HKICPA and IFAC host landmark PAIB Conference to gather global elites and explore future of finance leaders in a changing global landscape

HONG KONG SAR - Media OutReach Newswire - 21 April 2026 - The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (HKICPA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) successfully co-hosted the HKICPA x IFAC PAIB Conference on 18 April 2026 at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong. Under the theme "Forging what's next – PAIBs at the helm of change," the event featured star-studded lineup of guests and attracted over 300 financial leaders and professional accountants in business (PAIBs) from Europe, Asia, and other regions, including representatives from the UK, France, the Netherlands, Japan, and Indonesia, alongside those from our local community, to discuss the role of PAIBs in leading future transformation amidst rapid technological shifts and a complex geopolitical environment.

Paul Chan, Financial Secretary of the HKSAR Government (Fifth from Right), Stephen Law, HKICPA President (Fifth from Left), Josephine Okui Ossiya, Chair of the IFAC PAIB Advisory Group (Fourth from Right) and Dr. Kelvin Wong, Chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission (Fourth from Left), Michael George Fitzgerald, Finance Director of the MTR Corporation (Third from Right) and other distinguished guests gather for a group photo at the HKICPA x IFAC PAIB Conference.

This landmark event gathered important stakeholders from multiple sectors, showcasing the depth of industry collaborations: The event marked the first visit of the IFAC Professional Accountants in Business Advisory Group to Hong Kong in over 20 years. Chaired by Stephen Law, the first PAIB to serve as President of the HKICPA in more than a decade, the event successfully established a high-level platform for international exchange. This further underscores the Institute's unwavering commitment to bridging international standards with local business practices.

The Financial Secretary, Mr Paul Chan, attended the event as the Guest of Honour. He said that geopolitics, technological disruption and the green transition are reshaping global business and finance. They are key forces redefining competitiveness.

Mr. Chan noted that Hong Kong is well positioned to benefit under "one country, two systems," offering stability and connectivity amid global uncertainty. He pointed to strong IPO activity, asset management growth, and deeper integration with the Chinese Mainland under the 15th Five-Year Plan.

He outlined two major strategies: "AI+" to integrate artificial intelligence across industries, supported by talent development initiatives; and "Finance+" to expand financial markets, strengthen the ecosystem, and support innovation and technology firms. Efforts include enhancing listing regimes, promoting green finance, and attracting global capital and enterprises.

Mr. Chan also stressed the need for accountants to enhance AI capabilities, understand geopolitical risks, and uphold professional integrity. He concluded that professional accountants will play a critical role in navigating change and sustaining trust in markets.

HKICPA President Stephen Law emphasized the unique "super connector" role of Hong Kong and the HKICPA's nearly 50-year partnership with IFAC in his welcoming remarks. He remarked: "As the common language of the business world, accounting plays an indispensable role in international commercial activities. PAIBs are often uniquely positioned to help enterprises turn uncertainty into decisions and strategy into performance. Moreover, given our unique position—backed by the Motherland while staying deeply connected to global markets—allows Hong Kong to act as a 'super value-adder' for businesses and investors to create value and manage complexity. The Institute will continue to actively host more international conferences and professional exchange activities to expand the global network of Hong Kong's accounting profession."

The Conference gathered an impressive lineup of international and local leaders, including IFAC Chief Executive Officer Lee White, who delivered a video remarks, Josephine Okui Ossiya, Chair of the IFAC PAIB Advisory Group, Dr. Kelvin Wong, Chairman of the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and Michael George Fitzgerald, Finance Director of the MTR Corporation.

SFC Chairman Dr. Kelvin Wong offered forward-looking insights into the future development of the financial center, while Finance Director of MTR Corporation Michael George Fitzgerald explored strategic leadership and the evolving responsibilities of finance leaders. Two panel discussions convened core financial leaders from sectors including the Government, infrastructure, real estate, hospitality, energy, and fintech. Senior financial and administration executives from InvestHK, MTR Corporation, Hang Lung Properties, Sino Group, State Grid Overseas Investment, Miramar Group and Floating Interest Corporation joined the stage to discuss strategic approaches to navigating uncertainty. The sessions underscored that PAIBs are at the forefront of addressing complex business challenges, driving innovation, and upholding robust corporate governance.

Looking ahead, the HKICPA will continue to promote accounting as international business language through multifaceted international collaborations. This includes deepening our partnership with IFAC and organizing further international conferences and professional exchanges, while enriching a suite of professional development resources. The HKICPA remains committed to fostering knowledge exchange between Hong Kong's PAIB community and their global counterparts, with a strategic focus on empowering members with future-ready skills. By providing comprehensive support to PAIBs, the HKICPA aims to assist finance leaders in embracing innovation and strengthening organizational resilience.Hashtag: #HKICPA #IFAC #PAIBs

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The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants

The Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants ("HKICPA") is the statutory body established by the Professional Accountants Ordinance responsible for the registration for certified public accountants (CPAs), professional training and development of CPAs in Hong Kong. The Institute is also a standard setter of the local accounting industry. The Institute has over 47,000 members and about 12,000 registered students.

Our Qualification Programme assures the quality of entry into the profession, and we promulgate financial reporting, auditing, ethical and sustainability disclosure standards that safeguard Hong Kong's leadership as an international financial centre.

The CPA designation is a top qualification recognised globally. The Institute is a member of and actively contributes to the work of the Global Accounting Alliance and International Federation of Accountants.

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The partnership pairs LeapThought's own AI with Google Cloud's Gemini models and sovereign Cloud offering, giving infrastructure owners control of their data and connected intelligence across the full project and asset lifecycle.

SINGAPORE – Media OutReach Newswire – 23 October 2026 – LeapThought and Google Cloud today announced a strategic partnership to bring sovereign, domain-native AI to the owners and operators of critical building infrastructure, giving them control of their data and sharper decision-making across the full value chain, from delivery through operations.

Ratnakar Garikipati, Founder, Chair, and CEO of LeapThought, alongside Rahul Sharma, Google Cloud Managing Director, APAC Public Sector. The partnership combines LeapThought's specialized AI with Google Cloud's Gemini models and sovereign infrastructure to deliver secure data control and end-to-end intelligence for infrastructure assets.

The partnership has two priorities. The first is value chain integration, which connects everyone involved in delivering and running an asset — owners, operators, developers, consultants, contractors, and suppliers — on one governed platform. The second is security and sovereignty: owners can keep control of their data, within compliant, standardized frameworks that can be repeated from one program to the next.

FULCRUMHQ, LeapThought's globally recognized Integrated Digital Delivery (IDD) platform, gives infrastructure owners the option to run on Google Cloud, including Google's sovereign, air-gapped solutions for defense, public sector, and private sector environments requiring high security. At its core is GENIEHQ, LeapThought's own Industrial AI, embedded directly into the platform and built to reason over the structured and unstructured data that defines a capital program — BIM models, GIS and geospatial data, ERP financials, schedules, contracts, reality capture, telemetry, and data from field robotics and sensors. The partnership pairs GENIEHQ with Google Cloud's Gemini models, giving owners and their delivery teams natural-language access to that data across a project and a portfolio.

The partnership delivers on these two priorities as follows:

1. Value Chain Integration: One Governed Record, Natural-Language Insight

Major capital and building infrastructure programs span owners, operators, developers, consultants, contractors, and suppliers — each typically working in separate systems, with design, construction, and operational data fragmented across handovers. LeapThought's FULCRUMHQ platform brings this information together into a single governed record that follows an asset from design through operation, giving owners a consistent view across their portfolio, not just a single project.

By running FULCRUMHQ — and the GENIEHQ Industrial AI embedded within it — on Google Cloud, and integrating LeapThought's proprietary data architecture with Google's Gemini models, the partnership enables:

• Interactive Model and Portfolio Querying: Combining GENIEHQ's deep understanding of project and portfolio data with the multimodal capabilities of Gemini, owners, engineers, project managers, and field teams can ask complex, plain-language questions directly against BIM models and portfolio data — instead of manually clicking through complex 3D CAD/BIM model trees or running predefined filter scripts — such as identifying clash detections, extracting exact material quantities, verifying regulatory code compliance, or surfacing risk trends across a program (e.g., "Show me all fire-rated doors on Level 3 that don't match the latest spec," or "Which contractors across our portfolio have the highest rate of non- conforming work this quarter").
• Global Scale and Reliability: Google Cloud provides the high-performance compute and elastic scalability needed to process compute-intense multi-gigabyte 3D models and point-cloud datasets, across a single project or an entire portfolio, in real time.

2. Security and Sovereignty: Full Control on Google Cloud's Sovereign Solutions

For critical civil assets, defense installations, public sector agencies, and private sector owners where data cannot traverse the public cloud, LeapThought gives owners the choice to deploy on Google Cloud's data residency solutions, including Google Cloud Data Boundary, Google Cloud Dedicated, and Google Distributed Cloud. In these environments, GENIEHQ, LeapThought's Industrial AI embedded within FULCRUMHQ, runs alongside Gemini locally, within the owner's chosen security boundary, ensuring zero cross-boundary exposure or unauthorized external telemetry.

"The value of an asset now lies as much in the intelligence around it as in its physical form. That intelligence belongs to the owner, and it must be secure, sovereign, and shared across the whole value chain. Demand for this is growing quickly, in Asia and around the world, and that is what brought us and Google Cloud together. We're starting from Singapore and building toward a standard for critical infrastructure everywhere," said Ratnakar Garikipati, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of LeapThought.

"Public sector and critical infrastructure agencies manage some of the most intricate engineering and regulatory datasets in the world. The partnership between Google Cloud and LeapThought enables project teams and portfolio owners to quickly surface actionable insights directly from complex BIM models and program data using everyday language. Combined with Google's sovereign, air-gapped solutions, we're providing agencies with the option to modernize project workflows while maintaining strict data governance, residency, and operational sovereignty," said Rahul Sharma, Managing Director, APAC Public Sector, Google Cloud.

Hashtag: #LeapThought

The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.

About LeapThought

LeapThought is a US technology company that builds software connecting people, data, and AI across the infrastructure lifecycle. It is headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, has its Asia headquarters in Singapore, and operates across the United States, Brazil, Singapore, and New Zealand. Its FULCRUMHQ platform and embedded GENIEHQ Industrial AI serve public agencies, developers, consultants, contractors, and universities and institutes of higher learning. Clients include Singapore's Land Transport Authority, Building and Construction Authority, and JTC. The company was founded and led by Ratnakar Garikipati.

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