Yvonne chats about: Future Skills for Accountants with the IMA

We don't often hear from the people who SET the competency requirements for the professional qualifications. These are the competencies that the profession stipulates their members must have before they can use the designation. (whatever that may be). Obviously, these competencies will flow down to the studying that students are prescribed and impact their syllabus and exams. I chatted to Dennis Whitney, Senior Vice President of Certifications, Exams and Content Integration. The IMA is the Institute of Management Accountants (https://www.imanet.org/), and I chatted to Dennis about WHAT new competencies they're bringing into their professional qualification, based on what society is expecting, and very importantly, how this impacts students, and what students should be thinking of. Our topic? I wanted to talk about the skills and future knowledge that accountants will need. 0:00 What we'll cover 0:31 Dennis's role at the IMA and his background 2:10 Setting the competencies from the profession's perspective 3:03 What skills will future accountants need? 7:50 Creating info vs Translating, interpreting and adding value to info 9:23 Why are the Big4 not hiring so many accountants anymore... why?! 11:16 What new competencies are there in the profession would surprise students? 13:33 Are students aware of these changes and the importance of these skills? 15:50 Students got INTO accounting because of their skills with numbers... how do they shift this? 18:40 Suggestions for students? 22:00 Creativity and innovation 23:40 Can we shift our skills?