Six questions in six minutes for Alan Fagan in New York

1. What is your name and where are you from?

My name is Alan Fagan and I was born and raised in Dublin. I now live in New York with my wife, Susie and two children Eva and Felix.

2. Can you tell us why you chose to become a Chartered Accountant?

You could really say it was like a family business…My Dad, Gerry, and two of my older sisters, Jen and Suzanne, are all Chartered Accountants so it was a proven career path in my household by the time I decided to do it. Accounting and Business were also my two favourite subjects in school and college so it was a natural choice for me.

3. And how did you get to where you are today, and what your qualification brings to your career and society? Can you tell us more about how your compliance work and family life during Covid in New York has been, and how it differs from Ireland?

I started at KPMG in Dublin, which really set me up for having a successful career. I worked with and for some amazing people and learned so much in my five years there. It was my training and experience at KPMG that gave me confidence to apply for and ultimately land a role with CrossCountry Consulting in the US. My training at KPMG and studying and obtaining my CAs helped instil a great work ethic in me and also helped develop the skills needed to be successful both professionally and personally. I recognise that I have been extremely lucky with all the opportunities that have been presented to me in my life so try to pay that back to society as much as I can.

Although my career in the US started out working in Accounting, when I moved to CrossCountry Consulting’s NY office in 2014, the focus was on more Risk and Compliance work. Although it wasn’t exactly what I had planned to do, I embraced the challenge and dedicated a lot of time to becoming a subject matter expert in areas such as Credit Risk, Anti-Money Laundering, Operational Resiliency and more recently LIBOR.

Even more recently, I once again pivoted my career path to focus on Fintech companies and now lead the Fintech practice for CrossCountry in the US. I have been extremely lucky with the opportunities presented to me throughout my career but key to my success has been my ability to change direction and focus on new areas and industries and ultimately make a success of them. In my nine years in the US, I have been lucky enough to work with great colleagues in three great cities (Chicago, Washington DC and now New York) and work with some of the biggest companies in the world. 

As I said, I believe the key to my success to date has been embracing new opportunities and challenges, even if they weren’t quite in line with where I saw my career going. 

4. How are working and family life different in New York, especially during Covid?

The biggest difference between working in the US and Ireland is definitely the culture. In the US, you need to be your own biggest cheerleader and really let people know about the value you are bringing as there are a lot of big personalities in the US. The same is true around networking and building relationships, you have to put yourself out there and really go outside your comfort zone to develop that network. I learned pretty early on that the things that made me successful in Ireland may not be the same things that make me successful in the US so had to really adjust my way of doing things to more align with the US way of working. 
Covid was challenging for everyone, but on balance we were very lucky that we did not have too bad an experience. NY in the early days of pandemic were tough but from June 2020 things started to improve and we didn’t really have much setbacks in terms of the city reopening. The hardest part was definitely being away from family and my kids not getting to see their grandparents but we were fortunate enough to be able to go back in June this year and have another trip planned for Christmas. 

5. As a member living overseas, can you talk to us about how your membership has been of value to you globally and if there is anything you would like to see your Institute do more of to support members overseas? 

Since I moved to the US in 2012, I have been actively engaged with Chartered Accountants Worldwide Network USA (formerly ACAUS), that I am member of as part of my Chartered Accountants Ireland membership. This has been a great network to meet people with a similar background and learn how to be successful in the US, leveraging the CA qualification. I am very passionate about the value of this network and recently joined the Executive board of CAW Network USA as Treasurer. I am looking forward to continuing to engage with CAs moving from Ireland to the US so that they can also benefit from it.

My one ask of the Institute is to continue to raise awareness of CAW Network USA to members moving to the US as it can be such a valuable resource for those trying to start careers in a new place.  

6. And finally Alan, if you weren’t an accountant, what do you think you would you have been?

Probably a lawyer – I was always fascinated by law growing up and liked the idea of working in a courtroom but in the end I found numbers more interesting than text so went with accountancy!