[Speech]A Chronicle of Accountants’ Career

Written by Tuan Duong Nguyen

With the purpose of providing students with an overview of the importance of the accounting career in the management field and the organizational development, the IBMBA program invited Mr. Law Cho Wa (Richard), a professional account with more than 30 years of working experience in accounting and corporate governance to present on the topic of “Accountants’ career – past, present, and future’.

Although the class was conducted online on Friday, May 13th, 2022, the guest lecture was very successful and effective. Especially, students of the accounting class proactively participated in a very informative guest lecturer.  

During his career, Mr. Richard experience different positions in big corporations and be a member of some professional associations and public committees such as the Sustainability Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (from 2014-to 2021), the Education Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Chartered Secretaries (since 2017, the Sustainability Committee of the Hong Kong Institute of Certified Public Accountants (since 2014).

With a very clear categorization of accountants’ careers into three stages, including the periods from 1987 to 2010, from 2011 to 2022, and from 2023 and onwards, Mr. Richard summarized an overview of career development in accounting field along with the major incidents happened in the past three decades such as the Black Monday in 1987, Asian Financial crisis in 1997, and COVID-19 pandemic in 2019-2020, Russia Invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Besides, he also presents the definition of accountants from different perspectives with the main majors and responsibilities over time with the relevant professional resources. 

Especially, in the prospect of the accounting career in the future, the guest speaker analyzed the prediction and impacts of political events on the accounting profession such as the end of the US-China trade war, the end of the Russian invasion, Taiwan’s 2030 goal to become a bilingual nation, the Aging population will not be a problem anymore, 2050 Net Zero pledge, 2.4 degrees Celsius of global warming by the end of this century. Students can study and consider the organic relationship of accounting in linkage to multiple aspects of our life. 

To sum up the guest lecture, Mr. Richards presents several suggestions for students who plan to pursue this profession journey including CPA is a “professional” designation for accountants, recognized by laws; Accountants survive the up and down in the business cycle, and there are many specialized areas within the accountancy profession; A good foundation for a first career; many accountants develop a second career in senior executive management positions; Be prepared to get updated and develop multiple skill sets such as IT, risk management, and sustainability knowledge to keep up with the global competitive environment; Future Accountants must handle both “Financial” and “Non-financial”!

During the Q&A part, both professor, guest speaker, and students enjoyed sharing and discussing the potential and challenges of being an accountant in an international working environment such as how to find the starting point, the benefits, as well as the job tenure and turnover.