Hold tight as we will shortly announce our very first guest. He is a very well known name here and will be able to give us a through insight into the world of Accountancy ..
He specializes in investment into the stock markets, developing businesses and company turnaround.
Please get your questions ready and watch this space as we introduce our guest to you all tomorrow ..
Looking forward to this , I am myself getting very excited about this topic , since its one of my interests as well ..
OK Ladies and Gents, the moment has arrived , the wait is over ..
our very first guest is our dearest Ehsan Bhai .. he will come here shortly and give us a brief about himself and then please feel free to ask him any questions regards his role as a Chartered accountant .
Thanks so much EB for being part of this and for sharing all this valuable knowledge . Please make it easy for us by explaining things with as much simplicity as possible
My questions will revolve around the stock markets , since I have alot of interest in that area .. do you advise individuals or companies .. and what sort of contacts does one need to maintain to be able to invest in the stock markets wisely ?
Thank you Chicken Bryani for inviting me. A brief about myself, education and career wise:
I did my Bachelor of Commerce (honours) from Punjab University and than Chartered Accountancy in UK where I was articled with KPMG, one of the biggest accountancy firms in the world. In those days it was known as Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. I qualified as a chartered accountant in 1977, much before many of you were even born. In those days there were very few chartered accountants of asian orgin in UK. also the big firms did not employ many non whites. I was only one of 4 Asian guys in the whole of KPMG in UK in the mid 70’s. racism was rife and seeing an Asian guy carrying out the audit made many of the white folks really jealous. They could not imagine an asian as a white collar worker. Two examples which happened personally to me will give you the depth of racism back than. I was part of the team auditing one of the biggest brewery in UK, a test match between England and Pakistan was going on at the same time, the year was around 1974. Pakistan was doing very well in the match and as one fo the guys came into the big office where we were sitting, someone asked the score and the guy said Pakistan was in a very strong position. I obviously smiled. A guy sitting across the room got so upset that he shouted at me that I should go out and join the others in drivers room because that was where support for Pakistan was. The second incident is one which I will never forget and one which I still feel changed the culture and attitudes at KPMG. I had just been promoted to the position of supervisor and was leading a team of auditors on an audit. The company was a quoted company on the stock exchange. Upon arrival at the clients I went to meet the managing director and told him that I was leading the audit. After I came back into the audit room I got a call from the senior partner at KPMG who asked me to stop the audit but wait at the company with the team. We were all intrigued as to what was going on. After about 20 minutes the partner rang again and asked me to resume the audit. Later on we learned that as soon as I left the managing Directors room he rang KPMG and told them that he didnt wanted a coloured guy to lead the audit and could they remove me and send someone else. KPMG partners held a meeting and than called the managing director and told him that yes we will withdraw Ehsan from the audit but we will also resign the audit and issue a statement to the stock exchange as to why we had resigned. The managing director backed down and agreed to let me continue with the audit.
That was a small background to my career during the early days and the difficulties we faced as Asians in UK. After qualifying with KPMG I was offered a job by PWC in Iran and I was there for just under 2 years when I had to leave Iran due to Khomeni revolution of 1979. Back in UK I worked for HSBC bank (than known as Midland bank). Never liked the banking sector and in 1982 I was offered a job with the Saudi defence ministry in Riyadh. I spent 9 years working there as financial advisor to the head of the biggest military hospital in Riyadh. I was than head hunted by a very high ranking prince who asked me to come and work for him as his financial advisor and look after all his investments. I was in charge of a portfolio of over $150 million. Spent 9 years there and I would say without hesitation that it was the golden period of my career, I really enjoyed my role there.
Since coming back to UK in 2002 I started my own business with my friend and currently we are the leading supplier of Halal meat products to ASDA.
Hope this gives you all an insight into my career to date.
EB , thanks ever so much for giving us such a detailed insight to your career , surely you have achieved loads and I particularly read with interest the bit about KPMG and the general culture .. cant believe how UK has changed so much over the years ...
Apple blossom and Diamond have asked you some questions in the posts above .. please share with us thoughts on them .. I have a few questions too , will ask them tomorrow Inshalalh
my question ....... is he a CA from Pakistan or UK ?
What are his views about ACCA (UK) now very popular is students of Pakistan ?
btw I studied CA for sometimes and the dropped it so this qualification still captures my interest and attention :)
I am a CA from UK. Read above details of my career. There are three main accountancy qualifications currently in UK, ACA, ACCA and ACMA. Of these three ACCA is very popular with students from overseas, mainly because ACCA does not require you to have articles which is essential for ACA. Of the three qualification ACA carries a lot of weight even though personally I dont think there is much difference between the three.
@ehsan: Hi how are you? i am commerce graduate from karachi, pakistan. I am much confuse which one to choose? MBA, ACCA or ACMA? Kindly update me keep in view that currently i do full time job and wanna be part of bank or a reputable firm in their Finance or Accounts dept. Many Thanks!
whats the real world of accounting like?
and who should study accountancy?
it is tough but quite challenging and something which was always of interest to me. There is a wrong perception amongst many that if you are not good at maths you cant be a good accountant. That is not true. I think maths is just much more than just number crunching.
Who should study accountancy? Anyone interested in the financial world be it accountancy, banking or the city in general ( stock market, merchant banking, fund management etc).
what do you dislike about being an accountant?
I hate the boring routine of being an auditor or just being an accountant. I think accountancy is much more than that and throughout my career I have avoided the routine jobs. For example I would be more interested in setting up an accounting system for a company than entering data in it day in, day out.
I found auditing really boring. I like to do something creative and challenging, not trying to find faults in what others had done. My image of an auditor is "the ones who come and bayonet the wounded after a battle". Apologies to any auditors here.
@ehsan : Hi how are you? i am commerce graduate from karachi, pakistan. I am much confuse which one to choose? MBA, ACCA or ACMA? Kindly update me keep in view that currently i do full time job and wanna be part of bank or a reputable firm in their Finance or Accounts dept. Many Thanks!
Currently I think you would be much better off doing MBA instead of ACCA or ACMA especially as you want to work in the banking sector.
I found auditing really boring. I like to do something creative and challenging, not trying to find faults in what others had done. My image of an auditor is "the ones who come and bayonet the wounded after a battle". Apologies to any auditors here.
I hate the boring routine of being an auditor or just being an accountant. I think accountancy is much more than that and throughout my career I have avoided the routine jobs. For example I would be more interested in setting up an accounting system for a company than entering data in it day in, day out.
I left CA studies due to the above reasons I then did MBA in Finance major :) Thank you for coming and replying to our queries Mr. Ehsan !
thank you so much ehsan bhai for answering my Qs..one more question.
1-how can a prepare him/herslf before before putting step into this career like what are some do's and donts?
2-did you ever think that you made a wrong decision ( in choosing ur career)? when? and what made you think?
3-why u lov ur job?
4-scope of this proffession in coming years lets say 6yrs?
When you say its boring coz its just routine work , isnt that the same case with all other careers as well .. Dont you think its specific to the BIG 4 where you are not able to handle the entire lifecycle of a project and can only become part of the crowd each one only doing their own bit ... Coz I know in smaller firms people feel more empowered and challenged in their roles ... what say?
What determines that you are now ready for your first management role ? Is it that you have a strong track record of achieving targets hence you are ready for progression ? how is progression decided ...how possible is it for people to make moves internally into other departments like Tax or Coporate Finance or Investigations etc ...
What do the managers do ? arent they also sort of lookng at the audit side of things ? or do they start focusing more on the client relationship while the juniors do the actual auditing ?
thank you so much ehsan bhai for answering my Qs..one more question.
1-how can a prepare him/herslf before before putting step into this career like what are some do's and donts?
2-did you ever think that you made a wrong decision ( in choosing ur career)? when? and what made you think?
3-why u lov ur job?
4-scope of this proffession in coming years lets say 6yrs?
I dont think you need anything special to prepare before stepping into this career. You should however have an understanding of the financial world and be attracted towards it. Have a clear vision and try not to focus into routine accounting jobs or you could find them repetitive and boring. Think in broader terms, there is so much you can do with it. Finance is the critical link in a business. Financially badly managed businesses fail very quickly.
I never felt I made the wrong decision. I have loved every moment of it.
Financial world has always attracted me and I love it especially the investment aspect of it.
There will always be demand for accountants, every business needs financial people.
When you say its boring coz its just routine work , isnt that the same case with all other careers as well .. Dont you think its specific to the BIG 4 where you are not able to handle the entire lifecycle of a project and can only become part of the crowd each one only doing their own bit ... Coz I know in smaller firms people feel more empowered and challenged in their roles ... what say?
What determines that you are now ready for your first management role ? Is it that you have a strong track record of achieving targets hence you are ready for progression ? how is progression decided ...how possible is it for people to make moves internally into other departments like Tax or Coporate Finance or Investigations etc ...
What do the managers do ? arent they also sort of lookng at the audit side of things ? or do they start focusing more on the client relationship while the juniors do the actual auditing ?
When I say it is boring I am talking about certain aspects of it like auditing and routine book keeping. The aspects I love are in the fields of investment, forecasting, business turnarounds, etc.
You move into management roles once you prove that yo can handle projects on your own, you have vision, you can complete projects on time and handle and guide staff. Moving into various other sections or departments within the firm like tax or corporate finance depends upon your own interests and where you feel comfortable and in which speciality you want to grow your career. You need to think hard before making move into speciality areas as a wrong move can set your career back by quite sometime.
The managers take charge of the audit from planning to final execution and liaising with the clients. The actual audit is carried out by the team under the manager but he is overall in charge and responsible to oversee that the audit is carried out properly and in timely fashion. he will be responsible to review the audit file once the work has been carried out and guide the team on any shortfalls and also ensure that all legal requirements have been adhered to.
