Gillian Sadlier doesn’t have any qualms when it comes to preaching the accountancy gospel, and encouraging young people to seriously consider accountancy as a career.
In fact, she’s put the recruitment and retention of young accountants right at the top of the agenda for her spell as Chair of Chartered Accountants Ireland’s Ulster Society.
A senior manager at Bank of Ireland, she succeeded Paul Millar, Chief Executive of Whiterock Finance, as Chair earlier this summer.
“I always tell people that I work for a bank but that I’m a chartered accountant. I’m proud of that,” she says.
Like a lot of others, though, she admits that the ‘fell into’ accountancy. “I studied economics at Queen’s and when the annual accountancy milk round took place, I applied, joined what was then Coopers & Lybrand, trained there for three and half years and the rest is history,” she says.
Post-qualification, Gillian made the move to ASM Chartered Accountants (now Sumer Northern Ireland), a new firm set up in the mid-1990s by a trio of former Coopers & Lybrand accountants.
“I moved into a corporate finance role and I suppose it moulded the rest of my career,” adds Gillian. “It gave me the chance to get under the bonnet of businesses. It was pressurised, it was always time critical but I really enjoyed it for the nine years I was with ASM.”
That corporate finance experience landed her a new role with Invest Northern Ireland, where she helped advise both indigenous and inward investment businesses, amongst them First Derivative, Allstate and Herbert Smith.
“In 2012, I moved back into business, this time with Bank of Ireland, initially working for a few years with bank customers with challenged debt, to use a banking term. “At its core, what that meant was looking at the underlying viability of businesses, and how they could get back on track.”
Since then, Gillian has moved across to what she calls the growth side of the bank. “It meant that I found myself lending money for the first time,” she smiles. From there, she has since progressed to a senior post in the UK CEO’s Office at the Bank, based in Belfast but regularly visiting Bank of Ireland UK’s offices in London and Bristol as well as its Dublin headquarters.
“It’s the first role I’ve had where I don’t need to have a calculator at my right hand all the time,” she says.
When it comes to Chartered Accountants Ireland, still often referred to as ‘the Institute’ by its members, she dipped in and out of events in her earlier years but gradually found herself more and more involved.
Back in 2014 and 2015, when Patrick Gallen was Chair, he asked me to get more involved and the time was right for me. I joined the Chartered Accountants In Business (CAB) Committee, became its convenor, and then joined the main committee and officer group as Treasurer in 2019.
Chartered Accountants Ireland, in the North, has an approximate 50:50 split between members working in accountancy practices and those working in business and industry. Aside from its role in providing accountancy education and as a pro-business voice, it’s also well known for its busy calendar of events, ranging from an annual dinner to a famous Christmas charity lunch and many others in between.
Chartered Accountants Ireland recently announced a merger with CPA Ireland, the other main accountancy body on the island, creating the largest professional body in the country.
The organisation is also a strong advocate for business and produces regular surveys on key business and economic topics. The most recent, in late May of this year, produced a positive view on Northern Ireland’s dual market access, but a less positive view on the local economy as a whole.
“Our surveys always get a good response from members, so they’re reflective of what a lot of business leaders here are actually thinking.”
Last year, the Society returned to taking its annual conference overseas for the first time since the Covid pandemic, with members making the trip to Lisbon. This year, to mark 25 years of overseas events, the Society ventured to Chicago.
“Whilst Covid wasn’t easy for any of us, it did help us to change how we did some things. Webinars, bringing in our membership from well outside of Belfast, have become an important part of what we do these days,” says Gillian.
When it comes to attracting more school leavers and young talent into the profession, she says that misapprehensions are part of the problem. “There’s the old bean counter image of accountants that really couldn’t be further from the truth,” she says. “Then there’s the belief that you have to be really good at maths to be an accountant.
“It’s hard work, for sure, especially when you’re working towards qualifications. But it’s very rewarding and it opens up all sorts of possible career routes. Look at how many of our top companies have chartered accountants at the helm.
“We’re keen to encourage more schools here in Northern Ireland to encourage their students to consider accountancy as a career route. There is no easy fix, but we’re in this for the long haul. We’ve always worked hard to promote the profession.”