West Village Advisory was established to help businesses navigate change with clarity, collaboration and care — because successful transformation starts with people.

WVA is led by Karl Schoenmaekers, who brings over 17 years’ experience across business advisory, accounting and digital transformation. His career includes more than a decade with a Big 4 firm, working in both Melbourne and New York, supporting businesses through periods of growth, change and increasing complexity.

Karl’s professional foundations are in accounting, however his work quickly expanded into cloud business applications as platforms like Xero emerged. As an early adopter of Xero in Australia, he worked closely with businesses — and other accounting professionals — to implement, convert and train teams to get genuine value from cloud-based systems. Over time, this naturally evolved into broader work across business applications, reporting, analytics and operational improvement.

Alongside client-facing advisory work, Karl has led and supported product, project and innovation initiatives within global organisations. This includes technology implementation programs, data and reporting initiatives, and more recently, supporting the exploration and adoption of generative AI. These roles involved working closely with executive leadership, leading teams, and translating strategy into practical, day-to-day outcomes.

What underpins all of this experience is a strong focus on people. Every business operates differently, and no two teams approach change in the same way. At WVA, we believe that no matter how well designed a system or strategy may be, success ultimately depends on whether the people involved feel heard, supported and confident in what’s being introduced.

Our work is grounded in relationships and collaboration. We take the time to understand how a business really operates, how its people work, and what matters most to them. From there, we help design and deliver improvements across systems, processes and financial insight that are practical, fit for purpose and genuinely adopted.

While WVA has deep experience with platforms such as Xero, Fathom and Power BI, we are intentionally app-agnostic. Our role is not to push a particular solution, but to ensure clients are aligned with the right tools for their business, their goals and their way of working.

West Village Advisory is designed to grow over time, building a team that shares the same values: professionalism without pretence, strong technical capability, and a people-first approach to change. Whether supporting transformation, day-to-day financial operations or strategic advisory, our aim is to be a trusted partner — approachable, dependable and invested in long-term success.