By Sidhesh Menon, Master of Science in Accounting (Data & Analytics) (MSA), 2018 August Intake
The world is transforming very rapidly with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and social media. For a man who has witnessed it first hand and managed to accomplish so much in this challenging environment, Mr. Nicholas Chong, Group CFO and Managing Partner of Kuaishou, is extremely humble. As the guest speaker of the Accounting Masters Industry Talk held in October, he took us through his career journey, helped us better understand changes and how to effectively deal with it.
1. Never stop learning
It is very difficult for any business to survive unless it accepts the change and strives hard to adapt to the change. The same holds true for employees. In finance, you need to learn new skills throughout your career. People are facing career challenges at an earlier stage of their life than they expected. For example, auditors now use sampling in auditing, but with A.I., they can audit the entire population in future. The possibilities are simply too many.
2. Walk the talk
A finance professional has many roles. To have deep knowledge of each role, it is important to rotate to different functions and gain hands-on experience of all of them. What guided him in achieving success, were his career development principles. It is important to treat people the right way, set high performance standards for oneself and constantly seek out more responsibilities but always delivering on commitments.
3. Treat people right
People development is everyone’s responsibility. Take the time to invest in others. Besides building relationship with other people, you are also building your own reputation and creating opportunities for yourself.
4. Do your best
You must constantly try your best, nothing but the best, and you will surely find success in life. The ability to foresee the next big change and prepare for it would help you stand out.
I felt inspired by Mr Chong’s journey and how he managed to stand by his principles, even in the toughest of times. The key takeaway for me is to have one eye towards the future and the other focused on doing my tasks exceedingly well today. To succeed in my current and future roles, I must always keep this in mind – not be afraid of failures, to overcome inhibitions, to learn new things, and to adapt to changes.
My MSA Journey
I have always been passionate about accounting and finance and my undergraduate studies was my stepping-stone to understanding the business world. When I was pursuing the Indian Chartered Accountancy Programme, the course required me to intern with a local prestigious firm, where I was dealing with data analysis. I realised the importance of organisational data when I was scrutinising the areas where the company could perfect its performance. I grew eager to know how data evaluation and reporting of abundant financial data would evolve with globalisation. Mastering such techniques seemed like the need of the hour. Hence, I applied to study MSc in Accounting (Data & Analytics) at SMU.
The programme is helping me and my peers learn how to make sense of the data for business decision making. Being the first ever batch of SMU’s MSA students, we are excited about the prospects, the possibilities, and the challenges that come with the programme. As part of the programme, we are currently learning to use three new software – Tableau, R and Python. It is challenging for me as I have no prior coding knowledge. Despite the steep learning curve, it does not deter me from doing my best. Thankfully, with the help of my supportive professors and friends, I enjoy the learning process.
The SOA Accounting Masters Industrial Talk Series is brought to our students by Master of Professional Accounting and Master of Science in Accounting (Data & Analytics). The main objective of the series is to enable students to better visualise what they have learned in classroom in the real world.
