By Ruvini Jayasinghe
Zahara Ansary ACMA, CGMA is the ultimate brand ambassador for her Institution. Intensely passionate about her profession, the vivacious and articulate Country Manager of Sri Lanka for The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), is a true endorsement of building corporate leadership through CIMA. The Institute’s revamped curricular’s main objective is to train young professionals to excel in business management to move towards corporate leadership in the digitalized world.
Speaking to BMD about the changing face of the Institute and its key role in building leadership and competencies amongst professionals, Ms. Ansary took us through the many developmental phases of CIMA to its current status and its high level of contribution to fresh and youthful leadership in the corporate sector.
A quick review of the typical profile of today’s young corporate leadership would reveal a common factor; the majority of them are CIMA qualified. Most recruiters and top managers who are CIMA qualified themselves would tend to hire new recruits who are also CIMA qualified as they understand and know the value of the qualification. It is a common enough trend in recruitment for corporate leadership positions, says Ms. Ansary.
Excerpts from the interview:
Q: What is your chief role as the Country Manager of CIMA, Sri Lanka?
Well, I lead the operations of CIMA in Sri Lanka. In this role, I make decisions on marketing strategies for investment in the CIMA brand in Sri Lanka, including on spends, sponsorships and other marketing tools, avenues and advertising to strengthen our brand.
We don’t have a local governance structure unlike in the past and hence I do have a free hand to take my own decisions in building the CIMA brand in line with guidance from The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (The Association) – the unified voice of The American Institute of CPAs and CIMA and my Regional Vice President of Asia Pacific.
The current role of the country manager of CIMA has evolved as much as the Institute itself. From our traditional focus on student orientation, CIMA has developed into mature markets as well, in particular the corporate world.
My main role is to elevate the CIMA brand, to make it the premier training ground for the next generation of corporate leadership. I also keep our student and member interests in mind, as I want to help them continue to succeed and shine. I have an amazing team at the CIMA local office who help deliver all these.
Our mission is help change people’s lives and give them an opportunity to move towards prosperity. This is essentially promoted via our core task of producing professional chartered management accountants who drive a dynamic accounting profession, ready to meet the demands of a constantly changing, disruptive world.
Q:How does CIMA train students to be corporate leaders?
With the recent Future of Finance research conducted using feedback from over 5,500 industry experts and professionals, we now have an updated syllabus which suits the needs of today’s world. This includes exciting subjects like Managing finance in a digital world and we have grown and matured from producing just cost and management accountants to transforming our graduates to be the business leaders organizations need today.
Our qualification provides students with knowledge and skills beyond management accounting and gives them the overall grounding to become future corporate leaders.
In 2012, CIMA and The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), embarked on a joint venture to professionalize management and public accounting around the world. Through this, a new designation called the Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) was launched.
In 2016, our members overwhelmingly voted to evolve the joint venture into a new Association that would integrate management and operations. Thus, was created The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, (The Association) which is the world’s largest and most influential body of professional accountants.
As for the qualification, CIMA has 16 subjects, 4 in the certificate level and 12 in the professional qualification. We now have fast track routes, which facilitate faster completion of the professional qualification for corporate professionals who already possess experience at a senior managerial level or possess qualifications like an MBA or Academic professionals with high GPAs. In today’s demanding world, CIMA has understood that busy executives need to keep themselves relevant and updated but also won’t have all the time to pursue such studies. Hence, those with such qualifications are exempt from various exams and / or stages of the qualification and need to complete only a few exams.
We have an exclusive pathway called the C-Suite Business and Finance programme, an esteemed programme designed to complement the experience of C-Suites with cutting edge skills with sessions tailor made just for them. Among those who opt for this programme, which has limited entries per year, are C-Suites such as CFOs, COOs and CEOs who are only required to complete the Strategic Case Study to be eligible for CIMA membership. This year’s entries will begin from March.
The fast track routes are quite challenging, but we have seen great success in Sri Lanka for these routes and we have many professionals holding top notch positions who invest in this programme paying even up to GBP 6,990 in order to acquire the CIMA certification and the CGMA designation, as it gives them the required skills and the global networking opportunities.
Each year so many of our exam completes reach top leadership positions in the corporate world. It is an honour and a deep satisfaction to know their success stories. The students’ appreciation and accolades of “CIMA helped us achieve our goals, and status in life,” is indeed most gratifying.
Q :What is the eligibility criteria for beginners?
There is no prior qualification or experience required for our initial certificate in business accounting (Cert. BA).
Anyone above 16 years, from school leavers, undergraduates, graduates, to working professionals are eligible to join our certificate level. Often, I hear of children of our members who pursue CIMA post their Ordinary Level examinations.
CIMA is the most relevant professional qualification for young ambitious highfliers as it helps them succeed faster in the corporate world.
Q : What about the higher levels?
The CIMA professional qualification comprises nine separate subjects that are organized in three pillars: enterprise pillar, performance pillar and financial pillar.
The Enterprise pillar helps one develop strategy and plan for effective implementation. The Performance pillar teaches to monitor activity to ensure that strategy is realistic and has been implemented effectively. The Financial pillar assists to prepare and interpret financial statements in order to understand performance and make informed decisions.
CIMA is designed to bring together management accounting, financial accounting and business acumen. Management accountants are qualified to work across the business and not just in finance, advising managers on the financial implications of big decisions, formulating business strategy, and monitoring risk.
These distinct levels of study encourage progressive constant development of knowledge imparting all skills including the all-important soft skills for leadership in a business environment.
The operational level mainly focuses on implementation of short-term decision-making, in general a line of authority undertaken by first line managers and their teams. At the completion of this level, students will receive the CIMA Diploma in Management Accounting.
The management level, is more focused on analysis, ensuring successful performance, in the context of medium term and reflects work undertaken by middle managers. On completion, the CIMA Advanced Diploma in Management Accounting is awarded.
The strategic level deals with long term strategic decisions, and the provision of resources to implement these decisions resourcefully. This is generally undertaken by senior management. On completion, a student is referred to as an Exam Complete. On meeting the CIMA Practical Experience Requirements (PER) of three years, they will be able to get their membership with CIMA.
We at CIMA conduct various large events and monthly Continuous Professional Development (CPD) sessions for our students and members so they can stay updated and ahead. We work with corporates through our Corporate Partner Programme which provides training and recruitment opportunities for leading Sri Lankan organizations and we also recognized our Top Employers this year.
It is an exciting time to be in the profession, as CIMA with The Association is re-imaging the profession.
————————————————————————————————————————————–
ZAHARA ANSARY,ACMA, CGMA, MBA (SJP), PMP
Country Manager – CIMA Sri Lanka
Zahara Ansary ACMA, CGMA is the Country Manager for CIMA in Sri Lanka since August 2017. A Management Accountant turned Strategic Marketer, she has over 16 years of work experience across Banking, Business Process Outsourcing, Telecommunication and Professional Education. Ms. Ansary’s key expertise are in analytics, project management, finance transformation, marketing and business strategy.
Starting her career at Nations Trust Bank PLC, she moved across roles in Consumer Loans, Retail Banking, and Finance and Compliance departments. Post qualifying with CIMA, she moved to WNS Global Services to work in the Aviva Group Centre Finance team, with stints of work and secondments in London. Growing within the organization, she managed the Business Partnering Support team whilst also being the Secretary of the Sports Club. She was also part of the winning team at the CIMA Strategic Forum 2007 representing WNS.
Joining Bharti Airtel Lanka as a Business Analyst to the Chief Service Officer in 2010, Ms. Ansary moved onto managing Risk, Credit and Fraud Management, which included managing the exposure risk of the postpaid business and obtained her Six Sigma Green Belt certification for her projects on Risk Management. She then joined the Marketing department to manage Prepaid Usage and Retention, to promote products within the Prepaid portfolio whilst retaining the customer base. She was the Team leader of the team placed 2nd Runner up at the CIMA Business Case Awards 2012.
In her current role at CIMA, she leads the business development for CIMA whilst being the face of the brand in the market. From dealing with tuition providers, university relationships to managing student and member engagement, she enjoys this role given her great passion for CIMA, as she believes it is the qualification that changed her life.
Ms. Ansary is a proud Associate Member of CIMA and a Project Management Professional of PMI, USA. She has an MBA from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. She is also the Vice President of the Past Pupils Association of Buddhist Ladies College, Colombo 7.
She has been a panelist and a moderator at various events and is an eloquent speaker on Finance and Management related topics. In her spare time, she prefers to read, spend time with her family, play badminton and contribute her compering skills for charitable purposes.