, decision-making, organisational structures and employment patterns – much of it difficult to grasp.”

Jenkins became Lord Mayor of the City of London in 1991. Alongside his duties at the City of London and at Coopers and Lybrand, where he worked for his entire career, he became involved in many high-publicity stunts for charity, such as riding around the City on a penny farthing to promote a City Cycle challenge to raise money for the Rayner Foundation. In 1992, he became the first Lord Mayor to fly across the City in a hot air balloon to raise money for the Lord Mayor’s Charity Appeal. 

In 1993, ICAEW presented him with the Outstanding Achievement Award for his contribution to the City and the profession. 

The following year, he retired from Coopers and Lybrand and began his second life as a board chair and non-executive director. He became Chair of Woolwich Building Society in 1995 and stayed in the role until 2000, when Woolwich became part of Barclays. He remained as Deputy Chairman of Barclays until 2004.

Alongside this, Jenkins worked with a number of charities. He was Chair and then President of the Charities Aid Foundation, and a long-standing trustee of Community Service Volunteers. He also became Prior of the Order of St John and Chair of St John’s Ambulance. 

Current ICAEW President Malcolm Bacchus knew Jenkins since 1975, when he was first starting in accountancy and Jenkins was Honorary Vice President of the Chartered Accountants Students Society of London. “I was a student at the time,” he recalls. “Brian was then formulating an approach to computer auditing – an entirely new discipline at the time – and something close to my heart as well.” 

Bacchus kept in close contact with Jenkins over the years. “I well remember the many discussions I had with him at his office in Chartered Accountants’ Hall and at his home in South-East London. In no small part, he guided my early career in the Institute.” 

Leaders like Sir Brian are far and few between, Bacchus concludes. “He will always be remembered as one of the great names of our profession.”