Rachel Grimes

Good evening presiding Chancellor, presiding Vice Chancellor, members of the Academic Board and members of Council and Faculty, parents, spouses, mothers, daughters, grandparents, ladies and gentlemen, thank you again to each of you who have contributed in such a very large way of getting your very special person to the finishing line today. But most importantly, a very, very warm welcome and congratulations to the graduates here tonight.

I’m honoured to be here; as was pointed out, it was nearly 30 years ago that I was sitting in those very seats when I was lucky enough to graduate from UTS. I, too, had to endure the jokes of John Tyler and survived.

Accounting is truly a global profession. It is made up of three million accountants from 177 countries, it has its own code of ethics, its own international standards – accounting, auditing, public sector and education – and therefore this qualification allows you to have a global passport with amazing opportunities across the globe.

But with opportunities comes responsibilities. Australia is indeed fortuitous, having some 320,000 members across the three Australian accounting bodies. Australia has the fifth, the seventh and the 28th largest accounting bodies in the world. It is a proven fact that the more accountants a country has, the less corruption it has, as ethics is the foundation of this profession.

I am a very proud member of all three Australian accounting bodies, and I encourage you to become a member of at least one of them. These bodies will provide a network for you, membership gives you respect in the community and your place of employment, they give you a voice to government and the regulators, not only in Australia but globally, and I can assure you that Australia is very well represented on the global stage.

In my role as President of the International Federation of Accountants, I was invited to many countries around the world. But one that had a particularly large influence on me was that of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is the 31st largest country in the world with 100 million people, but guess how many accountants it has? Just 500.

I met with the Minister of Finance there. She told me that she could only afford three accountants in Treasury, and that each one of then earnt more than she did. These people not only assisted with the budget for a country of GDP of 80 billion dollars, but also with the checks and balances to prevent corruption. Often it takes not having a profession to realise the importance of having one.

Other amazing people I’ve met in my IFAC role were leaders of countries – princes, presidents, prime ministers, treasurers and the Pope. Now, no matter what your religion is, I believe that the Pope gave the leaders of the accounting profession a real challenge. He asked them to contemplate that you are the people that control the money. Don’t leave anyone behind. He said the accounting profession can make a difference; you must call out when you see a wrong. If a corrupt payment is made, it negatively impacts on many. It moves money from possible good works to that of individuals and it takes from the community for which it is intended.

The accounting profession creates trust in the financial system and capital markets. Audited financial statements give directors confidence to make decisions to allow capital allocations. We must protect that confidence and give certainty to the markets. This is a profession where lifelong learning is required. You are the generation that can honestly say, ‘It was tougher in my day.’ You have the most ordered accounting and public sector standards in our history. You will continue to have to learn more, but this shouldn’t be considered as an onerous task, but an opportunity, an investment in yourself. This is not a boring profession but an evolutionary one.

Since you enrolled in your course, the following accounting standards have been released or enhanced: leases, revenue recognition, expected credit losses, investments and hedging. Each of these new standards are contributing to greater trust in our profession and provide an opportunity for each of you to assist your employers to implement these changes correctly. So, ladies and gentlemen, this represents the beginning of your learnings, not the end of them, and as a lifelong profession, you must take the opportunity to invest in yourself. There is no greater indulgence.

But with every evolutionary profession comes a scaremongering – that accountants will be the first to be automated, or as some commentators state, roboticised. Each year I ask the graduates at Westpac whose family has discouraged them from becoming an accountant, fearing that the profession may not be around? More and more are putting up their hand.

But I’m here to tell you that I believe this is rubbish. Never in the history of the world has it been more exciting to be an accountant. And all the misconceptions on how accountants spend their time are being fractured as a result of the technology advancements throughout the profession. This is not something to be feared, but embraced.

In fact, I’ve broken this down into just five easy things that I hope you can all remember, no matter if you’re in marketing – in fact, I’d love the marketing people to grab hold of this – but it’s simple. A, B, C, D and E. A for artificial intelligence with a subset of robotics. B for blockchain. C for cyber security. D for data and data analytics. And the most important one is E for ethics.

Let us look at the example of driverless cars. As a result of artificial intelligence, we can now program cars to drive themselves. We have taught cars not to cross the double yellow lanes. But what if there are pedestrians on the road? We have taught cars to cross so as to avoid hitting those pedestrians. But what if there are two pedestrians and only one can be saved? What happens?

MIT conducted a study on this, and they said that the largest amount said well, you’d run over the older person. So, given that it’s now 30 years since I sat in your seat, I’m not sure if I agree with that, but what we’ve got to look at is what are the ethics of the programmers?  Who’s programming these things? On what basis? And I believe that accountants will have a real role to play in that as members of the profession. Ethics has to underpin everything we do and will touch us in many ways that we hadn’t thought of. So, grab hold of that opportunity, embrace the A, B, C, D and most importantly the E and take advantage of it.

As I stated before, with opportunity comes responsibility, and another key lesson for me throughout my career is giving back, and often the greatest impact, no matter what the faculty, no matter what the major is, is giving back to a charity. I can tell you, there’s nothing better than being in an organisation where you all point in the one direction and a charity is the best way to demonstrate this. Every single charity needs skillsets in marketing and accounting, and you will be putting back – you’re creating a unique network for yourself and you’re picking up skills that I don’t believe that you could get in any other way. So, I can tell you, every charity needs those skills, so please take the opportunity to do that.

And finally, you heard on my CV, so I’m prepared to share it with you: How did you go to be the head of the entire accounting profession? And I will say that my family like to call me the biggest nerd in the world because I was officially the head of all the accountants in the world and now, I’m the immediate past biggest nerd in the world. But anyway, my answer to this is simple: I didn’t lean in. I put my hand up. I put my hand up and I got involved.

And then it was called out that I was a member of the tennis committee. Back when I first started at Price Waterhouse, Australia was in a recession and we were still given five days off to play tennis. I thought this was ridiculously generous from the employer and I suggested that perhaps we have a one-day tournament and change the venue and have everybody there on the same day. I’m very pleased to say that that’s still the second-longest-running tournament in New South Wales after the Sydney Open.

So, with that, though, people realised that I wanted to change things, so they put me on the next committee, the membership committee. I thought why did we need a committee? This was really well organised amongst the staff, so we closed that committee down. I did that again for the special interest groups. So, what I did was I was young and I was new to the profession and I challenged why, and now every time I can I put my hand up to grab one of the graduates and my only instruction to them is for you to challenge the way we do things.

I have not had one graduate go through our finance function in the last four years that hasn’t made a tangible difference to the way we do things. You are the most skilled and knowledgeable people and utilise that and have the confidence to put your hand up because we, as employers, are looking for that engagement. So, I encourage you to do that. Challenge the way, use your skill set and get involved.

So, my advice that I’d like to leave you with is that connections are powerful. Share your friends and people will share their friends with you. Do not leave this hall today without getting somebody’s phone number. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram are not your deepest connections. Very few people I know have changed their mobile number. Everyone here in this room wants to help you in your career. Take advantage of it and stay in touch.

I was fortunate enough last month to go to the 30th year anniversary alumni ball. It was a fantastic event where I got the opportunity to catch up with many old friends and lecturers. Please take advantage of that. UTS Is such a unique place. Stay involved, be involved, it will be some of your greatest connections in your career. 

Please put your hand up. Don’t lean in; we can’t see you. Lots happening in the workplace. Put your hand up, get involved, challenge us. How can we improve? And grab every opportunity you can, as like me, you’ll have no idea where one voluntary act can lead.

I wish you all the very best in your careers and congratulations on a wonderful achievement.

Thank you everyone.