Accountant and Entrepreneur
Mark Wainwright, a former Tax Accountant and now a successful entrepreneur, explains how his Accountancy experience helped him set up and run his own business.
Starting out
So where did it all start then?
I started out wanting to be a Computer Programmer but there was a recession in Australia that meant there were few opportunities for teenage nerds. I went back to school, sat the Australian Federal Government exams and eventually took a base level clerical position for the ATO – the Aussie equivalent of the Inland Revenue.
Tell us about your path to qualification?
I studied part-time for a Bachelor of Business degree whilst I worked at the Tax Office. In six and a half years, I worked in a number of roles and ended my time there as a Tax Auditor. I left for a Tax Senior job with KPMG in 1992. I spent four years in their Tax Division and studied for the Professional Year with the ICAA. I passed the exams and became a qualified Chartered Accountant in 1995. I was promoted to Tax Manager and had my own portfolio of clients, but the idea of becoming a Partner in a firm started to lose its appeal after I qualified. I had itchy feet and wanted to travel.
Was your Australian CA qualification transferable when you moved to the UK?
It was well recognised in the UK as being the near-equivalent of a UK ACA/CA. My main difficulty was being typecast as a Tax Specialist because of my practical experience. I worked as an Equities Product Controller for several Investment Banks which involved accounting for the positions held by Traders on a daily basis, before moving into computing as a Business Analyst on a number of IT projects. Pure accounting was not really my cup of tea, but helping to design computer applications was.
Have you ever badly embarrassed yourself at work?
I've had many cringeworthy work moments, but a particularly memorable one was being caught by my boss faxing my CV to a recruitment agency. This resulted in a discussion about my interest in the job and mutually agreeing to finalise my contact shortly afterwards.
The lightbulb moment!
Where did running your own business start and working as an Accountant stop?
Whilst in London, I met up with an old friend from my Perth college days. The introduction of the Internet rekindled our interest in setting up some kind of computing enterprise. I had used jobs sites to find my job at the time. One day I happened to say "there should be a jobs site for Accountants". It was a "lightbulb" moment for both of us. We started work on GAAPweb.com in September 1997 and the site went live in June 1998.
Both of us continued in our day jobs in order to fund the new enterprise, and it wasn't until my return to Australia at the end of 1999 that I was able to work full-time for the business and draw a small salary. My career as an Accountant really ended at that point. I still enter my occupation as "Chartered Accountant" when I fill out forms, but perhaps I should say "Retired Accountant", as I have probably hung up my calculator for good.
What core skills from your Accountancy days helped you in running your own business?
One key skill I picked up as a Tax Specialist was being able to quickly recognise the important facts about a complicated situation and assemble them into small steps in a logical order. I also learned to communicate in a clear and straightforward way, even about a relatively complex legal issue.
My Accounting experience was also very useful in supporting business decision making. Although I have a tendency towards more radical solutions and ideas, my business partner was more risk-averse and this forced me to prove the viability of my ideas with some hard numbers. Common sense and gut feeling were two skills which I developed as an Accountant that became my invaluable tools as an entrepreneur.
Tips from the top
What advice can you offer to someone starting out in an Accountancy career?
An Accountancy career really is about attention to detail. If you are better at talking than getting things done, reconsider the idea of entering the world of numbers as it will be hard to hide your shortcomings. If you are lucky enough to have both the gift of the gab as well as a good level of concentration and patience under pressure, you will go far.
You will be judged by your CV, so make it look good by making sensible career choices and stick with them for reasonable periods. Financial positions carry a certain gravitas and responsibility, and employers are not impressed by patchy experience and lots of short-term positions.