Career Coaching & Guidance
Keeping it fresh
If you’re a senior manager with aspirations to lead a company, you’d do well to look beyond the bounds of your…
Career advice
Practical guides for a Hong Kong career
Curated writing from operators, recruiters, and HR leaders — written for people building real careers in HK.
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Career Coaching & Guidance
Talk up your salary
Jobseekers with Cantonese, English and Mandarin language skills are at a distinct advantage in the growing Hong Kong economy.
Advice Columnist
Forward-looking analysis
Hong Kong CPAs with financial controller experience can expect to be in demand. Chris Choi, an Institute member, is part of an emerging “flying squad” of financial controllers who parachute into new or distressed companies at the request of private equity firms, risk consultancies and others in need of sound advice.
Advice Columnist
Pathways to prosperity
Former and current financial controllers – as well as those who train and hire them – say a number of factors have made the position a more vital one. They include: • Regulation: The financial controller began to assume greater importance a decade ago, according to research by EY, with the imposition of post-Enron legislation designed to promote transparency. • Globalization: The desire for access to Hong Kong and China by multinational corporations has created more financial controller roles at the regional and group senior levels.
Advice Columnist
Must-have skills for digital media career
Few would have ever known that Friends Reunited was actually the first social networking site to achieve prominence. It was in fact three years old by the time Friendster appeared and took another two years before Facebook came into the scene. Most social networking sites share a common goal of connecting or reconnecting people through the Internet. At some point in their history, each has built a credible following of members. It is this member base that has attracted the attention of businesses wishing to identify, connect, engage and hopefully sell products and services to.
Career Coaching & Guidance
Lead and inspire
Charismatic executives are not just born, they are made. If you have recently been promoted and are now leading a team, you have the chance to transform yourself from a competent manager into a true leader. But it’s all too easy for leaders to slip unconsciously into poor behaviour without realising it.
Advice Columnist
New Start-up – Ready for the Challenge ?
Many mountain climbers visiting high altitudes for the first time would be eager to know more about their Acute Mountain Sickness (AMS) susceptibility in advance. Although various tests like VO2 Max, SO2 at simulated altitude are derived, the correlations are weak and are not good predictors for AMS vulnerability.
Career Coaching & Guidance
Don’t be dinosaurs
Recently I spoke with the regional head of a large tech sector company. He had a dilemma: to tweet or not to tweet? Without a social media presence he might be seen as a dinosaur, yet he worried about the time and skills needed. So he hired a professional marketer, who now tweets for him daily.
Career Coaching & Guidance
Learn from failure
Knowing why you weren’t chosen is vital for future interviews, writes Nick Wheatley.
Advice Columnist
Special skills
Meanwhile, the growing popularity of forensic accounting is ascribed to the development of anti-fraud and anti-bribery legislation around the world, imposing more responsibilities on business owners. Few CPAs in Hong Kong are specialized in this area, but many Institute members believe that the demand for forensic accountants is stronger than ever. “This industry is really going,” says Alick Fong, manager of corporate recovery and forensic services at Mazars and an Institute member.
Advice Columnist
Changing rules, changing roles
Another example of a CPA who has benefited from specializing is Brenda Tung at RSM Nelson Wheeler and an Institute member, who found the right specialism for her during a three-month secondment to the firm’s risk advisory services department. “Now I have great satisfaction in being able to convince clients to accept our recommendations to enhance their internal control procedures,” says Tung, who joined from the firm’s technical department in 2010. Such procedures, she adds, help client companies satisfy listing requirements in Hong Kong.
Career Coaching & Guidance
Perils of the panel
Take a deep breath, collect your thoughts and stay clam, writes Marc Burrage.