Learning & Development insights from a prize-winning accountant - Fatima Baig

Fatima is a prize-winning CIMA qualified accountant and experienced Finance professional, currently heading up a Finance Strategy & Development team, with a keen focus on learning & development. Alongside her role she is an advisor for CIMA and AAT Apprenticeship schemes, and a keen advocate for diversity & inclusion. After graduating with distinctions from undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Economics and International Finance, Fatima successfully completed her CIMA exams (achieving some of the highest marks globally), and is now a Trustee on a Pensions fund and a member of the CIMA Women in Leadership forum. She is recognised by CIMA for running one of the best managed and structured Finance Graduate Schemes, and works across government organisations to run an industry-wide finance talent pool.

What are the options for studying towards the CIMA qualification?

You can take CIMA through a traditional route. There are 4 levels of CIMA (certificate, operational, management and strategic), you have to take objective tests followed by a case study at each level.

There are also other ways of completing the qualification, such as the accelerated route. For operational, management and strategic levels, you can enter at case study level. CIMA is the only qualification that offers that (though there is potentially one other qualification coming up). You need to have accounting experience to be able to do this, and have to do an application to get on to the programme. A few organisations have been using this route, including the NHS, Network Rail, Civil service (government finance function), and Train Operating companies.

There is also another new route, the ‘FLP’ - the Finance Leadership Programme, where it is completed through assessments. There is no objective test exam, instead students go straight for case study. It has been running successfully for a few years internationally, but was only introduced to the UK last year.

How international is CIMA?

CIMA is global! It is associated with AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) and has a huge membership (689,000 members in 192 countries). It has representation in India, the US, UK and all over the world.

What opportunities does CIMA open up?

CIMA is a very different qualification to other finance qualifications. Management accountants are more strategic and forward-facing, using insights to help inform decisions. It is different to traditional accounting. CIMA is more geared towards the future, it is about providing insights and business partnering. Traditional accounting is changing, so now there is more of a focus on business partnering.

Digital and technology, what will the future look like for accounting?!

There is a lot of new technology. We are using Chat GPT and AI to create dashboards and create commentary. Technology is changing the way accountants operate, it is less about the regular accounting (posting journals and manual processes), and more about using digital tools that do that for you with the press of a button. The focus is now on the softer side of things and communication.

In the CIMA technical framework, ‘technical’ is just one part. It is also focused on softer skills, leadership skills, managing people. Encompassing all of that is governance and ethics. Technical is just a small part of what accountants do now.

Communication is important. For you, when you moved to the UK from Pakistan, did you find any challenges with language, such as accents?

Definitely! I went to an English-speaking school in Pakistan and have spoken in English my whole life… but I used to still think in Urdu. I would speak Urdu with family/friends, but English when studying. So, when I came to the UK, I spoke quite ‘traditional’ English! I didn’t speak colloquial English, and I really struggled with that and the accents! I hadn’t heard Scottish or Manchester accents before, so I struggled to understand at times when I worked in Manchester. I overcame this through being friendly and open to speaking to people. I would tell people if I didn’t understand what they were saying! Communication is important, including the non-verbal, such as open body language and how you are moving your hands. It is also important to appear approachable.

We agree that communication and language skills are important. What would you say to anyone thinking about learning English for accounting?

I think people need to be open to making mistakes. Sometimes, we can get ‘hung-up’ on wondering if we are saying something correctly or if we’ve used the right words. Stop worrying about that, and just keep practising. Join groups, immerse yourself in the language and put the effort in to improve.

Learning has no age limit, it is never too late to learn English - so keep going!

We really appreciated Fatima’s insights, and will keep using the insights from industry professionals to ensure our Finance English courses are up to date and relevant to industry. Visit our courses to find out more.