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Employers, Students Thrive as Top CA Students
Drawn to Non-External Audit Training Environments
As more organizations in industry, as well as in government offices, qualify as accredited
CA Training Offices with the ability to offer significant training opportunities
in diverse fields, they have benefitted immensely by attracting top quality students.
This includes talented individuals whose academic achievements have placed them
on the UFE Honour Roll.
Each year, the UFE Honour Roll celebrates the top 50 students across Canada who
have achieved the best standing out of nearly 4,000 writers. Some of these talented
Honour Roll students are employed by training offices outside of external audit. As
indicated by the testimonies below, students believe they are on the right career path
– and that they have been propelled in that direction, which speaks volumes for the
success of the program.
Kelly Schmitt, the Treasurer and Director
of Investor Relations for SMART Technologies
Inc., a Calgary-based maker of
interactive displays, provides an excellent
illustration of how accomplished
candidates are attracted outside of
external audit in the CA Training Office
program.
The 2011 UFE Honour Roll student is
in the process of completing the final
stages of her training in a finance rotation
competency.
“I’ve done all of my training here at
SMART. I joined the company more
than four years ago, even before I knew
I would be working towards the CA
designation. I’d already been out of
school for quite some time, and had also
earned my CFA designation. Shortly
after I joined SMART I heard that you
could now do your CA training in industry.
Once I learned that, I initiated the
application process here to get SMART
qualified to be a CA training office,
which we succeeded in doing in 2009,”
she explains.
As Treasurer, Schmitt says she has
been able to participate in a number
of different projects to satisfy the CA
Training Office program requirements,
including being put in charge of researching
whether strategic changes in
the business warranted a change in the
organization’s functional currency from
06
the Canadian to the U.S. dollar; and participating
in a lengthy project aimed to
take SMART Technologies public.
“I was very fortunate. SMART being a
CA training office allowed me to stay in
my current career and get the designation.
The reason I did the CA designation
is because I truly believed it would
open up more doors. While the CFA
would have sufficed in my current role,
if I want to move up and become a
CFO, the CA designation is really valued
throughout the business world,” says
Schmitt.
“I worked at a Big Four accounting firm
in the summer after my third year of
university in the late ‘90s. Although I
had always thought really highly of and
wanted the CA designation, audit just
wasn’t interesting to me. I couldn’t see
myself taking that career path,” explains
Schmitt.
“But as soon as I heard they had opened
up new training paths, I thought ‘that’s
great,’ because the reality is that all
CAs can’t stay at CA firms. They end up
coming out working in businesses, and
it’s a different type of work.”
Michael Murney, a consultant with
Deloitte & Touche in Toronto, and 2011
UFE Honour Roll student, is in the midst
of obtaining the practical experience
required to qualify as a CA. The uni-
versity graduate, who has a business
administration degree and also studied
computer science, expects to earn his
CA designation in 2013.
Murney is completing his training without
requiring a rotation through Deloitte’s
external audit practice.
“I’m with the Information and Technology
Risk Services group, which is part
of Deloitte’s Enterprise Risk Services
practice. I chose this group because it
allows me to combine my knowledge
in information technology with my accounting
and business acumen to work
on challenging projects. At the same
time this gives me the opportunity to
earn my CA through an assurance competency,”
he explains.
“I’m doing some interesting things
right now in software asset management,
helping clients manage licenses
throughout their network based on
what they’re entitled to under the terms
of their purchase agreement from somebody
like a Microsoft, or IBM,” notes
Murney.
Murney enjoys having the opportunity
to work with client firms’ most senior
financial people and assist with tasks
such as providing assurance services to
certify that proper controls over financial
reporting, compliant with regulations,
are in place.
Another aspect of Murney’s training that
he finds particularly fulfilling is being
able to provide value added services
such as recommendations to business
clients that will assist them not only in
terms of dealing with an accounting issue,
but also to make business decisions
that will help them prosper.
Daphne Huang, who earned her CA designation
in 2011 after placing on the
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