Networking in Finance and Fin Tech Essay
This memorandum demonstrates how and why my networking skills can bring concrete benefit to leadership in finance and fin tech. It specifically surveys my capability to lead in the Chevening environment and explores how I combine my academic and professional experiences to date to establish a professional finance/fin tech persona.
Interpersonal networking in the corporate environment demands a multiplicity of critical skills. The first of these is being able to share one’s knowledge in a manner that helpfully influences others. Such knowledge may include opportunities to obtain referrals or access to hidden job opportunities. Accretion of interview practice skills is also critically important in the sense that one is always “being interviewed” to at least a certain extent.
Networking skills facilitate learning more about the organization, organizational role, and industrial sector context. Moreover, numerous opportunities are afforded to make new contacts among people arguably constitute the crux of networking (Wolf).
My professional experience demonstrates my mastery of a series of roles of sequentially greater responsibility. I have served in the capacity of chief auditor for a variety of leading firms, including Business Global Professionals (H.K.), RSM Nelson Wheeler (H.K.), HSBC, and Grant Thornton. Each of these roles has afforded me opportunities to interface with a wide spectrum of specialists and personality types. When dealing with each of these, I have managed acutely to demonstrate leadership capabilities in the execution of my appointed role. I consistently delivered grade-A results on time and within budget. For example, at Business Global Professionals, I successfully directed more than 700 independent research projects and pioneered more than 25 new financial models and an altogether new application programming interface (API) specifically focused on fulfilling business objectives. I formulated leading investment strategies and successfully promoted them to clients, ultimately growing earnings by more than 200 percent. Earlier, working for HSBC, my strategic bulletins gave us independence from Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters terminals. At HSBC, I was responsible for daily cash flows and concomitant reconciliations across an array of brokerage and allied corporate activities.
The honors and awards that I have accumulated over my academic and professional careers demonstrate my singular commitment to delivering excellence in leadership. In 2008, I won Honours in Accounting from the University of Hong Kong. Since college, I have accrued the coveted Certified Financial Manager (CFM), Certified Financial Risk Management Consultant (CFRMC), and Certified Financial Consultant (CFC) accreditations. I repeatedly made the Dean’s List at the Department of Accountancy Scholarship of the University of Hong Kong. There, I demonstrated my multicultural and global networking skills by earning a Certificate of Achievement in the Dragon Foundation’s Global Citizenship Programme.
I believe that my personal philosophy of finance and fin tech can make our world a better place to live. It is unfortunate how many manipulations and corruptions there are of the prevailing apparatus of international commerce. Persons in positions of financial dominance have historically been empowered to “cook the books” and thereby proffer wholly false representations of the financial postures of various corporations (Wayman). Yet, persons possessing such power are equally able of enforcing a spirit of benevolence throughout all dealings in the finance and fin tech worlds. My unimpeachable accounting credentials—which include intimate familiarity with various international accounting standards—clearly reflect my personal capability to act as a force of honesty throughout my orbit and so influence the world in a positive tenor.
Works Cited
Wolf, Lahle. “The Two Most Valuable Skills You Can Develop to Network More Successfully.” The Balance Careers, 15 May 2018. Retrieved from https://www.thebalancecareers.com/valuable-networking-skills-3515560.
Wayman, Rick. “Top 8 Ways Companies Cook the Books.” Investopedia, 2 April 2018. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/articles/analyst/071502.asp.
