My professional journey started from my major at a university. I was majoring in Business and Administration so I had to learn all of business. Along the way, I realised that I was good at number. I was superior at Accounting, Tax, Statistics and Economics compared to other subjects. Above all, I enjoyed them. That was when I made up my mind to be an accountant. As long as I was going to be an accountant, I was hoping for a qualified accountant. Therefore, I began to prepare the exam for the certified public accountant (henceforth “CPA”) before and after the graduation. I finally passed the exam so I got an entitlement for joining an accounting firm.
While I was looking for a job, I was introduced to a medium-sized accounting firm by an acquaintance. I found the place interesting to me at an interview with the CEO who would be my boss. If I got the job, I was supposed to do different kinds of jobs throughout the roles of CPA like auditing, taxation and consulting. That was why I chose that firm so it was my first workplace and at the same time the last one in Korea. I served the company for about ten years. The reason that I could work at an organisation for such a long time is that I felt they respected and appreciated me. I was lucky that I had opportunity to be with the decent and sophisticated colleagues. I am very grateful for that until now.
When working, I was involved in auditing, taxation, consulting and another big field with about the same proportion. That another big task was helping my boss who had been a very well-known expert in the management for the arts organisations. He had been in a great demand in the industry. Consequently, he always had a great deal of work to do such as consulting, lecture and study on tax policy for the arts organisations. I had participated in the jobs with him. For example, I had worked as a consultant appointed by the institution supporting the arts organisations or artists for several years. In addition, I had lectured in taxation and accounting practice to the hands-on workers coming from the arts organisations. I did some researches on tax policy for this realm as well. One of my studies named “A proposal to introduce tax credit for donation to Arts Council Korea” derived the introduction of the new tax law in practice. I think this was my highest achievement.
There were surely several challenges in my career as well. I am going to explain what the most memorable challenge was. There was a sea-change in the realm of accounting. That was the introduction International Financial Reporting Standards. Korea adopted it (we call it K-IFRS) in 2011 so all listed companies had to set up K-IFRS system before 2011. Therefore, our team was involved in a project for the biggest one of our clients in my sixth year. The company was a holding company having multiple levels of subsidiaries. The project was a contract of six months’ duration and our task force team consisted of seven consultants (including a partner and a manager) of my firm and eight accountants of the companies. The accountant in-charge assigned roles to us so I drew up my work plan to complete my task given. When I was accomplishing a task as scheduled on my planner, one of my clients wondered where we were. He asked me because he felt comfortable with me. I showed my planner to him. I was able to explain it because my planner had the overall work flow, detailed tasks, the timing to be done and whether it was done or not. My manager happened to hear it and appointed me to an in-charge because he was struggling with the original in-charge. It was a big burden because that was overarching project to our clients and our company. The original in-charge said that he was sorry about that and confessed obstacles to his job which was relevant to his home. We all were able to understand his circumstances and we had to make an allowance for him. I assigned less work to him and more work to other members including me. That was our consensus. Our team strived for mission completion and ultimately accomplished the project within the due date and our clients were satisfied with our tasks. Accordingly, we got another following contract which put into practice. It was a great satisfaction.
However, I decided to leave my company one day. There were a couple of reasons. One was hope a balance between work and life. I was exhausted so needed to take a breath. Other was my lifelong dream that I would live abroad. After the resignation, I learnt English for about two years balancing with my life. I finally came to New Zealand last year and took language course. Now I am doing Accounting course. I also have been wishing with all my might that I acculturate to New Zealand. With regard to that, I will have to learn everything that is new to me but it is fine because I love learning and there is no end to what I could learn.
I recently heard that one of the biggest arts institution appointed my boss to the CEO. I was thrilled by the news as if it was my business. I hope I get a sense of achievement again here in New Zealand.
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