My year as ICAS President

Clive Bellingham CA looks back on a period of extraordinary evolution that will leave the profession facing the future with confidence

This is my final column as ICAS President and, in time-honoured tradition, it is an opportunity to reflect on the past 11 months.

We are a member-led organisation and to have had the opportunity to engage with members and students, nationwide and worldwide, has been a thoroughly rewarding experience. I have set out clearly what we as an institute are trying to achieve, and I’ve heard their thoughts in return.

Depending on the circumstances, a year in the life of an ICAS President can be about simply being a steady hand on the tiller. During my tenure, however, we’ve seen the rollout of our new strategy, something that has been especially close to me as I led the governance of this project from its inception.

It is a strategy that will ensure ICAS, by adapting to a rapidly changing world, will continue to thrive. We are responding to the needs of the market, and we’re doing so in a way that is far more flexible for students and employers. We are also broadening the scope of firms that can become authorised training offices for those students. It means we’re in good shape as a professional body, regulator, educator, awarding body and employer.

Ringing the changes

It would have been easy to exist in a bubble and ignore the potential problems on the horizon. But accountancy faces a challenge in attracting the next generation of CAs. Part of my role has been to explain to members and students the rationale behind the changes.

Being able to visit schools, colleges and universities allows me to spread the gospel, so to speak, of our profession. And, crucially, you get to hear first-hand what young adults think about a career in accounting. My father still calls me a “beancounter”, but the CA qualification is a passport for business – and CAs are business people. They are CEOs, CFOs, business owners, entrepreneurs. This is the case I make to those young people.

“Everybody is a winner at the admission ceremony and it creates a special and unique atmosphere”

If you don’t personally know a CA then there’s a good chance you will look elsewhere, especially if you come from a disadvantaged background. It is vitally important we bridge those gaps through initiatives such as the ICAS Foundation.

While some students will doubtless be considering degrees in areas that may be threatened by technology, our profession is different. The growing importance of sustainability reporting should see the demand for accountancy services flourish, even as some of our more time-consuming functions become automated.

We need to move away from a model of simply educating people to pass exams and get qualifications. We need to ask where the market demand is. Which skillsets will be needed in the next five years? How do we help our cohorts gain those positions?

I’m a huge believer in storytelling. Hopefully being able to talk about my experiences, from growing up in Kinghorn to working in Saudi Arabia and then Switzerland, helps them realise the CA qualification provides a platform for them to fulfil their ambitions. I firmly believe that accounting is the only truly global language because debits and credits are the same wherever you go. That is why this magazine is filled with stories from ICAS members who work across so many sectors and in so many territories.

Pressing the flesh

We have held a lot more events this year. Networking is such an important component of a career as a CA. I look back fondly on one of my first speeches as President, made before an audience of CAs spanning generations at the Sky Garden in the heart of London. Now I’m looking forward to the admission ceremony on 13 April.

Last year, I stood in for my predecessor, Indy Singh Hothi CA, as his wife was giving birth. So I get to do this twice. Half the audience are students delighted that they’re being admitted to ICAS after years of hard work; the other half are parents who are even more delighted that their offspring are becoming CAs, and by the culmination of what can be a stressful process. Everybody is a winner on that day and it creates a special and unique atmosphere.

Organisations need a stream of new talent at entry level, but they can also run into trouble when there isn’t a clear succession plan at the top. The pathway to becoming ICAS President includes two years as Vice and Deputy President. The three office bearers work very much as a triumvirate. That structure provides continuity, alignment and understanding throughout, not just in those 12 months as President.

There are a lot of people behind the scenes who ensure that ICAS is a very professionally run organisation. There is, however, one person I would like to single out – Alison Messer, the Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive and Office Bearers. She not only organises the diary, ensuring that I stay on track, but she has also been incredibly supportive.

And finally, whenever you come into a position, your ambition should always be to leave it in even better shape than you found it. I very much hope that is the case for my successor. And that it will in turn be the case for their successor too.

Learn more about the new ICAS 2030 strategy


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