Reinventing My Career

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Accountants (ACCA) and MBA


When I see professionals who are in same age bracket as myself but apparently are doing better, I ask myself a question — where I went wrong?

This question haunts me: was not joining the Big 4 accountancy practice the biggest mistake of my career?

The mobility of my friends who are from Big 4 background has been relatively higher. For them, switching from one company to another — or for that matter, switching from one industry to another — has not been a challenge. Similarly, moving between one multinational to another seems to be a piece of cake.

When I compare myself in terms of education and related job skills, despite my belief that I’m on the same level, recruiters seem to think differently. Perhaps everybody likes to play safe, and Big 4 backgrounds are safer bets.

On one hand, I feel that my progress has not been as steep as some of my friends from Big 4 backgrounds. But then I also feel that my commercial acumen has increased. Working in industry — and reporting to managers from non-financial backgrounds — has been to my advantage.

I began to see business through different lenses:

  • Business Development

  • Human Resources

  • Contract Management

  • Internal Controls

  • Business Processes

  • Risk Control

I began looking at financial information as a means to evaluate and analyse the business itself.

But Does This Insight Translate Into Career Success?

Coming from an Accounting & Finance background, it’s difficult to present yourself as anything different from your last job and your qualification.

This is what motivated me to pursue an MBA — which I successfully completed back in 2012.

Although my grades were not something to be proud of, I believe that was really the starting point for me to start looking in a different direction.

While I was doing it, I had the opportunity to apply theoretical models in practical contexts — and often came across the limitations of those same models.

Most importantly, I learned to be skeptical and challenge the very assumptions I usually held as facts or realities.


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