[Speech] Being a “doctor” of a company
Written by Tuan Duong Nguyen
On Friday, May 27th, 2022, students of accounting class (IBMBA) welcome a guest speaker from EY Taiwan with a guest lecture on the topic of “Experiences in the accounting and auditing fields”. Mr. Evan Chen, Senior Manager of EY Taiwan, opened his speech with an interesting comparison of an audit career with a “doctor” of a company.
Mr. Evan Chen has more than ten years of working in the accounting and auditing fields in Taiwan, Shanghai, and Sydney. Besides, he is an adjunct Lecturer of Department of Accounting, National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Department of Accounting, National Chung Cheng University (CCU). During his professional career, Mr. Evan possesses extensive and cross-border assurance experience including auditing clients listed in SEC, ASX, HKEx, and TWSE in multiple sectors experiences including Technology, Media and Entertainment and Telecommunications (TMT), Energy and Resources, Consumer and Manufacturing industries. Regarding professional expertise, he is specialized in accounting standards of IFRS, US GAAP, and Taiwan GAAP as well as international taxation compliance.
In the first part, Mr. Evan talked about his experiences in the accounting and auditing fields with the description of being an auditor, and the challenges and opportunities of this profession. With the position of an auditor, you are a “doctor” of a company who must identify problems and give advice to the company in order to deal with the risk during operation. Apart from the angle of financial and accounting, you have to look into the company from all kinds of perspectives (marketing, logistics, and operation) to understand the company well. Then, you can help the company improve the quality of its financial statement. Besides, an auditor needs to understand all the risks of a cycle of a company and can realize any risk within financial information. With a vivid example of the story of a coffee shop, Mr. Evan analyzed the whole process of business operation from preparation to collection in the relation to accounting and auditing tasks.
In the second part, Mr. Evan shared his working experience in the accounting and auditing fields as well as in EY. With extensive experience accumulated from international working environments at different levels from staff to senior manager, Mr. Evan strongly emphasized the importance of learning. Being an accountant and auditor, it is very necessary that you have to be humble, and willing to learn from your supervisors, colleagues, and even your subordinators. Keeping updated knowledge and skills is integral if you want to pursue this career. Besides, he described the career path in accounting and auditing fields from staff and senior to manager and partner that reflects a constantly learning and growing process. Mr. Evan also introduced some tools that can support accounting and auditing jobs. Especially, he introduced a more effective way of auditing, the digital audit, which allowed the auditors and companies to improve the quality of performance and efficiency by focusing on weird trends with the support of digital tools. Finally, he shared about the role of culture in accounting and auditing fields, specifically in EY, supportive culture in working with the motto of keep asking and consulting. One of the significant cultures that he is impressed with is the culture of emphasis on family – family is always the greatest support. Mr. Evan, specifically, stressed the role of culture in working in the international environment that students need to equip and prepare before entering the job market.
In the last part, both professor and students enjoyed asking and discussing the role of digital tools in accounting and auditing jobs, the practical experiences with memorable stories, and the advice for the upcoming novices. After this guest lecture, several students may decide their career paths in this challenging but promising and interesting field – to be a “doctor” of a company.
