For Chris Adonis ACMA (pictured), head of internal audit at Qatar Fuel Additives Company, working abroad has brought many new challenges, benefits and dilemmas. This is the first in a series of articles tracking CIMA members’ careers as they move around the globe.
Please describe your career history and your current role?
In the early '80s I worked for a national life assurance company. I progressed to internal audit manager and later participated in major project management teams.
I qualified with CIMA in 1987.
When the opportunity came to work abroad, I used this as another dimension and challenge in my life. My current role involves managing an internal audit department of two people in a petrochemical company with 250 staff.
However, I’m just about to move to another company, Qatar Petroleum International.
Where are you from originally? Why did you move to Qatar?
I was born in South Africa, and started my working life in Cape Town and Bellville.
Having always cherished the idea of working abroad, I simply applied in September 2000 and was recruited through a South African agency for this work in Qatar, which is a small but gas rich Middle Eastern country. My main job was to set up an internal audit function. For seven years I was the only auditor. The relocation idea was not well received by my wife, but now she enjoys being an expatriate more than I do.
How does it feel to be working in a different country?
Work all over the world is much the same. You address similar challenges from time to time.
The Arabian Gulf is somewhat more challenging. You work with so many nationalities - 27 in our company - each with their own mother tongue.
The tax environment in Qatar adds to the pleasure of working in the sense that your earnings tend to go further.
Do you think it’s easier to find work in the Middle East compared to South Africa? Have economic factors such as the global downturn or shift towards growth in developing countries played a part in your decision?
Finding work abroad was easy for me, although it was almost ten years ago. But I think even today it is easier than finding work in my native country.
The dilemma we face is that, to have comparative living standards, requires moving into a much more senior position back home. As a South African I feel guilty for not ploughing my talents back in to the country that developed me. I have to live with this.
The main factor for my decision was a break from the routine, but subsequently the global downturn and growth in developing countries helped to keep us abroad.
Did you find it difficult adapting to life in Qatar?
Settling into a new environment was no real problem as the people at work support you. Qatar is a very friendly and accommodating country. Initially my wife could not find work easily, as the concept of the professional career woman took time to develop.
We need to respect the different cultures and you soon learn what is taboo. We quickly adapted to a different social life. In one aspect we are fortunate as this environment is more conducive to raising families. We had more time to spend with the children and their schooling and sports.
Did your CIMA qualification, finance skills and experience help you obtain work abroad? Have they helped you in your current role?
My CIMA qualification has shaped my approach to work. I focus a lot on problem solving and decision making when I analyse matters and in communication to the management, audit committee and board members. This qualification was not so well known in the Middle East ten years ago but work on raising awareness is reaping benefits now.
So I would not say the qualification, finance skills and experience directly assisted me in recruitment, but definitely indirectly through my responses on interview questions.
It has certainly, for example, enabled me to enter into convincing discussions with management when they followed a profit maximisation strategy.
Do you have any advice for CIMA members thinking of working in the Middle East?
The number of projects where costing and management information is required is growing. CIMA members can contribute tremendously by improving the financial reporting to management and boards.
What has been the best thing about working abroad?
Having more time on hand to read and indulge in personal health care. Being located centrally in the world, spending holidays in different countries is also more affordable, but I love going back to South Africa each year. I owe this to my parents who love having our kids around them once a year for almost three months.
And the worst?
I miss the mountains and the waves. Being a keen hiker I catch up on this during my annual retreat to SA. The waves in Qatar are restive and calm. I like swimming in the rolling icy cold waves of Cape Town.
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Certificate in Islamic Finance