‘Consultancy, Careers and CIMA’ – The Inaugural CIMA Guest Speaker Series

Dr Ruth Mattimoe, CIMA Advocate of DCU Business School and Claire Lambert, Associate Manager of Student Recruitment at CIMA, together with Elaine Daly Careers Advisor of DCU Careers Service were delighted to welcome a number of distinguished speakers to the Business School for the Inaugural CIMA Guest Speaker Series entitled “Consultancy, Careers and CIMA“.

On Monday March 26th 2018, Alan Flanagan, Partner, Deloitte Consultancy and Adrian Cronin, Research and Strategy Lead, Ervia, Cork City, both CIMA members, headlined the event by giving very interesting talks about how their careers evolved, the trigger for each of them to do the CIMA qualification and the need for continual learning to cope with the demands of the workplace. Alan Flanagan also mentioned the huge increase in graduates doing the CIMA qualification in his consultancy division, based on his own initiative.

This was followed by a special “Careers Lines” session where 5 speakers gave accounts of their work roles and of the need to be able to cope with change, be resilient and see opportunities to mould one’s career path, once employed.

The Career Line speakers, some of which were graduates of DCU Business School’s Masters in Management (Strategy) and Masters in E-Commerce, were :

Aisling McEvoy O‘Connor, a 2016 graduate of the Masters in Management (Strategy) and doing CIMA, who works in Strategy and Operations in Deloitte
Una OBrien, a manager in Financial Services in EY and doing CIMA
Lee Hargadon, Consultant, SQS Group, IFSC and a BBS and MECB graduate of DCU Business School

Maria Ryan, Global Head Open Collateral Operations at Citi and a BBS Finance graduate from DCU Business School, also with a Professional Diploma in Compliance from the Institute of Bankers (2012) and is a CIMA member
Paul Walsh, UCC graduate in Government, CIMA (2015) who works in Group Finance, Glanbia, on SAP projects.

Finally, we are most appreciative of the wonderful presentation by Elaine Daly, Careers Advisor, DCU Careers Service, who finished up the event with a “What’s Next” session outlining the advice and services available from Careers. She particularly mentioned the need for tailoring the CV and highlighting your strengths and for having a unique selling point at interviews, to match your skill sets with the requirements of the employer.