Datuk Zaiton Mohd Hassan FCCA, ACCA’s new president, took up her post a few days after her 70th birthday. It’s quite the birthday gift but one that comes with, as Zaiton puts it, ‘a heavy sense of responsibility to do what is right’.
Zaiton is one of the most prominent banking leaders in Malaysia, where she is known as ‘the cleanup lady’ for the number of times she has been sent in to turn around a struggling institution.
After joining PwC in 1975, she forged a highly successful career in the financial services sector, holding several senior positions at Maybank, the country’s largest bank, including head of treasury and head of international operations.
She served as non-executive chair of the Development Bank of Malaysia between 2019 and 2021, and was instrumental in the setting up of both the Malaysian Rating Corporation (where she served eight years as president) and the country’s first digital bank, GXBank (where she still serves as its chair).
Passionate commitment
Running alongside this has been a career-long, passionate commitment to giving back to the accountancy profession that has served her so well.
‘If I can help one more person across the poverty line, I will be very happy’
Zaiton was elected to ACCA’s Council in 2016 and is former deputy chair of the International Federation of Accountants’ business advisory group. But her proudest achievement is the Malaysia Professional Accountancy Centre (MyPAC), a not-for-profit institution she set up with friends in 2015 to help students from underprivileged families gain their professional accountancy qualification.
MyPAC is, she says, ‘probably the most satisfying thing I’ve done in my life. If I can help one more person across the poverty line, in any country, on any continent, I will be very happy.’
Over the past 11 years, MyPAC has supported more than 1,300 students who have successfully completed their ACCA exams. ‘There are a lot of very bright, very talented students in Malaysia, and other countries, who come from poor families,’ she says. ‘The only thing keeping these kids from an accountancy qualification is funding. They didn’t have a chance, and I think that’s wrong. So I decided to do something about it.’
‘I talk to youngsters and there is so much hope that, with the qualification, they can do well’
With the help of funds raised from companies and financial institutions, MyPAC finances the professional education of underprivileged students, who have inevitably grabbed the opportunity with both hands.
‘They know that this is their chance to sustainably rise from poverty and they give it everything they have,’ she says. ‘Many of our graduates have been global prize winners.’
Opening up opportunities
MyPAC comes from a very personal place. Zaiton’s parents (her father was a cab driver from Singapore) ‘invested all they had’ into her education. ‘I’m from a humble background and my parents took very good care of me. They did so much to get me where I am.’
She has seen first-hand the opportunities that the ACCA qualification opens up for young people. ‘I talk to youngsters and their parents, and there is so much hope that, with the qualification, they can do well. That’s what makes me so committed to ACCA. It’s very easy to promote the brand when you believe in it.’
But, she stresses, it’s not enough that MyPAC graduates are technically excellent. ‘I don’t want to produce accountants who are only good at passing exams; I want to produce accountants with the right values. That’s very important. We have to hold on to our principles as a profession. If you do that, you should be able to find your North Star and do what is right, even in the face of opposition.’
‘If you’re going to stand up for what is right, you need to know what you’re talking about’
She makes the point that sometimes it only takes one person to convince people of the right path: ‘You need courage to do that, but to have courage you need knowledge. If you’re going to stand up for what is right, you need to know what you’re talking about.
‘Integrity without competency takes you nowhere. Competency without integrity is a disaster. You need both to be successful.’
‘Universal language’
The self-confessed extrovert is looking forward to travelling and meeting members across the world as ACCA president. ‘We may all be in different markets, but the problems we see as professional accountants are quite similar,’ she says. ‘We talk in a universal language, and that is very important to me.’
Bringing trust back to the profession will be a priority. ‘You cannot change what has happened in the past, but you can make the future better. And it’s vital for the future of all countries to have good, professional, ethical accountants with the right values.
‘We can’t move mountains, but we can all work on our own little molehills. And when you put all those molehills together, you change the world.’
More information
ACCA leaders are working closely with partners, organisations and governments around the world to shape the future of the profession. Find out about recent key engagements in ACCA’s LinkedIn blog.
