From insight to influence, CPA Australia shapes the finance leaders of tomorrow

The Edge Singapore

Oct 07

Finance leaders have evolved from being custodians of historical financial data to architects of forward-looking decisions.Much has been said about how the adoption of AI and technology is enhancing ...

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overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nFrom insight to influence, CPA Australia shapes the finance leaders of tomorrow\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-10-07 00:00 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/special-feature/insight-influence-cpa-australia-shapes-finance-leaders-tomorrow?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Tiger_Brokers_app_RSS><strong>The Edge Singapore</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>Finance leaders have evolved from being custodians of historical financial data to architects of forward-looking decisions.Much has been said about how the adoption of AI and technology is enhancing ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/special-feature/insight-influence-cpa-australia-shapes-finance-leaders-tomorrow?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Tiger_Brokers_app_RSS\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"QTOC","symbol_name":"Innovator Growth Accelerated Plus ETF - October","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/special-feature/insight-influence-cpa-australia-shapes-finance-leaders-tomorrow?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Tiger_Brokers_app_RSS","article_id":"2673309019","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":{"source":"edge_highlight","url":"https://www.theedgesingapore.com/news/special-feature/insight-influence-cpa-australia-shapes-finance-leaders-tomorrow?utm_source=Blog&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Tiger_Brokers_app_RSS","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2673309019","pubTimestamp":1791302400,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"edge_highlight","name":"Edge"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Finance leaders have evolved from being custodians of historical financial data to architects of forward-looking decisions.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"theedgesingapore.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"QTOC":"Innovator Growth Accelerated Plus ETF - October","VTHR":"Vanguard Russell 3000 ETF","AIPO":"Defiance AI and Power Infrastructure ETF","CHAT":"ROUNDHILL GENERATIVE AI & TECHNOLOGY ETF","AGIX":"通用人工智能 ETF-AGIX","ARTY":"ISHARES FUTURE AI & TECH ETF"},"translate_title":"从洞察力到影响力，澳大利亚注册会计师协会塑造未来的金融领袖","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"VTHR":0.9,"AIPO":0.9,"CHAT":0.9,"QTOC":0.9,"AGIX":0.9,"ARTY":0.9},"content_text":"Finance leaders have evolved from being custodians of historical financial data to architects of forward-looking decisions.Much has been said about how the adoption of AI and technology is enhancing efficiency and increasing productivity.\nThis is confirmed by CPA Australia's own survey which found that investment in technology consistently strengthens business performance.\nAccording to the CPA Australia Business Technology Report 2026, organisations that harness technology are more likely to be more profitable and operationally efficient, with artificial intelligence (AI) helping to increase productivity and improve the experience of employees.\nThe report highlights accounting and finance teams are most likely to use AI in data analytics, insights, communications, administrative process automation, data quality and workplace learning, highlights the report.\n\"The volume and speed of data have increased, and a finance leader can no longer personally process every document, transaction or market update using traditional methods,\" notes Andy Lee, a CPA Australia member and finance director at STTGDC. \n\nFinance leaders evolving from insight to influence\nLee says finance leaders have evolved from being custodians of historical financial data to architects of forward-looking decisions. In the fast-moving data centre sector where Lee operates, this means decisions must be made quickly using large volumes of data from multiple sources. \n\"How do we make decision at speed? The data centre sector changes rapidly,\" says Lee. \"It's important to have empowered finance leaders that can use the data available to guide them quickly and accurately.\"\nDue to technology augmenting capabilities, Lee adds that stakeholders increasingly value finance leaders' ability to interpret data, anticipate risks, challenge assumptions and communicate what should happen next.\n\"When information can be searched, analysed and visualised in a matter of minutes, finance teams can devote more attention to interpreting insights, anticipating risks and supporting better business decisions,\" Lee says.\nEchoing similar sentiments, Dominic Ong FCPA (Aust.), CFO of wealth platform Endowus, says that expectations of response speed from finance leaders have changed, with boards and investors expecting answers in days rather than weeks.\n\"There's more automation, and more is now possible than ever before. This means businesses expect finance leaders to expand their scope beyond the traditional accounting function,\" suggests Ong.\nOng says that the biggest shift he has observed is finance leaders becoming business leaders, particularly in growth start-ups environments.\n\"Certainly, with the CFOs I meet, more of them seem to hold formal business responsibilities along with their finance roles, says Ong.\nIn addition, changing stakeholder expectations and an increasingly complex business environment are both driving this evolution of finance leaders into business leaders.\n\"Interest-rate volatility, geopolitical risk, regulation, sustainability requirements and rapid technological development are interconnected, and finance teams have to bring those issues together into a coherent view,\" says Lee, adding that finance helps stakeholders to make decisions.\nAt STTGDC, Lee's responsibilities span corporate treasury activities to support the company's growth, encompassing funding and capital management, liquidity oversight, debt and risk management, equity funding, management and board reporting and providing support to subsidiaries across multiple markets.\nHe says that he enjoys his work as corporate treasury sits at the intersection of finance, strategy, risk and the capital markets.\n\"We are not only reporting what has happened, but also helping the organisation decide what it can fund, when it should fund it and how risk should be allocated,\" says Lee.\nMeanwhile, Ong's dual mandate at Endowus includes undertaking CFO responsibilities and spearheading business development. Joining a start-up, Ong had to build the finance and business development functions from scratch.\nFrom his perspective, the business environment has become less forgiving. \"After the financial crisis and the pandemic, tolerance for surprises fell close to zero, which puts finance in the room to inform decisions rather than only reporting on them.\".\nHe adds that the drive to increasing automation in the professions is also due to talent scarcity.  \"Fewer people are entering the profession in this region than demand requires, so if you cannot hire through growth, you find a way to automate it.\"\nFor context, from 2018 to 2024, the first-year intake of accountancy students at Singapore's autonomous universities declined significantly. For instance, Nanyang Technological University's accountancy intake dropped by more than 40% from 541 in 2018 to 314 in 2024.\nOverall, accountancy cohort sizes in Singapore's autonomous universities have dropped by more than 10% since 2018, according to data from the Singapore Yearbook of Manpower Statistics 2024.\nTo tackle the accounting talent shortage, the Singapore's Ministry of Finance (MOF) and the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) established the Accounting Workforce Review Committee (AWRC) in 2022 to enhance the attractiveness of the accountancy profession. In 2024, the AWRC shared a report which put forth recommendations to build a quality and sustainable talent pipeline for the accountancy profession.\nSingapore's estimated accountancy workforce was estimated to be 120,000 in 2024, up from the 100,000 in 2022. With Singapore growing as a major wealth and finance hub, demand for accounting and finance professionals is expected to grow.      \nAI as a co-pilot, not an autopilot\nBetween 2022 and 2026, businesses steadily increased their adoption of digital technologies, according to CPA Australia's Business Technology Report 2026, with AI seeing the most dramatic growth, rising from moderate usage levels to near-universal adoption in 2025 and 2026.\nFrom his personal experience, Lee says that AI has reduced the time spent searching, extracting, comparing information while accelerating the preparation of financing analyses, treasury reports and management materials. Its more strategic role is to help finance professionals identify patterns, surface exceptions and consider alternative scenarios.\nAs his AI skills and confidence in the technology grew, Lee began using AI to support decision-making by providing quicker access to relevant data, highlighting key considerations, and enabling more informed discussions with stakeholders.\n\"Rather than replacing professional judgement, AI became a tool that helped accelerate analysis, improve productivity, and free up more time to focus on strategic issues to contribute to the business,\" says Lee.\n\"I see AI as a co-pilot for finance, not an autopilot,\" he adds.\nMeanwhile for Ong, he shares that AI has helped him and his team win back time from time-consuming manual work. Examples include expediting expense claims and requests from other teams with AI.\n\"It's a productivity tool,\" Ong says.\nOng is also clear where AI is still unable to replace a human such as recording and approving transactions. He points out that AI may give his team time back, but it doesn't do the accounting.\nHe adds, \"We clearly attest in our audit reports that they are not prepared by AI. The books and accounting are entirely the work of our team.\" \nManaging risks\nFrom his perspective of working for a wealth platform, Ong shares some caution about the use of AI and how it could erode trust if not used correctly.\n\"We're in a business where trust accrues slowly but is lost very quickly. That's our business model,\" he says.\n\"A tool that makes you faster is valuable, but a tool that makes you faster and occasionally confidently wrong, with nobody checking, costs more than it saves. We have to tread very carefully, especially in the finance function.\" \nAnother risk he sees creeping across the broader workforce is the de-skilling of junior staff resulting from AI use.\n\"Junior staff used to do a lot of routine work, and that's where you learn the job and develop your instinct, but now, your juniors come in and they don't develop that instinct,\" shares Ong.\n\"That's going to be a challenge as they grow through the ranks over the next decade, because you'll have a cohort of people who have not gone through doing the grunt work and learned from it.\"\nOng adds that Endowus is deliberately keeping some of the routine work to train junior staff.\n\nThe finance leader of tomorrow\nThe new economic and business landscape requires accounting and finance leaders to develop new skills that go beyond technical accountancy expertise and AI skills.\nFor Lee, professional scepticism and judgment are needed to harness AI effectively, especially in identifying mistakes made by AI. He believes that AI should operate within a controlled finance framework.\n\"It can propose an analysis, but a finance professional remains accountable for the numbers, assumptions, interpretation and decision,\" says Lee.\nHe shares that the CPA qualification offers finance leaders both a technical foundation and an ethical compass, both of importance in an AI-enabled world.\n\"A CPA has to use their judgement to assess if the information from AI is complete, the assumptions are reasonable and the proposed action is responsible.\"\nHe adds that his CPA journey has made him a more complete finance professional, elevating him into a business leader.\n\"Becoming a CPA has complemented my background in banking, treasury and capital markets, while strengthening my ability to connect financing decisions with accounting, governance and long-term business value.\"\nSimilarly, Ong believes that being a CPA has helped develop his professional scepticism muscle. He adds that commercial judgement, communication and strategic thinking are important skills for financial and business leaders. \n\"What matters is what you do in the room when decisions are made, where you are often the only person who can see the whole picture and tie the decision back to what it does financially,\" Ong elaborates.\n\"Those are really the key skills that help you to then connect the dots between the decisions we make and the financials.\"\nOng also believes that the CPA qualification is highly recognised in the world of finance.\n\"It signals a professional standard and a code of ethics behind your judgement. The designation is also recognised across markets, so your career is not tied to a single location,\" he says.\nLead the outcome\nBeing both finance and business leaders, Lee and Ong are responsible for leading outcomes for their respective organisations. To be effective in their roles, they are active in attending continuous professional development (CPD) and networking events organised by CPA Australia, such as the CPA Congress, among others.\nAs the role of a finance professional continues to expand beyond reporting and analysis, CPA Congress 2026 focuses on how finance leaders can lead better outcomes for your business.\nThis year's programme supports finance leaders to move from insight to influence by building the systems, metrics and confidence that are required to shape results. \nOne of the overseas events will be held on Nov 5 in Kuala Lumpur. Guest speakers include Professor Kishore Mahbubani, distinguished fellow of the Asia Research Institute and former president of the UN Security Council and UOB Malaysia CEO Datuk Ng Wei Wei.\nYou may attend the event in person or join virtual live.\nRegister for CPA Congress today to forge new connections and prepare for a future where you lead the outcome!\n---\nPhoto #1: AlphaTradeZone/ Pexels\nPhoto #2: Marcus Winkler/ Pexels","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":false,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"isVideo":false,"video":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"need_login_tip":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"}}}