Mercè Martí Queralt
Chief Executive and Chairwoman of Kreston Iberaudit
Discernment in accountancy: something that cannot be programmed
September 26, 2025
Discernment in accountancy is something that cannot be programmed. Hear from Merce Marti Queralt, Chairwoman and CEO at Kreston Iberaudit, on the power of human leadership in a digital world.
There is an increasingly widespread tendency to believe that what is old gets in the way, and that the new is the only path forward. As though experience is limited rather than enriched. Alongside this comes an almost automatic fascination with novelty.
In this climate, where newness asserts itself as a value in its own right, the way we look for answers has also changed. We live in the age of data, of algorithms, of immediacy. Everything seems to be just a click away, yet when everything is automated, the human factor becomes the real differentiator.
Having faced complex contexts, led through uncertainty and made decisions without absolute certainties, I can say that what truly makes the difference is knowing what to do with the information we have. It is knowing when to move forward, and when to pause, to reflect, to doubt, and to question it once again.
That is what we call judgment, and it is forged in practice. In hesitation. In mistakes. In the awareness that not everything urgent is important, nor everything new, better.
Today, we celebrate artificial intelligence as the great emblem of progress. And it makes sense: it processes, predicts, proposes… but the more it reads the data, the more it does not know how to interpret context. Because interpreting is not merely looking at the evidence; it is knowing when to trust it—and when to be wary of it too.
Do we want more agile and digital companies? Of course. But let us remember: agility is not haste, and technology is not wisdom.
We can rely on generative AI in accounting, but we should not forget: someone still has to decide—and that someone had better know how to discern.
The future of work is neither young nor old.
It is lucid. Demanding. Human.
And in that future, criterion is not expendable.
It is what sustains everything else.
