CHANGING PEOPLE’S LIVES
Farah Iqbal, planning and performance manager, BP Plc, ACCA member
Big dreams
As a teenager growing up in Hounslow, London, my ambition was to travel the world—but I never imagined myself 3,000 miles away on the coast of Senegal. That’s where I was a couple of weeks ago as part of my role at BP in the development of a major new gas field off the coast of western Africa.
I studied accounting and finance at Kingston University at a time when there was talk of a recession in the UK, and I knew there would always be a demand for accountants. I wanted to work with a large corporate, partly so I’d have the opportunity to travel but also because in big companies you can get involved in so many different things and support teams that are not finance-related.
A taste of failure
My first job was at Heathrow Express. The company offered me a great salary and overall package, but unfortunately there was no study support. I knew that I needed a qualification if I was going to go into senior management roles within finance, and it seemed the right time to study for ACCA while I was still quite young in my career. So I decided to give it a go on my own, paying for it myself and using my holiday to study. But it just didn’t work. I failed my first attempt quite badly and realised that if I was going to be serious about it, I was going to have to change my job.
I moved to Mars Chocolate UK, which offered study support with the role, which was fantastic. It meant that I got extra time off for exams and to go to classes, and the company paid all the fees as well. It was a big burden off me.
"I wanted to go bigger"
After two years I’d completed my ACCA qualification and although Mars is a huge company, I felt I wanted to go bigger. When the opportunity came to move into oil and gas, I thought it would be really different and I’d gain a lot in my career in terms of the scale of the industry.
My ACCA qualification has certainly helped. I wouldn’t have got a foot in the door to begin with if I hadn’t had it, and it’s helped with promotion—I started in January 2013, and since then I’ve had four roles and two promotions. In my current role focused on western Africa, qualifications are really important. When you go out and speak to the teams there and you’re working with suppliers, they do ask about what you’ve studied and what your background is.
Making a difference
I’ve been working on western Africa as a planning and performance manager for a year and a half now. That means flying out to Africa for a week every couple of months. The development is happening on the maritime border between Senegal and Mauritania, and you can see it from the shore in Saint Louis. It’s a 30-year project and we know that over those 30 years the countries are going to change completely. Even two years from now, they’ll be completely different, which is amazing to envisage.
We’re now looking at other African countries within my role and doing studies in Madagascar, Gambia and Ivory Coast, so I’m hoping to be able to travel there soon as well. I have to start learning French pretty quick. We have classes every week. It’s tough—mais c’est bien!