Accela at 12: A Conversation with Our CEO & Founder
This June, Accela turned 12. To mark it, we sat down with our CEO and Founder, Erin Padilla, to talk about the lessons, the shifts, and what's ahead.
Looking back on 12 years of Accela, what's the biggest lesson you've learned about helping businesses grow?
Helping a business grow is almost never about one function solving one problem. A client comes to us for finance, and the real issue turns out to be about people, or messaging, or timing. What I care about most is helping clients see around corners, localising the knowledge that only comes from being on the ground here, so growth feels less like guesswork and more like a plan. None of that happens without the team. The lesson, really, is that being a trusted partner means staying close enough to a client's whole business, not just the piece you were hired for, and that takes a team that cares as much as I do.
How have things changed since you started Accela, especially with technology moving so fast?
The pace is completely different. When I started, there were patterns that let you predict direction and outcomes with more confidence. Now it just keeps accelerating. On paper, that should make things easier for our clients, and in some ways it does. We use AI daily now for many things. But there's also more information out there than ever, much of it generic advice or guidance without real context. What hasn't changed is what clients actually need from us: someone who can help them find the right path, whether that's the story they're telling publicly or the structure they're building behind the scenes, and cut through the noise to get there. I'm lucky to belong to a generation that grew up with a lot of rapidly changing technology. I personally love that kind of change rather than fear it, and it's given me a real appetite for learning new tools. But knowing which advice actually applies to your business, that's never come from a tool. It comes from experience and niche expertise.
What's been the most rewarding part of working with clients over the past 12 years?
Watching a business achieve exactly what they set out to do when they started, and knowing we were part of guiding that journey, whether that's landing a big story for a global hospitality brand, or helping a business get the structure right as it scales. Those relationships tend to outlast the reason a client engaged us in the first place. Honestly though, it's the team behind it that makes this the most rewarding part. Accela's evolved so much over the years, and we have an incredible group of people who've contributed to that growth, and who keep contributing to it every day.
If you could give one piece of advice to a founder starting a business in Singapore today, what would it be?
Think, plan, do, revise, and repeat. Make the hard decisions, then move on them quickly. Never stop being curious or learning, the world moves fast and standing still isn't really an option. Find the balance between brave and conservative. Bold enough to make the leap, but grounded enough to build something that lasts.
What excites you most about the next chapter of Accela?
We have incredible clients across every part of the business, Communications, Finance & Corporate Secretary, and Talent, and I'm genuinely proud of that. I seriously have to stop and pinch myself sometimes when I think about the clients we work with. So much of it comes down to the team's effort. Our business is primarily referral driven, and that's because we deliver great service, not because of any clever growth trick. For me, what's exciting is continuing to push ourselves to evolve, grow, and never stop learning, and finding the next problem worth solving together.
In one sentence, how would you describe Accela at 12?
Trusted partners and domain experts, truly an extension of our clients' own teams.
Finally, what would you like to say to the clients, partners, and team members who have been part of Accela's journey so far?
Thank you for trusting us with work that mattered, especially in the early years, before we'd earned that trust. Twelve years in, I'm more aware than ever that none of this happens without the people who chose to build alongside us. Here's to the next chapter. And if you'd like to talk about what's next, the coffee, or the martini, is on me.
