Jesmin Ehsan

Full Name: Jesmin Ehsan (right) Occupation: Works in business finance  Organisation: Ericsson group CIMA Entry Route:  CIMA Level/Award achieved so far:

I have been working for Ericsson group since 2007. Since my joining, I have been working in business finance. My work involves management accounting to a great extent. I have mostly learnt various financial and accounting treatments on the job. I like working with numbers and logic so I decided to pursue functional specialisation in finance.

I am an ambitious person and I want to move up in my career. For finance people, a professional qualification is very important for career advancement. I, therefore, decided to opt for a professional qualification. CIMA seemed to be the most relevant with my choice of profession. I work in a global company; a global qualification always adds more value. CIMA won there as well. Consequently, I started doing CIMA as a part time qualification.

If I look back at my CIMA journey so far, I can safely say that my mother was the main reason behind my CIMA success. She took care of my family and me, so that I can balance full time work and part time study. I have always had a very demanding job. At the same time, I have had a great boss who supported me by cheering up, by allowing flexibility in job and by appreciating what I was doing.

Very importantly, I really enjoyed the topics I learn in CIMA. So learning in depth was never a stressful exercise. I especially loved my financial papers. I could relate my learning in CIMA to my job so well that it never seemed theoretical at all. Besides, I like to plan and then follow my plans to the last dot. I did the same with CIMA. I used to plan time for my study and I religiously followed my plan. 

My advice to the students pursuing CIMA is that they should first know why they want to do CIMA. We cannot just decide in one fine morning to go for CIMA just because we feel like it. It has to be a consciously made decision as it is a life changing and a demanding decision. When a qualification adds so much value to our life and career, it’s absolutely imperative that we put wholehearted effort in it. As long as we are committed, CIMA is ours.

After coming so far in CIMA, I can wholeheartedly say that, although my decision to pursue CIMA was a tough choice because of the need to balance work, family and study, it was indeed a rewarding experience. CIMA has made me see my work from new perspectives and made me a better finance professional in every sense.