In the UK, Lyla Copeland, ACMA, CGMA, took a nontraditional path to launch her career in finance, bypassing the typical university route — and ended up working on pricing strategy for AI products at one of the world’s largest data and information companies.
In Nigeria, Lawrence Amadi, ACMA, CGMA, took a childhood interest in computers and turned it into a job as partner and head of tech assurance at KPMG.
In South Africa, Thandeka Buthelezi, ACMA, CGMA, took an unexpected turn in her finance career, landing a role in human resources consulting at one of her country’s largest telecom providers.
And in Sri Lanka, Dhashma Karunaratne, FCMA, CGMA, has helped drive inclusivity through automation at the Port of Colombo, with a focus on creating new roles for women, not only in leadership but also in new areas such as operating automated cranes from an office setting.
Each one has developed a specialised niche, combining a core of finance competencies with advanced tech skills and knowledge of other business areas.
But how did these finance innovators build their unusual skillsets? How did they predict the skills they would need for fast-evolving roles in technology, or specialties like logistics and HR?
Those questions were the focus of a series of interviews conducted by FM. The answers revealed tactics and strategies that could help finance professionals unlock new career paths. They also revealed one common theme: the resilient skillset.
4 actions for skillset development
People with resilient skillsets can cross between sectors and roles, learning and adapting to industry shifts, advances in technology, and unforeseen changes or opportunities in their career path. For all their variety, these career paths often share four key actions.
Find a spark of interest
In many cases, a distinctive career path begins with a spark of interest. For Amadi, that spark was the personal computer shared with his six siblings in Lagos, Nigeria.
“Every time I played games online, I got more fascinated about technology,” he said. “You want to understand the science behind what’s going on.”
He acted on that curiosity, making technology a focus as he completed his studies and began his career at KPMG.
“I hadn’t done any major programming. I hadn’t done any coding. But I knew this was going to be comfortable,” he said. “I told them I was a self-starter.”
Similarly, by following her interests, Copeland also learned about the unpredictable ways that a finance career can blossom. “I have to admit, I’m not one of those ‘grand plan’ people,” she laughed. “There was only a natural interest, and that natural interest was in understanding [business] drivers, helping decisions.”
That focus led her from a job as a management accountant at a watch company, to a role in Australia as a commercial manager at Coca-Cola, and eventually to her position at Thomson Reuters in London setting strategies for the pricing of legal technology, with a focus on emerging generative AI products.
Adapt to the unexpected
Career paths aren’t straight lines. You’ll have to adapt your ambitions to new settings.
Take the example of Buthelezi. She was fascinated by manufacturing during her childhood in rural South Africa. She wondered how the peaches grown in local orchards were transformed into chutney and other food products.
But as she launched her career almost a decade ago, Buthelezi found an opportunity in telecommunications. Instead of rebuffing the job as an imperfect fit for her interest in manufacturing, she thought about how it would fit into her own framework.
“I had no idea this is where I’d end up,” she said.
In a recent role in HR, Buthelezi collated and analysed data on how each department was fulfilling various personnel goals. But she looked at the work through the lens of her original interest in manufacturing.
“What you input is your human capital. What you output is customer satisfaction,” she said. “For me, that’s the base of my understanding.”
That adaptable attitude has ensured her work feels relevant to her own interests, and it has helped her to maintain a focus on the future, too. “It’s not always going to be a straight road,” Buthelezi said. “You have to be able to adapt and adjust, while also knowing what the goal is.”
In Sri Lanka, Karunaratne has followed a similar mantra of adaptability. Her parents expected her to grow up to be a doctor. Instead, she is the only woman in the C-suite at the Port of Colombo, serving as the chief commercial officer.
“I chartered on a different journey for my own self,” she said. “I always wanted to broaden my skillset. At an early age, I realised that managing people is the most integral thing in managing performance.”
She’s also proud to note that she became a mother along the way. While leading teams of hundreds, she also turned to her own family, at home and church, for support and happiness.
“My life journey and career journey always intertwined,” she said.
Pick relevant tech skills
Having a tech-heavy skillset is always helpful, but professionals have limited time and resources to learn new skills. That’s why it’s crucial to tie skills development back to your own aims and to the company’s immediate needs.
“You’ve got to think about what’s the end goal? What do I want to do?” Amadi advised.
Instead of, say, learning to code because it’s popular, ensure you have a specific goal, such as advancing data analytics skills in order to strengthen your decision-making, he said.
Some of the most useful technology skills will be those related to analytics, including platforms like Power BI and Alteryx, according to Copeland. Often, she said, “you can’t rely on anyone else to do your analytics, and you’ve got to have analytics”.
Though Copeland learned to build complex financial models in Excel during her time at the watch company, she expanded beyond that as her career developed.
“I worked with the data science team,” she said of her time at Coca-Cola. That meant learning about a whole set of analysis techniques that went beyond her capacities in Excel. She knew she didn’t need to master every skill she encountered. What was crucial was seeing other specialists at work and understanding what was possible with advanced data analysis.
“That was what really pushed me to say, ‘I want to find information that is actually going to drive decisions, drive real outcomes,'” she said.
Go beyond technology
Tech skills aren’t the only way to ensure a resilient career. Those interviewed for this article also emphasised the need for more human-centric skills like relationship building and strategic thinking, as well as deep expertise in finance itself.
Today, as partner and head of tech assurance, Amadi combines IT audit responsibilities, IT deal services, and relationship building with CFOs. His broad finance background has allowed him to add a layer of insight and strategy, he said, that is sometimes missed by pure tech specialists.
“When you put together [experience with] operations, reporting, HR, you can make a better sense of the organisation’s direction,” he said.
Karunaratne said that she has kept one eye on the challenges directly ahead — and the other on the horizon.
Setting a resilient career path is about “insight and intuition, what’s trending, what do I foresee, as well as the need of the hour”, she said, and “what would help me to do my job better and position myself as a business partner for the organisation”.
Andrew Kenney is a freelance writer based in the US. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Oliver Rowe at Oliver.Rowe@aicpa-cima.com.
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AICPA & CIMA MEMBER RESOURCES
Article
“Want to Change Sector? Here’s What to Consider“, FM magazine, 21 November 2023
Podcast episode
“Struggling Actor to CPA Firm Owner: One Leader’s Unlikely Path“, Journal of Accountancy, 19 January 2023
