The Accountant at Your Service

　　Ruth Anderson is a tax expert for a firm of accountants, specializing in advising property developers and investors involved in property transactions. She’s now a partner, but first joined them as a graduate trainee, having taken a degree in French and Spanish at university. “I couldn’t decide what to do. I was seriously tempted to become an interpreter but did have this worry that when a machine could interpret I’d be out of a job. Then I thought, what do not know about? I knew nothing about business, and accountancy was a means to finding out and being paid at the same time. I didn’t intend to stay, but to my surprise, I enjoyed myself a lot.” So, interestingly, Ruth is not a typical accountant number cruncher. “I’m numerate but I’ve only got a maths qualification I took at school.”

　　She continues: “The main thing for me in accounting has always been the client contact. Accountancy has this dull image but it’s not working with numbers all the time, it’s a people-driven business. This is important when it comes to choosing potentially good accountants. I interview some very nervous applicants but I try hard to listen. I want them to calm down, so we can learn more about them. Someone who doesn’t like people won’t make a good account - they need to be good communicators.”

　　On management generally, she says: “I know how I ought to behave but sometimes I don’t make the time to “walk the talk”. I’ve been ticked off for not praising my staff enough. I say, “but you must have realized that I thought that was well done”, but they say, “No, we want you to say it.” The time pressures have got tougher, like the speed of requests for information. One can just forget to say thank you. I do think it’s important to show you really appreciate someone’s work when they’ve busted a gut. I sometimes produce chocolates on a Friday for my team.”

　　So how does she view the business world? “It’s changing in many ways. Things are moving fast, the world is more litigious. The temptation is to play it safe and get nobody into trouble. But we all need to be bolder than that. We need to encourage our people to innovate. Don’t blame the person who was innovative if things don’t work out. At least he tried.”

　　Does she worry about the prospect of redundancy in an increasingly volatile job market? She says: “job-hunting in middle age is obviously worrying, especially if you have a family. But at least at forty to fifty you have a lot of experience to bring to marketing, management or finance. If it happened to me, I’d sit down and say, “What skills have I got? Where can they be used, and what do I enjoy?”

　　Last year, Ruth spent four weeks on an advanced management program. There were people from every conceivable background and many were in very senior positions. She says, “It was very interesting. I learnt from their problems, how they manage, how they motivate, how they keep their staff trained.” She has done her own bit of serious management. Fifteen years ago she was asked to set up a new branch for her firm, and during the next eight years, with a lot of marketing, recruitment and staff counseling on her part as a senior manager, numbers grew to about 150. Eventually, she returned to the London office and one gets the impression that the stint organizing others was not absolute heaven. She admits: “I was definitely glad to get back to client service again.”