Meeyeon (00:00)
Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of CFI’s Member Spotlight. My name is Meeyeon, your host. You’ve heard me many times here before.

Today I’m joined by Judith Singh, FCCA, CFM, FMVA, and I feel like so much more. Judith, thank you so much for joining today. I am so excited to have you talk about your career so far, your learning journey, and all the pivots and kind of lessons along the way that you’ve learned. I feel like you have a really unique career path.

And I would just love for you to share with us from the very beginning, like how things have been going for you.

Judith Claire Singh (00:36)
Thank you, Meeyeon. Thank you for having me on here. It’s lovely to meet all of you. Basically, my first introduction into accounting was when I started the ACCA qualification back when I was 18. So instead, I didn’t take a conventional path

into the world of finance as some other people have. You know, going to university. I chose to actually go straight into studying ACCA,

I think I probably had influences early on in my childhood, really. Well, I’ve always had a passion for mathematics and my mum would give me you know, problem solving, know, maths problems to solve. I used to play a lot of board games, watch a lot of detective shows,

lots of quiz shows, so anything that really challenged my logical and critical thinking. I think those are all skills really apt for accounting. And then also in addition to that, my grandparents were also accountants. They never formally qualified with an accounting body, but they were accountants back in Guyana, where my family are from in South America. So, and then also when my nan came to the UK, she was a stock accountant herself in a highly renowned

Meeyeon (01:35)
Mmm.

Judith Claire Singh (01:54)
retail store, so there was some really early influences there. So I think that really piqued my interest for the field and just going through my education as well and just as I said I had a passion for mathematics, did economics and business studies at A level and then obviously that was before I decided to go on to study ACCA.

Meeyeon (02:19)
And then tell us a little bit because you were talking about how you feel like you had a less traditional path. So, how did the kind of first couple of years of that less traditional path start for you? And like fill us into all the all the stops that you had along the way your career-wise?

Judith Claire Singh (02:25)
Mmm.

Yeah sure. So so sorry

So, yes. So when I first went in, when I first decided that I wanted to do ACCA, just prior to that, I also had a short internship in an investment bank, in a French investment bank located in London. And that really piqued my interest as well for, you know, career in finance. I was working in the accounting and finance department there.

So that was, you know, obviously like my first practical kind of work experience and first exposure to a finance team. And then, yeah, so after that internship, I then studied ACCA and then while studying ACCA, also knew the importance of

being able to be adept with systems as well. I also studied Sage, Sage Line 50, which is an accounting package, mostly used in small businesses. And then, alongside my ACCA, I saw that there was a brilliant opportunity due to the joint initiative between ACCA and Oxford Brookes University.

to gain a degree as well. So even though I hadn’t gone to university, I didn’t feel like I had lost out on gaining a degree in that sense. So I actually, because of my high average across the first nine papers of my ACCA and doing,

doing a dissertation, I was able to gain a first-class honors in applied accounting as well, a BSc honours in applied accounting. So thereafter, I tried to look at some accounting, so some accounting training schemes. So obviously, like everyone does, as a budding accountant, I tried to look at training schemes with the Big Four.

Obviously it is quite competitive, won’t lie, and obviously because I suppose I did take a non-conventional path, know, they were probably looking for something a bit different maybe. I think there was more interest in people who hadn’t studied accounting first, you know, so then I kind of pivoted away from looking at the conventional training schemes, and then I started to look more towards temping.

Meeyeon (04:48)
Thank you.

Judith Claire Singh (04:56)
So, temping and contract roles, you know, just to get my foot in the door, just to get some experience. then I also undertook an internship, basically, in an accounting, a small to medium-sized accounting firm. And it was really good exposure. It gave me a really, like, approach of a generalized idea of how the accounts were put together.

You know, the various statutory returns that were needed to submit for various small businesses and charitable organisations. So it was, you know, the financial state, you know, putting together the financial statements, the relevant disclosures, tax returns, you know, things like that, and it just gave me obviously that good exposure to that kind of a generalised approach.

But I felt my skill set was better suited to somewhere where I was actually embedded inside of a finance function within a business itself. So just to have that detailed idea of how the business works and really just sinking my teeth basically into the detail of various budgets and forecasts, and I thought that more aligned

with what I had originally studied at ACCA as well. So when I originally did ACCA, there was the opportunity to specialise in two particular areas at the professional level. So I decided to specialise in performance management, which is more the management accounting side and advanced financial management, which is things like investment appraisal and discounted cash flows and sorts of things. So I thought, you know…

being part of a finance function and, you know, going through, getting to grips with the manage, the end-to-end management accounts processes, end-to-end budgets and forecasting process and budget, budget setting process. I thought that was really beneficial. So that led me on to, on to my next role in a major university located in London. Yes, sure. Go ahead.

Meeyeon (06:52)
I have a question for you. I find that anyone that kind of starts off their career from a and then charts a less traditional path, I find it so,

I find it really admirable, especially to understand the way that you have navigated your career so far, because the traditional path is generally the path. It might be the path of most resistance. For example, if you want it to go and be like a, investment being analyst at Goldman Sachs, like that’s the equal to university, you do an internship, you go full time, and then you climb the corporate ladder. Like that’s very simple, very linear. There’s tons of resistance and challenges along the

way, but it’s one that’s already defined for you. What I find most interesting is because, know, there’s few and far of the few and those people are few and far between because there’s not many of those roles, but everyone else I find have to offer so much more unique insights into what the challenges of a career can be like and find and then understanding what you enjoy, what you want to pursue long term and how you want to build that career. Everything that you’ve told me so far.

Like even though it’s kind of the beginning portion of your career, I just find that I’m talking to someone that has a lot of resilience and someone that can deal with uncertainty probably pretty well. And someone that can kind of, when you’re faced with, faced with the unknown decisions that you have to make that have longer term impact, you seem like you would be a fairly low stress person.

Judith Claire Singh (08:15)
Thank you.

Meeyeon (08:29)
You know you can handle it. How was navigating that career from the very beginning for you with the less traditional path? Did you always know that you kind of wanted to do something a little bit different? Or did you have from the very beginning a path that you wanted to follow? And then you thought, OK, this is generally where I want to be. Let’s just figure out how things go.

Judith Claire Singh (08:53)
I would say it’s probably a mix of both, really. I mean I always knew, I think from a very young age, because given my, you know, probably early influences from, you know, my family and also just where my, it also depends on where your aptitude goes and where you just, the things that you enjoy. And I always knew from about, I think probably 16, I wanted to be an accountant, which is obviously not everybody needs to have decided

at 16 that’s where they wanted to go but generally I knew I wanted to be an accountant and yeah I mean obviously there are bumps and stuff along the way I mean for example I mean even just going against the grain when I was at school saying I didn’t want to go to university was quite controversial back then you know just try to just you know basically chart in a different path to everybody else but you know I think it’s important you know just to have,

if you have a vision, know, and you know your own abilities, you know what you enjoy, and generally what you enjoy, you will do well in. I mean, to say, with my ACCA, I was told by numerous people, good luck for the next 10 years or six years or something, but I managed to get ACCA done

Meeyeon (09:51)
Thank you.

Judith Claire Singh (10:12)
in two years because I passed them all first time because I thoroughly enjoyed it. So, I was basically I was an ACCA affiliate by the time I was 20. So I managed to get through it. So I think it’s a case of having faith in what you enjoy, what you want to do. Obviously, there might be people who are

Meeyeon (10:27)
Thank you.

Judith Claire Singh (10:38)
skeptical of your path but yes exactly I mean try to you know but yes I mean obviously as I said there’s people get skeptical of your path or you know obviously because it might it’s not just the done thing it’s not you know the path that everybody else takes but you don’t have to do what everybody else does and then ultimately I mean you know another point that’s not always discussed but university is quite an expensive

Meeyeon (10:39)
Mayfair’s.

Judith Claire Singh (11:05)
privilege as well and that may not necessarily be in everyone’s budget and you know if you know what you want to do you don’t necessarily and if you there is another way of like what I did a professional qualification you don’t have to go down the university route there may be other ways I mean obviously there’s other professions where you don’t even need like I suppose like tradesmen and like surveyors.

They’ve got Ricks, for example, architects have Reba. You know, there’s different avenues to get you where you want to be. you know, if you’re doing what you enjoy, my whole point is that, you know, obviously you can navigate the obstacles that come along the way if you have faith in what your general path is, I think,

Meeyeon (11:54)
Generally, I find that anyone, like in life, whether it’s your personal endeavors or your professional pursuits, everyone is faced with adversity. And there’s someone that I interviewed named Smith a while ago who might be listening. And he said something very simple, which is like on the other side of adversity are your goals, are all the things that you want to achieve. Like, is that, is that wall of adversity very difficult? Yes. But if you

Judith Claire Singh (12:12)
Mmm.

Meeyeon (12:19)
have a passion for it. If this is something that you’re generally, like passion and generally being good at something usually go together. People generally like what they’re good at and are good at what they kind of like. So it’s, it generally goes hand in hand, but to be able to go across that wall of adversity, like that, you really do need that personal passion. You have also something that I

Judith Claire Singh (12:20)
Hmm.

Meeyeon (12:45)
think everyone will notice if they Google you on LinkedIn is that you have a lot of educational certifications. So you’re definitely a lifelong learner.

Judith Claire Singh (12:51)
Yes, I’m actually, so obviously you know that I’ve got FMVA and the CFM from the FMI but I also I’m actually currently studying the BIDA as well at the moment with yourselves, yes and I’m thoroughly enjoying it, you know learning so much about DAX and you know Power Pivot, Power BI, Tableau.

Meeyeon (13:05)
Wow.

Judith Claire Singh (13:16)
Python, yeah, the whole shebang, I guess.

Meeyeon (13:21)
And then what you do now, so the FMVA and the CFM, those are very complimentary and very similar. What what got you interested in beta and where do you hope that like, are you trying to apply it to any sort of specific role or?

Judith Claire Singh (13:39)
Yeah, basically, you know, my background is predominantly in management accounting and project accounting. You know, obviously there’s a lot of emphasis, not only on you know, accounting side, it’s not just been accounting, but obviously being able to present that information to senior management, which is something I had to do a lot in my last few roles.

You know, the BIDA, obviously, you need the modeling proficiency in order to produce operational models for budgets and forecasts, or it could be consolidation models or LBO models, those sorts of things. But obviously, BIDA is really beneficial as well in order to present those results, as well as your financial results. And just having that acumen in…

being able to produce a dashboard and communicate that message, the financial message, in a meaningful way.

to various stakeholders, not only finance but non-finance stakeholders across the business as well. So it’s really a vital skill and it’s something I’ve utilised throughout my career today as well. predominantly with Excel but know the BIDA, it will empower me to use this in with other packages as well.

Meeyeon (14:56)
And so it’s, I think I kind of got a sense of this very earlier on when we, we spoke prior to recording this podcast. Feel like

not only are you a lifelong learner, but I feel like you’re a great teacher from just the way that you present and the way you speak. Feel like you would be a great mentor to a lot of people around you in your team and in your life. In our podcast series, I find that this is a great place for people to access not just coffee chats and understand,

you know, let’s say, Judith has a current role or she’s been in a role in her career where I would love to be in the future. That’s for everyone to access, whether they are located in Brazil or China or America. But apart from the coffee chats and learning about people’s career paths, I find that sometimes it’s just really great to get insightful perspectives on general, on general career advice.

And I feel like you’re, you have that personality to be able to give some people some really great uplifting advice or just encouraging advice of wherever they might be in their career. Would you be able to share maybe like one of the, the most unexpected parts of your career where you weren’t prepared for something that happened and like, how did you deal with it? Whether it is like a change in job or you’ve decided you want to pursue something different in your career.

Judith Claire Singh (16:13)
That’s a good question, and thank you. I mean, that’s quite the compliment that you think I’m quite good at, you know, would be good at training people. Yeah, I mean, it’s so with regards to training people, it’s something I’m really passionate about. So throughout my career, even as a training accountant, you know, I’ve always tried to impart my knowledge to other people. Obviously, because I had studied ACCA before going into the world of work.

I think it did give me an advantage because I knew the accounting concepts in advance. I was able to support other trainees as well, where they may not have studied accounting as a degree in that sense. Also at the moment as well, I use a lot of my time to support a lot of people with their CFM journeys as well,

quite challenging, you know, building up really discreet modelling problems from scratch as well. Yes, that’s it. And yes, so in with regards to your other question with regards how to I did I navigate? 

Meeyeon (17:24)
Yeah, share with us a point in your career where you felt like you were faced with something really unexpected and how you dealt with it. Because I feel like you, you’re a great person to speak to like overcoming challenges or just being able to just generally critical think, problem solve, don’t panic. I feel like you have a really great baseline of like, don’t stress. You’ll figure things out just based on your personality and your career.

Judith Claire Singh (17:29)
Hmm.

I don’t know about that totally, I think, you I probably would say that I wasn’t always completely calm. You know, obviously coming from, you know, being green in the industry as well, like in terms of the experience, you know, I think it takes time obviously to build up that kind of, you know, because that…

calmness and you know because you need exposure to certain things you know to build up your confidence I think you know I think them obviously the more you build up your proficiency in an area and your expertise the more confidence and the more calm you can because you say okay I’ve seen this before or even if it’s a challenge you haven’t seen you say okay well it may be something new but we’ve seen this before we’ve seen something that we haven’t seen before and we’ll know.

So generally, how I try to navigate it, I think a good example is when I first started in a role, in my first kind of temping role after my second internship, I was kind of thrown in the deep end. It was a bit of a baptism by fire. Because I think that’s the best way to describe it, really.

It was basically I had started at month end, so it’s just a case of you just kind of have to hit the ground running, which is quite difficult when you don’t know the business as well as someone. Obviously, you can research it, but it’s not the same as having experience in the business for quite a while. So obviously, I think in terms of that, I think it just comes down to good communication.

You know, if there is something that’s really, you’re really struggling with, you know, you do have to kind of communicate that. It is something I’ve had to work on, probably communication. So I’d say, definitely communication if you’re struggling. But I think there’s always a balance. This is something I think is really vital. I’m kind of a person that I haven’t always been, you know, it’s something I’ve worked at being able to ask questions.

I’m a kind of a person because I’m very detail-oriented. I like to say look at a transaction report, at the accounts and I like to try and glean what I can from those processes first rather than someone just feed me the answers. I find I learn a lot by doing that, you know, and just getting my teeth stuck into something before someone just gives me the information. And then when you do ask questions, it kind of puts a lot of things into the con, into…

into context because you kind of have an idea because you’ve looked at it, looked at the information first and you’ve kind of put it, you kind of make it make sense in your own head if that makes sense.

Meeyeon (20:29)
Yeah, there’s incredible value in learning by doing, find. Because learning by doing, biggest place that you’ll do that is your entire career, right? Where it’s like, you’re to do one job and feel like, OK, that’s not it. Let’s move on.

Judith Claire Singh (20:32)
Mmm, the application.

Yes.

Yeah, I think a level of autonomy is really good because you know, obviously you might because I have been into roles where obviously I’ve been given spreadsheets where literally it’s a case of well the person has left. You know, there’s here’s a spreadsheet 20 times, you know, kind of good luck. You know, it’s that sort of thing. So, you know, I mean, obviously just, you know, having a curious mindset.

Meeyeon (20:59)
Yours.

Judith Claire Singh (21:07)
You just have to be patient with yourself as well. Something else that’s been a challenge with me. You kind of want to just run before you can walk sometimes. You just have to be patient with yourself. Take it one step at a time. Say, for example, as I use this example, I’ve been given a spreadsheet that you know nothing about. Break it down. Take it step by step. Okay, look at the first formula. Well, what is it trying to do? Just think logically around. I go, well, critically think.

Okay, what is this really trying to do? I mean, even for if statements or anything like that, I’m probably getting too technical now, but you know, I’m just saying, you know, even get a notepad, write it down, write the if statement down as if it were a sentence, if it were a logical sentence, just make it make sense to you. And as I said, just, you know, take your time, be patient with yourself. And yeah, just be an avid learner. I mean, you never stop learning and

You know, obviously the more you learn, the more that’s it may take time at the beginning, but that investment in the time, it will save you so much time later. And I would always say as well, if you go into a business, I mean, even in my training, when I was a trainee accountant, if you go into a business and you see, you see a certain way that something’s done, don’t take it as that’s, that’s the only way you can do something. There’s always a better way you can do it. If, if, you know, if it’s with an Excel

function or a certain procedure that could be improved. Try to challenge yourself and think, is there a better way of doing something? You can only learn by doing.

Meeyeon (22:45)
Yeah, and you mentioned how you felt like at the beginning of your career, when you were, you know, diving into the working world, that you felt like communication skills were something that you were going to need to build up. And just the way that you’ve explained everything right now tells me that you have been on a wonderful journey and you have really polished and like perfected that communication skill. It’s something that like I can also relate to as well. Cause I remember when I was first starting my very first internship,

Judith Claire Singh (22:57)
Mm.

Huh.

Meeyeon (23:14)
was at a place called Brookfield. Brookfield, think that it was called asset management. It might be something else now, but I was in a private equity fund that had just kind of started up and I was not prepared to communicate really. I just hoped that, you know, they would give me work and my then manager was like right next to me. We worked together very well and everything, but,

for example, I didn’t understand that the very basics of communication in Outlook, Microsoft Outlook, for those of us who don’t use it, is that you need to accept calendar invites. For me, was just, oh, it’s in my calendar, of course I’m gonna go, I’m the intern, I sit beside you, why won’t I go? It’s part of my job. And then my friend would be like, well, now my friend, my then manager, would say like, hey, are you coming to this meeting? I’m like, what are you talking about? Of course I’m coming, I sit next to you.

Judith Claire Singh (23:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Meeyeon (24:03)
And he goes, know that? And then he realized, he’s like, my gosh, you don’t know that you have to accept these invites. And it was like little things, so basically telling people, communicating to people that I am attending their meetings from that to like going from the person that would prepare all of the materials that were going to be shared at the meeting, whether back then it was literally printing those things out, making sure everyone was on the invite to then being able to kind of like present some ideas or some, know.

Judith Claire Singh (24:08)
Of course.

Meeyeon (24:30)
initiatives that I was given as an intern to, you know, improve certain processes, but to be able to go through that process. I think a great example of someone that has gone through that process and come out the other end, like in much in great shape is you, because I feel like you’re communicating, your communication skills are fabulous from this interview so far. And something that I would also love to ask you is, where do you,

Judith Claire Singh (24:30)
Yeah.

Thank you. That’s so sweet.

Meeyeon (24:59)
where do you see yourself in the next kind of like year or three years? I always find that this is going to be a fun piece for you to play back for yourself, maybe in three or five years. Cause I’ve personally gone through chapters of my life where I’ve said, you know, in the next year, I’d like to achieve this in the next two years. I’d like to achieve this. And, the older I get and the more life experience I have, I set more realistic and achievable, but challenging goals.

Judith Claire Singh (25:08)
Mmm.

Meeyeon (25:25)
And it’s been really fun for me to actually look back and see what I’ve written down or said out loud and say that, okay, like it’s actually happened. So what would you, if you were to put it out there in the universe, what would you like to be doing in like three years or so? Or do you still see yourself in London?

Judith Claire Singh (25:37)
I love that.

Yes, I mean it’s probably very boring but yes I do still see myself in London, you know, my mum’s here and you know my family so yes I still see myself in London which is ironic because I did ACCA because it was a global accounting body and I thought it would give me, you know, the flexibility to travel but yeah so but I still see myself in London.

But yes, think most of my experiences in working in the accounting capacity in the construction, property development sector and I would love to continue on in that sector or if not, I’m keeping my options open really, exploring other fields as well.

you know being a female I always thought it might be interesting to be in like a makeup company or fashion or something like that.

Meeyeon (26:34)
My gosh. Me, too.

I’ve always had, like, I know it seems kind of difficult, but I’ve always had the idea of like, maybe I could be in like an FPNA division and have a goal to be a leader at LVMH or what’s another one? LVMH was kind of the main one. Cause like Louis Vuitton and what Hennessy kind of umbrellas, everything.

Judith Claire Singh (26:51)
Hmm.

Yeah, no, definitely. You know, I, to be honest, I’m kind of a person, even though I know that obviously accounting is my life. But, you know, in terms of sector and role, I’m kind of going in the, I’m in a flow state. That’s probably the best way to say it. So yeah, I’m just in the flow state. I see what the universe has to offer, you know, and it’s, brought me this wonderful opportunity today talking to you. So.

You know, I’m very much for being open.

Meeyeon (27:22)
Thank you very much.

Love that. Well, I actually can’t think of a better note than to close up our podcast on. Thank you so much for joining me here today on our CSI podcast. That’s been it for now, but till next time, everyone.

Judith Claire Singh (27:35)
Thank you.

Thanks everyone, best of luck. Thank you, Meeyeon.