As an undergraduate student in the College of Commerce at the University of Saskatchewan, I took it as a great challenge to apply for my major in accounting, which had the highest entrance requirement across all majors. I received the full entrance scholarship as a recognition of my outstanding academic performance.
I am very proud to have made this choice because I love being an accounting professional.
How to pull everyone together to maintain a single-minded focus and drive excellent results from a win-win perspective is a big challenge
I am currently working at Nestlé as a finance business partner. I lead a team of financial analysts to support the business in strategic planning and decision-making. It involves strong functional financial knowledge, in-depth business sensitivity and understanding, and people skills to deal with different stakeholders.
I really enjoy dealing with the uncertainty of running a business and how to balance the risk and return of any business decisions.
I would say people management is the biggest challenge in the business world. I face a lot of internal and external stakeholders with different focuses and priorities. How to pull everyone together to maintain a single-minded focus and drive excellent results from a win-win perspective is a big challenge.
Moving forward, accounting professionals will need to re-equip themselves because professional accounting knowledge alone is not enough to fulfil the needs of any business. System automation will replace the accounting profession to handle many functional tasks.
I believe the evolution of the accounting profession will allow accountants to take more strategic and visionary roles in the future.
The world is now changing faster ever than we ever thought possible. As an accounting professional, how to adapt to this ‘new normal’ and remain competitive is a major challenge.
I always tell myself to be open-minded and remain curious. I also often tell myself to be aware of the speed of change in facing any challenges. I believe there are solutions to any difficulties as long as we have determination.
Lifelong learning is a good way to stay young. It is also important to continue chasing opportunities. Try to do something good for yourself and inspire others to follow.
Last but not least, it is important to have a productive and healthy life with work-life balance. I love the beach and sunshine, and used to go diving overseas with friends in the summer before Covid-19.
