Starting early: Chartered Accountants share their stories on the way to career success.

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Each person entering the profession of Chartered Accountant has their own unique story to tell. Here are some of the insights from members at the top of their game.

School start

Dion Shango’s journey to becoming a chartered accountant started at school, and he recalls the influence of a career guidance teacher who advised him that the accounting field would suit his talents. “That appealed to me. I then enrolled in university to study accounting at the University of Pretoria,” he says. Since his traineeship, Dion’s career has progressed and he is now a regional senior partner for PwC’s South market area.

Influential accountants

It was a similar story for Thuto Masasa. Now working at Nkonki Incorporated, a South African accounting firm, she remembers her time as a student when she worked on a project about companies that were listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. “I got to learn a number of CEOs of JEC listed companies were actually CAs,” she recalls.

Real-world skills

Now CFO of UNESCO, Nutan Wozencroft took a diverse path into the profession. She started her Chartered Accountancy training having previously studied for a degree in development. “I chose Chartered Accountancy because it was a way of getting real skills in the real world,” she says.

Since then she has worked in all aspects of accounting, and she describes it as a “great business background” because of how it affords the opportunity to look how different types of organisations operate.

Learning from challenges

Thuto Masasa points out that Chartered Accountants will face challenges during their working lives. “The one that really sticks out for me is getting new clients in your portfolio,” she says. This taught her the critical lesson that good personal relationships play an important role in developing a business.