Colleen Welsh CA is an accountant with North Ayrshire Council, which covers one of Scotland’s most economically deprived areas. Stuart Brown CA is a senior manager at Deloitte, who specialises in auditing investment management firms.

Although their job titles are very different, they have much more in common than the two letters after their names.

As students, they both shared an aptitude for mathematics and had both decided at a fairly young age that they wanted to be chartered accountants – seeing it as a reputable profession.

“Ethical issues can be a wee bit complex. They’re not always black and white”

Colleen Welsh CA

They also demonstrated a high level of personal integrity. Colleen was the first person to intervene if she saw somebody being picked on or bullied at school, while Stuart credits his parents for an upbringing that taught him right from wrong and to act consistently.

As trainee CAs, they developed a greater understanding of what it means to be an ethical leader.

“I joined Deloitte as a trainee in 2017,” says Stuart. “Ever since then, I’ve come to understand ethical leadership more clearly. It comes from the people above you setting the tone through everyday actions. And that means leading the way, acting with integrity, taking care of others, and creating an inclusive and collaborative environment where people can speak up when something doesn’t feel right.

“Then there’s our external responsibilities. I hope that my work at Deloitte reflects the trust placed in us by clients, regulators, professional bodies and the wider public.”

Colleen trained at Dains Scotland (formerly Consilium) and says: “Its partner group had the most upstanding set of people and I will always speak highly of them. They never got annoyed with me constantly asking questions and seeing how they handled different situations. They instilled in me how I should act as a CA.”

She also loved studying professional ethics. “I really enjoyed the ethics days at ICAS when you got to argue or debate on a particular issue. You know, ethical issues can be a wee bit complex. They’re not always black and white. And that further fuelled my passion for it.”

And they both say that taking the Ethics Oath at their Admissions Ceremony was a moment when what they had been learning both as a student and a trainee became something more profound.

“It may sound clichéd, but for me, it wasn’t just saying the words, I actually meant it with all my heart,” says Colleen.

“Taking the oath demonstrated that ICAS took ethics seriously, and it wasn’t just an exam you needed to pass to get your qualification. If you’ve got that designation, you are representing ICAS, and if you mess up, then you are bringing the whole profession into disrepute. That doesn’t just impact you; that impacts all of us.”

When the opportunity arose in 2024 to provide maternity cover as Subject Manager of Professional Ethics and Integrated Case Study at ICAS, Colleen wasted no time in applying.

“It meant a lot on a personal level to teach the next generation because there was a wee bit of imposter syndrome for me. I never thought that I would become a CA. I didn’t think I’d fit in, but I’ve seen how much has changed at ICAS around social mobility and how inclusive it is.

“I worked really closely with Joanne Miller [ICAS Director of Student Programmes and Learning Experience]. It was a privilege to work with and learn from somebody who, in my opinion, is one of the best in the business.

“Time pressure, targets and competing priorities can mean the right choice isn’t always the easy choice”

Stuart Brown CA

“And I loved being in a classroom and showing them how important ethics are, and to maybe light a fire in someone’s belly.”

Colleen adds, “Although we do tend to use famous scandals [like Enron] when teaching about ethical failings in the profession, actually you’re more likely to come up against things which don’t feel right, rather than a major accounting issue.”

Indeed, when ICAS published a survey on ethical leadership as part of the Shaping the Profession programme in 2024, one of the questions was ‘Which of the following challenges have you experienced in your career?’ The top answer was conflicts of interest on 45%, with workforce/employee issues second on 37%, and pressure to provide or accept misleading or false information next on 36%.

“As a CA, you’ll face time pressures, targets and competing priorities, which can mean the right choice isn’t always the easy choice. But I think it’s really important to stress that acting with integrity isn’t optional,” says Stuart.

And any survey carried out today is likely to have use of AI and technology featuring much higher (it stood at just 8% in 2024).

“Technology is brilliant now in terms of productivity tools and doing some of the project management that might have been time-consuming. You’re always going to need people there with a strong moral compass to look at the results that the technology is throwing out and ask themselves: ‘Are we comfortable with that? Can we stand by that? Can we explain that to an audited entity if we were challenged on it?’”

Ensuring those questions are being asked comes from creating the right environment, “where questions are encouraged and not seen as a sign of weakness or a perceived lack of knowledge, and that only comes from building a no-blame culture,” says Stuart.

“You learn from what you see. So, I try to draw on my experience, particularly in difficult scenarios, to help team members and to reassure them when something does go wrong that, more likely than not, the problem’s been faced before. Having the courage to put your hand up and ask for help comes from having that inclusive work culture and a comfortable environment.”

Stuart continues: “The environment in which we operate is probably just as important as the actual audit work itself and the substantive testing that those from the outside typically associate with audit. If you don’t have that right environment, then you’re not going to produce an audit to the highest-quality standards.”

There is one other thing that Colleen and Stuart have in common. This year, they were both named in the Top 35 CA Rising Stars in the Ethical Leader category.

For Colleen, it came seven years after she was the winner in what was the Trust category back in 2019 when she was working for Johnston Carmichael. Since then, she has become a mother and had several other jobs, but her passion for professional ethics remains the same.

“The one difference that I’ve noticed is that I now don’t answer to one client or three clients. I answer to the whole of North Ayrshire.

“I’ve lived here my whole life. North Ayrshire has quite high levels of poverty, and I’ve seen that growing up. So being part of the council, not only are we subject to much more intense scrutiny than anything I’ve ever dealt with in public practice or working in industry, but I also genuinely care about the people here, what happens to the money, and whether people’s needs are being met – which is very hard when you have a set amount of funds. You rarely read a story these days that says something positive about the government or a local authority. So, that makes it more important that we are not only doing the right thing, but also saying it.”

So, what advice does Colleen have for students and young CAs starting out on their career journey?

“Honesty and transparency [subject to respecting confidentiality], even if that means admitting that you’re wrong. I get that it can be really scary to say, ‘I’ve made a mess of this report; I’ve put the wrong figure somewhere.’ But actually, the implications of allowing something inaccurate to go out are much more serious than the implications of saying, ‘Look, I’ve made a mistake.’”

Book now for ICAS’ Ethics under pressure: Why professional judgement is a state of mind