Technical expertise, soft skills, leadership qualities and ethics are essential for chartered accountants to market themselves and succeed in the globalised world of work, said T.V. Mohandas Pai, chairperson of the Board of Manipal Global Education Services Private Limited, and the former director for human resources at Infosys Technologies.
He was speaking as chief guest on the inaugural day of ‘Utkarshan’, a two-day national conference on direct taxes, organised by the Direct Taxes Committee of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and hosted by the Mangalore Branch of Southern India Regional Council (SIRC) of ICAI, in the city on Tuesday.
He said chartered accountants (CAs) worked in a business environment that had a cross-cultural setting. While professionals may represent a specific culture, it might not be acceptable to others in the business environment.
Professionals had to be aware of how they spoke, the kind of humour they employed and the statements they made in a multicultural setting.
K. Raghu, Chairman, Ethical Standards Board of the ICAI, said corporate frauds were on the rise and a look at the financial statements of 150 companies showed many loopholes. There was, a need to improve audit quality.