Sabah Hussain (CA, FTA from Tip Top Australia) shared her insights into the accounting profession with a glimpse of her career journey as a Chartered Accountant. The Chartered Accountant (CA) program is a “practicing certificate”. However, Sabah adds that it is more than just a technical, theoretical and practical course: “The discipline, the way of thinking and the technical training actually grounds individuals to move into different field.” The skills of CA are currently in high demand across a wide range of industries, from the Big 4 to non-profit organizations. The members of CA program are connected to 1 million qualified accountants in 180 countries around the world. They all work in various roles (CEO, CFO to small business owners and everything in between), in a variety of sectors (audit, tax, corporate finance, and so on).
Sabah claims that accountants are the key to success: “We are integral to all different decisions within a business. And let’s face it, whenever there is money, there is going to need to be an accountant”. Accountants are the ones who understand the mechanics and help to reconstruct a company’s operations or an individual’s estate. However, the role of an accountant is ever changing. This is due to different factors such as constant shifts in regulations, advancements in digital technologies, increase in client expectations and industry specialisations (e.g. in superannuation and data analytics). Hence, accounting is now more than just number crunching. Accountants must take continuous professional development now more than ever.
In order to become a Chartered Accountant, a CA accredited degree is first required to complete the course. Then, there are certain skills and attributes one must have. Chartered Accountants need to possess more than just the foundational skills of a professional – “intelligence”, “emotional intelligence”, “technical skills”, “experience”, “digital”. Sabah has put a particular emphasis on the need for these two skills, “resilience” and “genuine desire”. She elaborates: “It’s persistence, it’s thinking differently, and being genuinely passionate”. Furthermore, she debates that accountants are “creative”, even more so than the marketing professionals. She explains how we need to be creative “in terms of solutions and innovations you are able to come up with”. She then stresses that accounting is not all about the bottom line profit: “I think more than ever accounting has become grey. Not everything is black and white”. Hence, accountants need to be creative but also “ethical” as a professional.
Sabah’s career journey was truly eye opening. She manifests the versatility of accountants in their career choices and a wide range of opportunities Chartered Accountants have. Personally I was pleasantly surprised when she said accountants are creative. I was always known to be a creative person, but didn’t have much opportunity to express it. Fortunately I was able to showcase my creativity recently when I went to the CPA profession session. Anthony found out my passion in video making and introduced me to one of the CPA relationship managers. She was impressed by the videos I made and offered me to become a CPA student ambassador, which I was accepted into after a video interview. I was able to learn that accounting is not all about numbers, but being able to think differently and being “genuinely passionate” to become a successful accountant.
As a Chartered Accountant, Sabah was able to explore more career opportunities in different industries. I was engrossed when she recounted her work experience in Fox Australia. It seemed like the career pathway I want to take. She briefly outlined the skill requirement of her role, a group financial accountant, at that time which was: “treasury and tax accounting within film industry”. In order to meet the requirement I should continuously improve my knowledge on taxation. Also, to climb up the corporate ladder I should also be up to date with the current financial affairs, which is why I attempt to read news articles every day.
Comments