My mission as President

In her inaugural presidential column, Karen Scholes CA traces her journey with ICAS and sketches out her plans to build on recent successes, from the new syllabus to the push for sustainability

Welcome to my first column as ICAS President. First and foremost I want to say you have my word that I will endeavour to serve ICAS and our members to the very best of my abilities, and I look forward to working with you all.

Before I give you some background on the path that’s taken me to the presidency, along with a brief rundown of what I see as our priorities for the coming year, I would like to pay tribute to our outgoing President, Alison Cornwell CA, who has done a tremendous job during her time in office.

Among her many achievements, one of Alison’s key initiatives was to introduce CA training into industry. Vue International, where she served as CFO, is now a registered training office. That stands as a fine example of the success of her vision.

Hopefully we’ll be able to build on that initiative and encourage more businesses, wherever they are based, to consider training through ICAS. Alison also successfully spread the word on the ICAS strategy through the many events she held with members.

I’d also like to thank the whole of the executive team, who provide enormous support to the President and office bearers and I’m delighted to be working with Deputy President David Cruickshank CA and Vice President Jonny Jacobs CA. Our different areas of expertise, interests and locations make for an interesting mix, one we all hope will help ICAS and our members navigate such a rapidly changing world.

For those who don’t know me, I thought it might be useful to give you some background on my journey, which you can read about in more depth here, and the work of our firm. Scholes CA is headquartered in the Orkney capital, Kirkwall. The firm, formerly known as AJB Scholes, was started by my late father, Alastair, in 1970. From an early age, I knew I wanted to follow in his footsteps. I graduated in 1984 with a BA in accounting, before training with Whitelaw Wells in Edinburgh. I qualified as a CA in 1988 and continued to work in Edinburgh, before returning to work with my dad in Orkney.

“AI will never take the place of accountants. It just can’t have that face-to-face professional relationship with clients, but it can do some of the more mundane work”

Sadly, he died very suddenly in 1993. It was a difficult time, but I immediately turned to ICAS for help, and they didn’t let me down. The vital assistance I got from practice support was really what allowed our firm to continue at that time and then thrive. Indeed, I’d like to give a special mention to Patricia Gallacher CA, Ken McManus, David Menzies CA and Jeremy Clarke CA, to whom I’m particularly grateful for their unwavering support, both past and present.

Given my personal experience with ICAS during my career development, and our firm’s ongoing relationship with the organisation, it was a natural step for me to seek to give something back.

Over the past few years, I’ve chaired its Members in Practice Advisory Board, been Convener of the Authorisation Committee, sat on the Regulation Board and Council and, most recently, become an office bearer. I was sole practitioner at AJB Scholes until it was incorporated in 2008. I’m now a partner/director at Scholes CA. We employ 36 staff across our Kirkwall, Edinburgh and Aberdeen offices, serving a range of clients and sectors – everything from agriculture to renewables. We’ve also responded to a growth in demand for support from the third sector and we now work with several charities and voluntary organisations, recognising the positive impact their work has on close-knit communities such as Orkney.

I’m particularly passionate about supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs and I enjoy nurturing young people in business, including our own; Scholes CA is committed to recruiting and training accounting students and we currently have two from ICAS.

New pathways

So, what do I see as our priorities for the coming year? One of the President’s key functions is to be a voice for ICAS, but it’s equally important that I am a voice for you, the membership. I’ll engage as much as I can, listening to your wishes, hopes, aspirations and concerns to make sure they are heard loud and clear here in CA House.

Through various topics, my year as President will be spent looking to the future of our profession, from inspiring the next generation of young business talent to considering the prospects for our small-to-medium firms. I’ll pick up where Alison left off and champion the value of the CA qualification and a career in chartered accountancy to the next generation.

I’ll help to promote new pathways to the profession and continue support for the ICAS Foundation to drive greater access for talented individuals from every walk of life. I want to make sure ICAS develops a thorough understanding of AI and how it may affect our work, for better or worse. AI will never take the place of accountants. It just can’t have that face-to-face professional relationship with clients, but it can do some of the more mundane work. By ensuring we’re up to speed on AI ourselves, we can better serve our members, and reassure those who may fear what it means for their jobs.

I’ll look to lead conversations on the vital technical and ethical role our profession will play in the fight against climate change, and how CAs in every organisation, from the biggest businesses to the smallest local practices, all have a role to play in building and supporting the sustainable economies of tomorrow.

We also need to continue to build on the ICAS strategy, looking at how it can be fine-tuned for the future. As everyone knows, once a strategy is written, it’s out of date – we can’t just sit back and say we’ve got one, as excellent as it is. It needs to be organic and flexible.

Over the coming months I will use this column to highlight specific talking points, be it the number of recent mergers and the rise of private equity, how forthcoming additions to the ICAS syllabus will benefit practice and the work ICAS is doing on AI. I will do this in collaboration with the many specialists on the ICAS team.

To conclude, I have no doubt I’m facing a dynamic and stimulating year as President and I can’t wait to get my teeth into the role.

Find out more about volunteering for ICAS

linkedin.com/in/karen-scholes