Three former ICAS gold medallists on their advice to newly qualified CAs
By Behiye Hassan, CA magazine
24 March 2020
This article was written before the coronavirus pandemic had escalated in the UK, Europe and the USA and first appears in the April 2020 issue of CA magazine.
Each year the top CA student is awarded the ICAS gold medal. We talk to three former gold medalists to hear about the impact the qualification has had on their career and their advice for any newly qualified CA.
Lara Brown CA, Finance Director, Spring Chicken
Lara Brown did her ICAS training with KPMG and graduated in 2007. “I worked hard for my exams so getting the gold medal was a nice reward for that hard work – but it was also such a surprise,” she says.
On qualifying, she joined M&S as Commercial Finance Manager in its Home & Beauty team, followed by a range of finance and operational roles. In 2019 she joined the later-life retail company Spring Chicken as its first Finance Director, working part time to make sure she maintains a good work-life balance for her family and young daughters.
What has the CA qualification done for you?
People who do the qualification go on to do a whole range of jobs and that gives you a really good network.
What advice would you give newly qualified members?
Talk to other CAs about the range of roles that they perform. When I qualified, I had no idea what I wanted to do. It was through meeting someone for coffee through a contact and asking her about her role in commercial finance that I realised this was the area I wanted to be in.
What is the best advice you’ve received?
Be proud of your strengths and play to those, rather than always focusing on your weaknesses and trying to improve in those areas.
What was the biggest lesson you learned after qualifying?
Relationships are key. Hard work alone won’t get you where you want to get to. Building genuine relationships at work and focusing on stakeholder management are also important.
Winning the gold medal definitely gave me a boost and made me feel that I could accomplish anything. Katie Close CA
Mariya Semenkovich CA, Principal Auditor, Deutsche Bank
Mariya Semenkovich qualified as a CA in 2012 and graduated in April 2013, becoming the year’s gold medal winner. “When I got the call to tell me I’d won I was sure it was some mistake as there were so many smart people in our year,” she recalls.
She came to love Edinburgh during her student days in the city, staying on to work there for several years before transferring to London to work in internal audit.
What has the CA qualification done for your career?
Recruiters and hiring managers like it. It also gives you confidence. If you’ve passed the tax exam, there is nothing you can’t do.
What advice would you give newly qualified members?
Studying is a lifelong thing, especially now as technology and regulations move so fast.
What’s the best advice you have received?
Don’t ask what your company can do for you, ask what you can do for your company. If that doesn’t get you to CFO level, at least you’ll be happier with your lot. That does not mean having to work past 5pm though…
What was the biggest lesson you learned after qualifying?
Corporate culture differs from place to place. With luck, all of us will find a place that will be a perfect fit – from my experience that’s what makes or breaks the whole thing.
Don’t ask what your company can do for you, ask what you can do for your company. That does not mean having to work past 5pm though… Mariya Semenkovich CA
Katie Close CA, European Tax Manager, Aggreko
Training as a CA is not always the career path for tax professionals. Katie Close’s training firm, however, encouraged tax trainees to study first with ICAS before getting a tax qualification.
Having qualified in 2015, Close was already busy studying for her next professional qualification when she found out she had won the gold medal. “It definitely gave me a boost and made me feel that I could accomplish anything,” she says.
What has your CA qualification done for you?
I moved into the industry only a few months after qualifying and have stayed here since, working mostly in international tax. You really need to understand the business, especially with in-house roles, and being a CA has helped me to gain that insight.
What advice would you give newly qualified members?
Be courteous and respectful to everyone you meet. It’s a small world in accounting and your reputation is important.
What’s the best advice you’ve received?
Try out new jobs or roles and take on new challenges. Taking some risks can be very rewarding in the long run.
What was the biggest lesson you learned once you had qualified?
The most important part of any job is who you work with. I’ve been very fortunate to work in a lot of great teams in my career so far.
This article first appeared in the April 2020 issue of CA magazine.