Young Difference Makers S2 E1 - Abigail Foster: Financial Resilience and Entrepreneurship, an Accounting Story

Ever wonder what truly makes an accountant tick? In our latest episode, we sit down with the formidable Abigail Foster, an ACA Chartered Accountant who has used her credentials to explore a dynamic and fulfilling career in the accounting field. 

Abigail's journey from a math-focused student to a successful entrepreneur with a mission to redefine accountancy stereotypes, serves as the perfect narrative to challenge your preconceived notions about accountants. 

From resilience to people skills, Abigail’s story is a testament to the fact that accountancy is more than just crunching numbers. 

As we navigate deeper into the financial world, we turn the spotlight on how accountants, like Abigail, can provide invaluable support to their loved ones, beyond their regular clientele. The conversation explores how accountancy can not only support a lifestyle of travel and passion pursuit but also spread financial literacy among friends and family. 

This episode is a testament to the unique versatility of accountancy as a profession that can have profound influences beyond the professional realm. So buckle up and let’s redefine accounting together!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

All my opportunities in my career have come from being ACA. So my name is Abigail Foster and I am an ACA Chartered Accountant with the Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales. My journey I studied maths at A level which, to my school, meant that I should be an accountant. That was the only foreseeable option. So I went to university and studied accountancy. I wasn't really sure what my plan was, but a girl in the year above me, who I am now very, very good friends with Jess, actually told me well, I'm going to be doing ACA through a particular company and it kind of opened up a new world I didn't really know existed, that actually I could have my next step very much laid out for me. I'm very much a planner and I wanted to know exactly where I was going next, and so the ACA sort of fell into my lap. I did some work experience at a particular practice. They asked me to come back when I qualified and I started the ACA with them purely because the owner or partner said practice also happened to be ACA qualified. And then, yeah, the journey from there began. So I am ACA qualified. I qualified back in 2020, but I am not practicing in the way. I'm not doing bookkeeping or working in a practice anymore. I work for myself. So I qualified in industry, so I used to work in industry, which is different to practice. So I worked for Vogue, which is Konde Nas, and then I worked for Hearst, which is a publishing house, and I worked for Harper's and the different magazines that fell under them. I worked in management accounts for a very long time and then two years ago, I decided to leave and start my own company and I started that in. I went full-time in Jan 2022 and I teach financial education now in schools and workplaces, which I love, and I've really used my accountancy qualification to get me there as well. You can't be what you can't see. So I felt like it was really important when I started my company, I really wanted to go into presenting and getting the face of what I think an accountant represents, which is myself and being feminine and being, you know, outgoing out there for more people to see. So I do a lot of work on social media and TV now and I think that that's my way of showing the next generation that accountants don't have to be in offices. They can be running companies or they can be on telly or they can be on social media, and that doesn't make me any less of an accountant, I'm just doing it slightly differently. All my opportunities in my career have come from being ACA. I really respect it. It's hard.

Speaker 1: 3:12

I won't say I passed all of them first time because I did not. Some of them took me a little while. But it's fine and I think not only did it teach me, obviously, the core skills, like you know reading balance sheets and understanding profit and loss but resilience was like a huge skill that I picked up. I'm not entirely sure they even meant for you to pick up, but the resilience of when you don't pass or if you know you find something hard getting back up and trying again. That's what's helped me, especially with my entrepreneurial journey is knowing that you know it could be worse, you know you could have to. Sometimes when I think of a situation in my business and I think, oh, it could be worse, could have to pay to resit an exam, done that before. That was quite fun, but yeah, for me the ACA has helped me, especially with my career in publishing.

Speaker 1: 3:55

I always wanted to be in a kind of glamorous industry and I saw Vogue as like the pinnacle of glamour, and then I realised I could be there. It's just in their finance department that didn't, and I was, to be honest, in some of the best rooms. I was sat there with the editors and chief of some of the most incredible magazines and the only reason I was there was because of my ACA qualification. That gave me the ability to help them understand the numbers that they didn't understand. So, yeah, that was quite cool. If anything, I think the best chartered counters are the ones with better people skills than mass bills, because the mass skills, yes, they're helpful. You might be able to get to the question or get to the answer quicker, but we need more accountants that are happy and comfortable speaking to other people, making other people feel comfortable around us. There is this stigma. I've always said this If I tell people I'm an accountant, they switch off and I'm trying to destigmatise that and explaining my day job and then leading with and I'm also an accountant, and people are like, oh, that's really interesting and, especially to the next generation, we kind of make sure that they see us as being key leaders, not just kind of people that are doing the bank statements or people that are doing, you know, back office work effectively.

Speaker 1: 5:21

You're meant to say nothing, aren't you? You're meant to say I wouldn't change a thing, and in some respects, I probably wouldn't. If I was talking to 18 year old, or between 18 and 23 year old me, I would say when things go wrong, which they do often, just give yourself a day and then go back and start again, because I often used to get really low, you know, if I failed an exam or I didn't do as well in my degree as I particularly want, that I wanted a first and got a two one, and I really punished myself. And I look back and my life is exact the same. If I'd got those grades then if I hadn't. So having a first wouldn't have changed the layout of my career. Or, you know, having to just sit and exam two months later again hasn't changed the layout of my career. So, yeah, cutting myself some slack would have been a great idea when I was 18. The stress, the wrinkles that I am probably due would be, yeah, would definitely not be showing as early as they probably are going to now.

Speaker 1: 6:31

Beyond the numbers, I would say it's about strategy. So how can we get from point A to point B? And use the numbers as well, because often people, when they're starting their own businesses or if they are trying to learn something new for the first time, decide to leave finance to one side and let someone else do it. And that can often be the downfall, because, as we know, with most entrepreneurial startups, the downfall often is cash flow and people not really understanding what they've got in their pocket. So, as accountants, I think we should be there not only to crunch the numbers for them, but to help them strategise their next like 10 moves, whilst thinking about numbers in the background, that being a chartered accountant doesn't necessarily mean you have to work in practice or in a company. You can use it to develop any skill you like. I know people that are working in Formula One and that's very apt at the moment. It's all over the news People that are working for the government, people that are working for themselves. There are so many different ways.

Speaker 1: 7:34

When I first left university, I honestly only thought that there were four practices, because everyone just kept saying big four, and then I realised that there was many, many more. And not only did you not have to do big four or accountancy in that respect, you could do it in any way that suited you and once you qualify, yeah, the letters quite nice, aren't they On the end of your name, and like there's the comfort it gives me. That I do know what I'm talking about has helped me greatly in starting my own business and everything else. Yeah, I've known friends that have left London and moved to Australia. They are having wonderfully sunny lives. I'm not jealous at all, living in very rainy Scotland, scotland sorry, rainy London.

Speaker 1: 8:39

I think you can use this anywhere to anything. You know the support you can give the people in your life as well. From your knowledge, I think a lot of accountants forget that they can help their friends and their family with their understanding of finance. Like there's no one that doesn't need a bit more support and understanding money and finance. And you can use your charterships to help those people and, like you said, and travel and everything else. You can be and see whatever you want.