WANT TO BECOME A CFO? START YOUR CAREER FROM PWC OR KPMG

I wrote an article last year listing Top 5 places to start non-technical careers in Nigeria. PwC and KPMG top the list.

I started my post-NYSC career in a downstream oil and gas company and I remember my pre-employment chat with the COO of that company, herself an accountant. She had asked why I wanted to join her company and I told her it would be a good place to start my career, that as an ICAN student then, I would have the opportunity to learn on the job and all those stories you say in interviews. I remember her advising me, “why don’t you start with audit firms (like PwC, KPMG etc)”. I was quiet. I just smiled, thinking deep inside me “Madam, give me this job….I wan chop oyel money abeg, audit firms can wait”. LOL. I knew at that level (chat with COO) it was  more of a formality and except there is a major faux pas, they hardly drop a candidate at that stage. I left her office thinking, “This one wey this woman dey advise me say why I no start my career from audit firm, I hope I will be given this job”. Well, I got the job.  In actual fact, I was also undergoing KPMG recruitment process that time but the multi-stage process was too long and before I even got called for the next stage, I had gotten this oil and gas job.

Looking back, six years after, I now appreciate what this COO, herself an ex-PwC, meant in that advice.

I don’t have regret starting my career where I started but like this woman, I have also found myself advising younger folks to start their accounting careers in PwC and KPMG, or any of the Top 4 professional services firms.

One observation that has refused to let me rest until I let it out by way of this article is that most of the top finance executives in Corporate World, not only in Nigeria, have their training in these professionals services firms.

CFO – Chief Finance Officer – position is the highest finance position in a company. It is the top of finance function. Except there is a group structure where a subsidiary’s CFO reports to the Group CFO, a CFO normally reports to the CEO or COO.

CFO is one of the class of positions referred to as C-suite executives (CEO, COO, CFO, CSO, CTO etc). It’s no doubt a very prestigious position, as they are the finance right hand men of the CEOs, who know little about those financial numbers.

Here we go again, I will just list few of Nigerian CFOs and see why you should start your career from PwC or KPMG if you want to drink tea as a CFO:

EX-PWC

Femi Adeyemo, CFO – OANDO GROUP

Bayo Adelabu, former CFO – FIRST BANK (now Deputy Governor, CBN)

Ugo Nwaghodoh, CFO  – UBA GROUP

Adegboyega Bello, CFO – OANDO DOWNSTREAM

Peter Amangbo – CEO – ZENITH BANK

Remi Adeloye – CFO – COMPUTER WAREHOUSE GROUP

Ijeoma Taylaur – CFO – TRAVANT CAPITAL PARTNERS

EX-KPMG

Julius Omodayo-Owotuga, CFO – FORTE OIL

Ahwe Mereh Cephalus Wariri, CFO – UBA CHAD

Nonso Okpala, CFO – HEIRS HOLDINGS

Olapeju Shebioba, CFO – AIRLINE SERVICES PLC

Tony Olaleye, CFO – SAPETRO

Dr. Adesola Kazeem Adeduntan , Current CFO – FIRST BANK GROUP

Frank Ogholaja, CFO – GE (OIL & GAS SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA – EXCLUDING NIGERIA & ANGOLA)

There are actually hundreds of them, these are just the few I could dig up before closing this article.