Access Accountancy celebrates 10th anniversary

Access Accountancy has marked its 10th anniversary with a celebration event at London’s Chartered Accountants’ Hall.
 

The event was a chance for signatories, alumni and representatives from across the profession to come together to share the charity’s successes and look to what it will offer in the future.

Delivering a keynote speech, Sharron Gunn, Access Accountancy Chair, illustrated the charity’s achievements to date, including the accomplishment of its initial goal to deliver 3,750 work experience placements to disadvantaged young people by 2019.

She told guests: “When you come from a low socio-economic background, you really just don’t know what is possible, and I think that’s part of the key of having work experience and being able to see what life is like in an office, and what people do.

“Our professional data shows that once a student from a low socio-economic background qualifies, it takes them on average a year longer to progress to mid-level roles and a further year longer to progress to senior roles.”

Sharron explained that Access Accountancy was working hard to take down as barriers that might deter firms from running work experience placements or collecting social mobility data and mentioned some of the different options available.

She said: “To my mind, one of the substantial barriers to entry and progression is that young people just don’t know about the opportunities and breadth of a career in the profession and may have preconceptions about life as an accountant.

“Raising awareness of opportunities within the profession and the opportunity to take up a work placement is key. Being able to give someone the opportunity to work in an accountancy office for a couple of weeks one summer could be life-changing, and as Chair I am determined to ensure young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds have access to these placements.”

Nik Miller, Chief Executive at social mobility consultancy the Bridge Group, said that socio-economic diversity helped companies gain a competitive edge through diverse talent.

He added: “People’s socio-economic backgrounds bring them strengths in the workplace.”

Lore Lippmann supported Access Accountancy in a previous NHS role and has stayed in touch with the initiative. She said that the anniversary event showed that the profession could take tangible action to improve equity of access to the profession.

“Supporting social mobility starts with offering access to work experience. It is a privilege to be able to guide a young person at the start of their career journey,” she explained.

“The students I had the pleasure to meet through Access Accountancy to date have enriched my finance teams during their work experience with their enthusiasm and interest in the profession.”

Çetin Suleyman, a Partner for the accountancy firm Goodman Jones, was invited to the event to find out more about Access Accountancy.

He said: “I’m at the latter end of what I reflect on as a great career, having sort of come into accountancy by accident. In those days, Access Accountancy did not exist, and my initial aspirations were to be a mechanic until a friend of the family suggested accountancy to me.

“I had always been interested in business, and the accountancy qualification gave me an excellent framework to build key skills and attributes such as professionalism, integrity and communication as well as the obvious technical skills. Add to that a strong work ethic, obviously from my dad’s 14-hour plus days, and by 34 I was a partner in a West End firm of Chartered Accountants and a few years later the Managing Partner of that same firm.

“I hope that Access Accountancy can continue to grow from strength to strength and help steer other young people who have a drive to work hard and a passion to succeed along a similar path to mine and open up a world of opportunity for them.”