Featuring Richard Pengelly
Being a Chartered Accountant can lead to an interesting and varied finance career, but it also opens up wider opportunities for progression into leadership positions. Many Chartered Accountants have gone on to hold senior public sector positions both as Finance Directors and beyond - we met Richard Pengelly to ask him how being a Chartered Accountant supported his career journey and what advice he would give to other professionals as they progress through their career path.
Richard joined the Department for Finance in 1998 having worked in the Northern Ireland Audit Office and in private accounting practice and has gone on to hold the post of Permanent Secretary across a number of Northern Ireland Civil Service Departments such as the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and the Department for Regional Development. Currently, Richard is the Chief Executive of the Education Authority.
What advice would you give to someone as they look to a career in public sector finance?
I would say don’t be afraid of uncertainty or of trying something different - when an opportunity comes up say yes. If I hadn’t of said yes to trying new things, I wouldn’t be in this position today – each new opportunity leads to another, don’t hold yourself back from trying something new because you haven’t done it before. When you try something new or different you develop yourself and learn to adapt, as a leader the ability to be agile, learn and adapt becomes more and more important. Accountants fundamentally are intelligent, ambitious and work hard but all too often they don’t push themselves or think they’re good enough – my advice is back yourself and go for it.
What leadership skills do you think public sector accountants could focus on developing?
As finance professionals we tend to like the detail and when we work through an area we often become the experts in that subject however, as your brief becomes wider you cannot be the expert in everything. I can find myself in a meeting where I am the person who knows the least about a subject and it can be challenging to lean into that uncertainty but you need to think about your own expertise and experience – what you as a leader can bring to the discussion. As you progress in your career it can become less about technical capabilities and more about the people skills – Chartered Accountants are talented, capable and competent – these are skills that you bring to any discussion, meeting or role.
Do you think being a Chartered Accountant helped you throughout your career?
Being a chartered accountant has helped me in different ways, as an accountant you have a qualification that has enabled you to demonstrate the relevant learning and technical skills. In studying and working you develop skills and resilience, balancing studying, working and a home life. As you move into more of a leadership position the focus may move away from technical skills but as an accountant you carry the credibility and professionalism that comes with being an accountant. The transversal skills you develop are a great foundation to approach complex issues for example taking an opinion and examining an issue critically, looking for an evidence base. These professional and technical skills combine with the ethical framework - it is that sense of values and ethics that stays with you and supports you though making tough decisions when in a leadership position.
What advice would you give to accountants seeking to develop leadership skills?
Accountants need to proactively seek out opportunities to develop their leadership skills. At the early part of your career you could be in a small team doing a technical job – there may not be a lot of focus on developing leadership skills but you need to seek out opportunities to stretch that skill – you need to start to thinking about the building blocks you need to develop leadership skills and to prepare yourself for that leadership role.
Reflecting on my experience, I have seen technically good people not progress because they didn’t have the people skills or ability to communicate. I have seen competent people struggle because they have felt overwhelmed – not due to their technical skill set but when facing competing pressures, for example with prioritisation and setting clear direction. As you progress success and delivery become more about these leadership characteristics than pure technical skills alone.
What skills do you think accountants need to meet the current challenges across the public sector and into the future?
As a public sector leader it is important to become comfortable with change, it is ever present and we need to think about how we can be agile and responsive while retaining and meeting the requirements of a public sector office. Accountants need to support people to have the right conversation – it’s not about efficiency anymore but rather reengineering what we do and how we do it, we are facing demographic changes and increasing demand at the same time budgets are reducing - finance colleagues can help us unpick that conversation. The finance conversation needs to be more strategic, moving away from focusing on processes or operations but rather looking at the bigger issues – how do we align the resources we have to focus on the key things required to meet our future ambition.
The Ulster Society Public Sector committee recently hosted an online session focusing on leadership skills for finance professionals and an in-person event is planned for the near future – if you are interested in learning more about leadership in a public sector finance context make sure you come along.
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