Accountants need to become storytellers, says CA ANZ
Storytelling and incorporating Indigenous culture into the workplace will aid in attracting First Nations people to the accounting industry, according to the professional body.
CA ANZ has shared what it believes to be “the next step” in developing First Nations representation in the Australian accounting and business industries.
Recently the professional body sent a delegation to attend the Global Indigenous Business Summit ‘Te Hui Taketake a Te Puna Tahua Toa’ in Rotorua, New Zealand from 25-27 July.
Vice chair of the CA ANZ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel Ben Eisikovich said his biggest takeaway from the summit was the need for the profession to lean more into storytelling and Indigenous values.
Eisikovich said even though the conference focused on accounting there was also a large focus on Indigenous values and how they can be blended into organisations.
“The cultural element was the biggest standout from the conference,” he said.
“What I mean by that is how you leverage the potential of what a corporate business can do and fuse that with the value set of indigenous ways.”
Eisikovich said in indigenous culture, storytelling is significantly valued to highlight the way situations can be viewed, which would be a beneficial skill to incorporate into the accounting industry.
“Indigenous culture is very much about having concepts that are captured in a certain point of time, with elders or people that are storytellers of the situation.”
“I guess accountants are very much like that. We interpret a set of numbers; we interpret binary symbols and we provide meaning to them.”
“I think what the profession could think of us more is as those storytellers of entities that are around and providing a good story to people, rather than getting too caught up in the complexities of things.”
According to CA ANZ, only 0.5 per cent of CAs identify as Indigenous Australians.
Eisikovich and members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel have identified Australia “needs to be better at” highlighting the difference Indigenous Australians can make to their communities by becoming a CA.
CA ANZ is working towards changing the narrative surrounding accounting, Eisikovich said.
“It’s about recentering that accounting is broader than the standard subscript of it just being a set of numbers and annual reports.”
“The profession is aware and we’re trying to change the narrative for Indigenous Australians but I think we need to do more.”
Since the establishment of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel in 2021, Eisikovich said they have a clear pipeline in what they need to be doing to support Indigenous youth and mature-age CAs.
Another element which could be adapted better in the accounting industry as a whole is providing First Nations people with adequate support and motivation within their role, Eisikovich said.
“Business and finance within the First Nations community are relatively new concepts, they’re not things that have always been openly discussed,” he said.
“There’s a lot of humbug around finance and fallacies that have carried through, but we need to show that you can become an accountant and still interact and be part of your community.”
CA ANZ and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander panel will continue to work towards developing the First Nations presence within the industry.
