10 January 2005
CIMA members Helen Weir, Andrew Higginson and Douglas Flint have been tipped to be among the top 50 movers and shakers for the coming twelve months. With challenging times ahead in the accountancy world, these prominent CIMA members take their place in a list published last week by Accountancy Age which includes the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.
Helen Weir, Group FD at Lloyds TSB and CIMA Fellow since February 2004, joined Lloyds TSB in April, amidst cries for more women on the boards of UK plc. This list places her as the most influential of the 13 female FTSE 100 finance directors. But tokenism this is not, as with an MBA from Stanford and four successful years as Group FD at Kingfisher, Weir is best placed to untangle some of the difficult issues of 2005.
Andrew Higginson became a CIMA Fellow in 1996, shortly before joining Tesco as Finance & Strategy Director. A Birmingham graduate and prominent CIMA member, Higginson's position on the list of opinion formers for 2005 ensures the battle of the supermarkets continues way into the New Year.
Douglas Flint, as if being FD of banking giant HSBC wasn't enough, also chairs the Financial Reporting Council's group which is currently reviewing the Turnbull guidance after five years of implementation. The mammoth task of assessing how the guidance has worked and how it could be enhanced is left in the safe hands of Flint, CIMA Fellow for over four years.
Once more, this list demonstrates the ever increasing prominence of CIMA members who are driving forward some of the world's most successful organisations.
While leading CIMA members take their place at the top tables, the recently published Robert Half Finance & Accounting 2004 Salary and Benefits Survey states that CIMA is "the most popular choice of accountancy qualification for the part-qualified finance professional." Yet again, this piece of research places CIMA at the cutting edge for finance professionals in business with its unique focus on accountants in business.
Notes to editors
CIMA members are Accountants in Business. We represent financial managers and accountants who work in industry, commerce, not-for-profit and public sector organisations. Our key activities are related to Business Strategy, Information Strategy and Finance Strategy. CIMA members are not trained in audit.
CIMA's focus is to qualify students, support members and employers, and protect the public interest. We represent the voice of over 77,000 students and 60,000 members in 154 countries.
CIMA's focus on management functions makes us unique, and we are internationally recognised as offering the financial qualification for business.
CIMA is 'rapidly becoming the chartered qualification of choice' according to recent independent research*, and we work with leading employers in the UK and around the world to train and qualify financial managers. We pride ourselves on the commercial relevance of our syllabus, which is continually enhanced to reflect the latest developments in business. In an age of growing globalisation and intensified competition, the Chartered Management Accountant is fully prepared to meet the need for timely and accurate financial information.
Our members and students work across all business sectors at all levels throughout the world, demonstrating the flexibility of the qualification
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