By Brian Byers, Founder and CEO of Acclaim

When I founded Acclaim in 2006, I did not set out to build the biggest business in our sector. I wanted to build a good one.

That might sound simple, but after more than two decades in business, I still think it matters. A good business is not defined only by growth, turnover or headcount, but by the quality of its people, the trust of its clients, and the standards it holds itself to when nobody is watching.

Twenty years on, that belief has not changed.

Acclaim was built on experience, certainly, but also on instinct. By the time I started the business, I had spent many years working across the Isle of Man’s offshore and financial sectors, from training with KPMG to holding executive roles across a range of businesses and industries. That gave me a strong technical foundation, but it also showed me something just as important: clients value competence, but they remember how you work with them. They remember whether you are practical, whether you are responsive, and whether you genuinely understand what matters to them.

That has shaped Acclaim from the beginning.

Over the years, the business has grown and evolved in line with the needs of the clients we support. We have continued to strengthen our core services across trust, corporate and administrative support, while broadening our capabilities in specialist areas. But for me, growth has never been about adding more for the sake of it. It has always been about building the right capability, with the right people, in the right way.

That is probably one of the biggest lessons I have learned over the last 20 years: sustainable growth only works when the foundations are right.

In business, there can be a temptation to focus only on the visible markers of success. New services. New systems. Bigger offices. Stronger numbers. All of those things matter, of course, and I am proud of how far Acclaim has come. But what matters most is what sits underneath it all. The culture. The trust. The standards. The relationships. Without those, growth is fragile.

What has made me proudest over the years is not any single milestone. It is seeing people grow.

Watching someone join the business at the start of their career and develop into a confident professional is one of the most rewarding parts of leadership. Seeing team members gain qualifications, step into new responsibilities, grow in confidence and create opportunities for themselves is the part that stays with you. A business grows properly when its people grow with it, and I have always believed that investing in people is one of the most important things any company can do.

That people-first mindset is something I know the wider team feels strongly about too. In the anniversary reflections we gathered this year, the same themes came through again and again: family, support, growth, authenticity and camaraderie. As a founder, that means a great deal to me, because culture is not what you write on a wall. It is what people experience every day.

I was especially struck by the way people spoke about being able to be themselves here. That is not something I take lightly. Professionalism matters enormously to me, but I have never believed it has to come at the expense of personality. I think people do their best work when they feel trusted, supported and comfortable enough to contribute as themselves. You can have high standards and still have warmth. You can be ambitious and still approachable. In my view, those things are strengths, not compromises.

Another lesson from the last 20 years is that you cannot stand still.

The world changes. Client expectations change. Technology changes. The way people work changes. A business that wants to stay relevant has to keep learning and keep moving. That does not mean chasing every trend. It means paying attention, thinking clearly about where the world is going, and being ready for it.

That is very much how I see Acclaim’s approach to AI and automation. We are excited about the opportunities these tools create, both for our clients and for our team. Used properly, they can help people work more effectively, think differently and focus more of their time where it adds real value. But one thing I have been very clear about, and will continue to be clear about, is that Acclaim will always be a human-first business. Technology should support good people, not replace what makes good businesses work in the first place.

That balance between progress and people is important to me. I do not see those things in opposition. The future, in my view, belongs to businesses that can do both: embrace change while staying grounded in who they are.

The last several years have been an especially important chapter in Acclaim’s journey. We have built momentum, strengthened the team, invested in capability and put in place a stronger foundation for the future. That has allowed us not just to grow, but to grow in the right way. There is a real difference between simply getting bigger and becoming stronger, and I am proud that Acclaim has done the latter.

And yet, for all the progress, one of the things I value most is that Acclaim still feels like Acclaim.

It still feels fresh. It still has energy. It still has that sense of togetherness that people talk about so naturally. There is ambition here, but also loyalty, professionalism and humour. There is a desire to keep improving, but not at the expense of what makes the business enjoyable to be part of. That matters more than people sometimes realise. If you want people to stay, care, go the extra mile and build something meaningful together, culture is not a side issue. It is central.

When I look back over the last 20 years, I feel proud, of course. But more than that, I feel grateful.

Grateful to the clients who have trusted us. Grateful to the colleagues who have helped shape the business. Grateful to the people who have stayed with us, grown with us and believed in what Acclaim could become. You do not build a lasting business on your own. You build it with people.

And when I look ahead, that is what excites me most.

I am excited by where the business is going, by the opportunities ahead for our clients and our team, and by the next generation of leaders coming through. But above all, I am excited that we can keep moving forward without losing the values and culture that got us here in the first place.

If I had to sum up the biggest insight from leading Acclaim for two decades, it would be this: good business starts with good people, and lasting growth comes from never losing sight of that.

That belief helped shape Acclaim in 2006. It still guides us now, and I believe it will matter just as much in the next 20 years as it did in the first.