UIC’s 60th High Table Dinner on 5 March saw Mr Andrew Thomson encourage students to combine expertise and business ethics on their road to becoming a great professional.
Mr Andrew Thomson is Deputy COO of Asia Pacific and Partner of KPMG, and Vice Chairman of Enactus (China), a global not-for-profit organisation focusing on social entrepreneurship.
Mr Thomson believes that a liberal arts education is “the right approach to higher education”, and he applauded a new university like UIC for choosing such a path.
In his speech at the High Table Dinner, Mr Thomson said the link must be maintained “between professional education and knowledge on the one hand, and ethics and integrity on the other”.
Based on his profession of accountancy and finance, he addressed the question, “What makes a great profession?”
The High Table Dinner audience
Mr Thomson mentioned that in modern times, the profession of engineering contributed to constructions like the Three Gorges Dam, and improved the quality of human life. However, negative effects also arose.
Engineering “achieved this greatness because extraordinary engineers employed their technical skills to the profound moral purpose of building a better society”, he said. A lesson learned from this was that accountants and financial professionals need to find their own moral purpose.
“The true greatness of accountancy and finance lies in its capacity to unlock the wealth stored up in our society for the benefit of our nations and our planet, and to keep governments and businesses accountable and free of corruption,” he continued.
Despite some unethical behaviour that has damaged their professional reputation, accountants and financiers are needed to assist other corporations and help developing countries improve their public welfare. “I can still detect a sense of arrogance in certain parts of our profession, including here in Asia,” Mr Thomson said. “I believe that the task of everyone here this evening is to show ethical leadership to rebuild the trust that our profession needs.”
Project Manager of UIC’s Four Point Education Coordination Office Mr Giff Searls raises a question to the speaker
“The accountancy and finance profession is undergoing profound change,” he added. “We have to think forwards not backwards – by changing the way we respond to our customers and by thinking about how we build new forms of value for business, government and society.”
“A certain degree of humility, integrity and cultural understanding will be necessary.”
Not only American, British and other Europeans, but Chinese businesspeople should act morally and wisely, because it is simply “the right thing to do”, and “makes good business sense”.
Mr Thomson then gave an example about how KPMG, which treats ethical leadership very seriously, advised three tumbledown companies to build a partnership together in order not to bring too much destruction to the market and employment.
“It is my hope that you will make your way in our profession – that of accountancy and finance – successfully, and with ‘a head for business, but a heart for the world’,” he concluded.
He also delivered his special thanks to Mr Giff Searls, Project Manager of UIC’s Four Point Education Coordination Office and a judge of Enactus competitions in China last year, who invited him to the dinner and explore his enormous interest in UIC.
UIC Vice President Prof Zhang Cong presents a souvenir to Mr Thomson
Reporter: Sean Chung
Photographers: Wang Ze and Song Xinyi
Editor: Deen He
(from MPRO, with special thanks to the ELC)
