To provide students with a competitive edge, the School of Accountancy has specially put together a series of Value Added Talks by distinguished and successful industry practitioners. They bring with them a wealth of knowledge and practical experience.
Over the past year, SoA has invited several eminent speakers from banks, and public accounting and consulting firms.
In September this year, we were privileged to have Mr Gerard Ee, Chairman of the National Kidney Foundation, and the Public Transport Council; and Mr Mikkel Larsen, Executive Director of UBS Investment Bank.
Mr Ee spoke on the topic "More Rules without a
Focus on Values is Destructive".
He passionately believes that values define the person. His premise is that for any society to avoid self-destruction it must be grounded in core-values. Laws and rules are of little benefit in the preservation of a society if its core-values are defective.
In the presentation on "FRS Accounting for Embedded Derivatives in Practice – An Investment Bank's Perspective" Mr Larsen discussed the practical issues in identifying and measuring embedded derivatives. He highlighted areas where it was difficult to implement current guidance or where proper reflection of underlying risk features may not be allowed. Mr Larsen offered his views on the usefulness of "bifurcation" today and going forward.
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What our students say:
"Mr Ee demonstrated how important it is to be aware of one's own value system, so that one is able to rely on it to make courageous decisions. What he said really resonated with me because that is essentially what I perceive the problem to be with big corporates, where people sometimes throw caution to the wind."
– Xie Shangbin, Economics and Accountancy 2003.
"Although some parts were rather technical, Mr Larsen did his best simplifying the concepts for us. Given the complexity of the topic, most of us were a little lost. Nevertheless, he summarised some take-away points for us, and that was the useful part."
– Alwyn Hui, Business and Accountancy, 2003.
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