Martin Bissett 

Martin Bissett is the founder of the Upward Spiral Partnership (USP), the international consulting firm that specialises in enabling the accounting profession to win higher-end clients, create leaders from their ranks and save lives.

His professional purpose is to alert the accounting profession to the profound outcomes that their advisory expertise can create in the lives of their clients.

At the same time, he also alerts the accounting profession to the profound difficulties that can arise in the lives of their clients when they choose not to educate their clients about the impact that their advisory expertise can have.

The Upward Spiral Partnership is the 4th business Martin has played a key role in building and the first of his own. 

In the first 5 years of USP, Martin has: 

• Been engaged/retained by 4 of the World's Top 10 Accounting associations and 6 of the Top 10 in the UK. 
• Authored 9 books including Passport to Partnership, content from which has been adopted into the curriculum of AAT Level 3 courses, and taught in selected UK colleges and US CPA Societies.  
• Been retained by Accountingweb as a judge of their prestigious practice excellence awards for three years in a row. 
• Been highlighted as ‘one to watch’ in AccountingToday’s Top 100 Most Influential countdown for 2 years running. 
• Spoken on 4 continents. 
• Created several trademarked items of intellectual property including the ACCOUNTS™ system and ‘Martin’s Relationship Pricing™’ Model. 
• Written for several professional publications including AccountingToday, AccountingWeb, CPA Practice Advisor and Chartered One. 
• Sat on many international expert panels and guested on professional podcasts in the US, UK, and Australia. 
• Sits on a parliamentary steering committee tasked with bringing advisory services to the fore in the accounting profession. 

The outcome of Martin’s work is profitable new business for the practices he is engaged by, alongside the fine-tuning of teams of partners and emerging leaders who can develop new business by increasing their commercial awareness for themselves, without significant ongoing third party assistance. 

Previously, Martin served 10 years as a director (appointed at age 26) on the board of a marketing consultancy firm serving the accounting profession. There, he held the responsibility for the growth of the client base including six of the U.K.’s top 30 accountancy firms. 

He now coaches, mentors, speaks, trains and consults with accounting firms worldwide.

In total, he has worked with over 1800 firms of accountants and found it unnecessary to keep track of his contributions to the new business growth of those firms once it surpassed £500m collectively. 

Darren Xerri

Darren is the USP Regional Partner in Australia. Since 1996, Darren has worked with accounting professionals to help them operate their firms more profitably and efficiently.

Darren brings a wealth of business acumen and practice management experience to firms he consults with. He enables partners to focus on evolving the firm, freeing up discretionary time so they can concentrate on strengthening client advisory relationships and work closely with their clients.

In equal measure, Darren guides firms to look after their people and focuses on Business Development including the implementation of best practice, quality assurance solutions in operations, human resources management, policies & procedures, systems, additional services offerings and due diligence.

Darren is the creator behind 'The 3x8 Principle for Evolving an Accounting Firm', a workshop to help owners build an accounting practice with less reliance for the day to day practice management on them.

In his forthcoming e-book series 'So You Want To' in the pipeline, Darren continues to support proactive firms by giving them the tools and guidance of not only what they need to do but more importantly, how they need to implement it.

More recently, Darren is delivering online consulting to firm owners through his 'Accountants Connection Webinar Series', which benefits firms by helping them to understand how their products and services form the advisory solution which improves the lives of their clients.

With a trusted reputation within the accounting profession, Darren leads in practice management and business growth and is considered the 'go-to' person to link his clients to like-minded professionals in Australia.