Sarah Patel stared at the PowerPoint slide with the intensity of someone trying to decipher ancient hieroglyphics. The quarterly board meeting was starting in exactly seven minutes, and the data in front of her made absolutely no sense.
"Marcus," she called out to her assistant, who was furiously typing away at his keyboard outside her office door. "These quarterly numbers don't match what I reviewed last week. Did Finance send a revision?"
Marcus appeared in the doorway, his oversized vintage glasses magnifying his eyes to the point where he resembled an anxious owl. "The numbers are from three different reports," he explained, adjusting his bow tie. "Finance sent their version yesterday, but then Business Intelligence sent their 'enhanced' breakdown this morning, and Marketing just emailed their attribution model figures about..." he checked his watch with theatrical precision, "...seventeen minutes ago."
Sarah suppressed a groan. As Managing Partner of Pembroke Paton Associates, one of London's most prestigious accounting firms, she should be able to get consistent data about her own business. Yet here she was, once again, trying to reconcile conflicting reports generated by her own people.
"Which one am I supposed to present to the board?" she asked, already knowing the answer.
"All of them?" Marcus offered weakly. "That's what you did last quarter. You called it 'multiple perspectives.'"
"I called it that because 'complete and utter bollocks' seemed unprofessional," Sarah muttered, saving the third version of her presentation. "Fine. I'll just have to tap dance my way through the discrepancies. Again."
As she gathered her materials, Sarah caught her reflection in the office window. At forty-two, she'd reached the top position at Pembroke Paton through a combination of brilliance, determination, and an uncanny ability to make difficult financial concepts sound simple. Today, however, she mostly looked tired.
"Just another day trying to run a twenty-first century firm with nineteenth-century plumbing," she said to no one in particular.
The boardroom of Pembroke Paton Associates was designed to impress. Mahogany paneling, oil paintings of stern-looking founders, and windows overlooking the Thames created the perfect atmosphere of traditional success. The only element that disrupted this carefully cultivated image was the temperamental projection system that Herbert from IT was currently wrestling with.
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?" asked Sarah, immediately regretting the cliché.
Herbert looked up from behind the podium, his expression suggesting this wasn't the first time he'd heard that joke today. "Three times, Ms. Patel. I think it's the HDMI connection. Or possibly the VGA. Or maybe the DisplayPort. Actually, it could be the software. Or the hardware. Or the firmware."
"Or the gremlins," Sarah offered. "Don't forget the gremlins."
Herbert's face brightened. "I hadn't considered supernatural interference! That would explain why the meeting room booking system also shows this room as empty right now, even though..." he gestured at the eight board members already seated and checking their watches.
"Herbert, please just make it work," Sarah whispered. "I need to start the meeting."
After another minute of technological exorcism, the screen flickered to life, displaying Sarah's desktop—including her email with the subject line "BOARD MEETING PREP: Oh God, Oh God, We're All Going to Die." She lunged for the laptop and quickly minimized the window.
"Good morning, everyone," she said brightly, smoothing her blazer. "Thank you for coming to our quarterly review."
The Chairman, Edward Pembroke III—grandson of the founder and living embodiment of British reserve—nodded slightly. "Sarah. We're eager to hear how the firm is performing. Particularly in light of TaxWise's announcement last week."
Sarah's smile remained fixed, but her stomach dropped. TaxWise, their largest competitor, had just announced a new AI-powered client insight platform that could automatically identify tax optimization opportunities and potential audit risks. The financial press was calling it "revolutionary."
"Yes, Edward. I was planning to address that in the market overview section," she said, clicking through to her first slide, which showed three completely different revenue figures.
"Perhaps we could skip to that section?" suggested Vivian Hargrove, their newest board member and former tech executive. "The industry is changing rapidly, and I'm concerned we're falling behind."
Sarah hesitated. The smart move would be to stick to her planned presentation: review the quarter, highlight some wins, acknowledge challenges, and gently introduce the idea that they might need to consider a "digital transformation initiative" next fiscal year.
Instead, she found herself closing her presentation and leaning forward. "You're absolutely right, Vivian. The industry is changing, and we need to address this head-on."
The board members straightened in their seats, caught off guard by her directness.
"TaxWise has made a splashy announcement, but they're simply packaging what we already do for our clients," she continued, surprising even herself with her confidence. "Our analysts identify tax optimization opportunities every day. Our audit teams flag risks constantly. The difference is they're using technology to scale something we're still doing manually."
Edward raised an eyebrow. "Are you suggesting we need a similar platform?"
"I'm suggesting we need a better platform," Sarah heard herself say. "TaxWise is using AI to analyze data they already had integrated. We have the same data—probably better data, given our client base—but it's trapped in dozens of different systems that don't talk to each other."
"So we need a new system?" asked Bernard Paton, the other namesake partner.
Sarah took a deep breath. "We don't need a new system. We need to connect our existing systems. We need to transform how we think about our data. It's not IT's data or Finance's data or the audit team's data—it's the firm's data. Our strategic asset."
The room fell silent as the board processed her words. Sarah suddenly realized she'd gone completely off-script and was essentially pitching a massive, complex initiative she hadn't actually planned yet.
"How long would something like this take?" asked Edward.
The correct answer was "I don't know, let me put together a proposal." What came out was: "We could have a working prototype in six months and a full implementation within a year."
Bernard leaned forward. "And the cost?"
Again, the correct answer was "Let me work up some estimates." What she actually said was: "We can fund the initial phase from our existing technology budget. The ROI will justify any additional investment."
Vivian smiled for the first time. "What would this look like in practice? How would it change how we serve clients?"
And here, Sarah's imagination fully took over. "Imagine walking into a client meeting and having real-time insights about their entire financial picture—not just what's in their tax filings or audit documents, but everything we know about them across every service line. Imagine AI that can identify patterns across our entire client base to predict audit risks before they happen. Imagine being able to quantify the value we're delivering in a way that makes it impossible for clients to view us as a commodity."
She could see them visualizing it—the competitive advantage, the efficiency, the prestige of being at the cutting edge. She was painting a picture of the firm they all wanted Pembroke Paton to be.
"I think this is exactly what we need," said Vivian. "The old ways of working are becoming obsolete. If we don't adapt, we'll be left behind."
Edward nodded slowly. "I agree. Sarah, how soon can you present a formal plan?"
And that was the moment Sarah's professional bravado collided with reality. She had just convinced the board to support a massive data integration initiative without having any idea whether it was actually feasible.
"I'll have a detailed proposal by the end of next month," she said, maintaining her confident smile while mentally calculating how many sleepless nights that commitment would cost her.
"Excellent," said Edward. "Then I think we've found our strategic focus for the coming year. Now, shall we continue with the quarterly review?"
As Sarah clicked back to her three conflicting revenue reports, a voice in the back of her mind whispered, "You've just promised to integrate data that nobody in this building seems capable of getting into a single PowerPoint presentation. What were you thinking?"
But another part of her knew exactly what she was thinking. For years, she'd watched her brilliant staff waste countless hours manually reconciling data, chasing down inconsistencies, and creating reports that were outdated before they were even presented. She'd seen them make recommendations to clients based on partial information because getting the complete picture was too cumbersome. She'd lost sleep worrying that they were missing opportunities—or worse, risks—because critical information was locked away in systems that couldn't communicate.
Something had to change. And now, for better or worse, she'd committed to being the one who changed it.
As Herbert continued to hover near the projector "just in case," Sarah clicked to the next slide and thought, "Well, I've done it now. The question is: where on earth do I start?"
Little did she know that this impulsive promise would set in motion events that would transform not just Pembroke Paton's data systems, but the firm's entire culture—and her own understanding of what it meant to lead in the digital age.