As a graduate of University College London’s MSc in Professional Accountancy programme, delivered in partnership with ACCA, Yeldar Rakishev doesn’t have just the desire but also the skills to help bridge the divide between practice and academia in the accountancy profession.
Today, he leads the financial and management accounting function at Kazakh EPC contractor AAEngineering Group while also working as an adjunct associate professor at Narxoz University, a business school in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The cross-pollination is deliberate. At work, he applies what he teaches. ‘We’re doing fully automated reports,’ he says. ‘The data is uploaded and refreshed daily with no human involvement.’
‘The research-focused knowledge was exactly what I needed’
Meanwhile in the classroom, he turns practice into inspiration. After one lecture, a student approached him to talk about career choices. ‘He told me the course had changed his vision of accounting,’ Rakishev says. ‘Previously he was thinking mechanistically, but in my classes he needed to make decisions.’
Perfect fit
It was Rakishev’s bridging instinct that had led him to the UCL course in the first place. As a working professional with technical knowledge who needed a pathway into research and higher-level insight, he found the programme a perfect fit.
‘They don’t focus on technical skills you already have,’ he explains. ‘Instead, they quickly give you the higher-level, research-focused knowledge. It was exactly what I needed.’
What struck him most about the course is how the academic framework encourages evolution. ‘You write a research proposal, and while you’re learning, you can change the whole course of your research. You’re not bound from start to end. You evolve naturally, it’s very enriching.’
Within months of completing the programme, he had been invited to join a research committee and supervise students at Narxoz. ‘At the time there were practically no accountants exposed to academic research in Kazakhstan,’ he says.
Professional qualification
Rakishev had begun his career in banking, analysing the financial statements of small and medium-sized enterprises. Wishing to fully realise his potential, he enrolled on a master’s course in accounting and audit at Kimep University in Almaty. While there, he was invited on to ACCA’s Accelerate scheme, which allows outstanding students to begin their professional qualification journey with ACCA as they are doing their degree.
‘I’d never really excelled in something before. It really motivated me’
What came next surprised even him. ‘I took first place in Kazakhstan and 20th in the world in my first paper,’ he says. ‘That was something new because I’d never really excelled in something before. It really motivated me.’
It also eased his move from banking into public practice with Moore Stephens. ‘Through the Accelerate scheme, if you pass top of the cohort, you essentially get a job,’ he says. ‘Because I came first in the exams, I started as a senior associate instead of in a more junior role.’
Turning point
After several years in practice, during which time he moved to Crowe, he was approached by the CFO of a listed engineering company. They were looking for someone to build an entirely new finance department, capable of meeting audit standards and stock exchange requirements.
He moved back to his home city of Almaty for the job, which offered the kind of challenge he was looking for. ‘I wanted to start something new,’ he explains. ‘Not to arrive where everything was already prepared, but to create a new department.’
The role also required him to head the management accounting function – an area he had not previously specialised in. ‘I needed to learn Power BI from scratch,’ he says. ‘I invested time in teaching myself because I felt that very soon data analysis would be vital for accountants.’
He was right. That self-taught journey into digital tools eventually led him to design and deliver a corporate training course – his first experience of teaching. Its reception changed everything. ‘It was a massive success among engineers,’ he recalls. ‘They really liked the challenges of learning data analysis and Excel. That was the moment I realised this was my thing.’
‘There shouldn’t be such a gap between practice and academia’
The course he’d created and taught then led to a part-time role teaching management accounting at Narxoz. It was an unexpectedly smooth transition. ‘In Kazakhstan, ACCA is very well known,’ he explains. ‘In accounting academia, it’s regarded even more highly than a local PhD.’
The school offered him flexibility and an opportunity to teach a discipline in high demand. He soon realised that academia and practice could be integrated rather than treated as separate worlds. ‘There is a strong division between practice and academia in accounting that does not exist in other professions, and that shouldn’t be the case,’ he says.
His successful blending of the two worlds in his teaching, subsequently given a further boost by the UCL MSc programme, has benefitted students, businesses and the profession. ‘There is a very pragmatic side of research which is really beneficial for practice,’ he explains. ‘If we realise that fully, we can enrich the profession enormously.’
All that jazz
Rakishev is cautious about grand plans. His ambitions are incremental: publish pragmatic research, present at conferences and keep supporting students. ‘My idea is to take one step at a time,’ he says. ‘I’m glad that I can work with students and research. I want to present my ideas to a wider public.’
Like jazz, accounting at its best is improvisational
Outside academia and finance, he has quietly discovered another passion. A jazz club opened recently in Almaty and has become a regular fixture for him and his wife. ‘It allows me to relax,’ he says. He now visits jazz venues wherever he travels, from Vienna to London. ‘It’s niche, but it has a warm atmosphere everywhere.’
Like jazz, accounting at its best is improvisational, he suggests – structured, yes, but also alive, human and responsive. And if Kazakhstan’s younger generation can learn to play their accounting roles with that sort of verve, he believes the profession’s future is bright indeed.
More information
Find out about the University of London MSc in Professional Accountancy.
