Achieving great heights, academically and professionally

Nadeen AbdelWahab is a Risk Assurance Associate at PwC Middle East and a student at the Academy. Her role at PwC is to assess and assist clients to improve their policies, procedures, internal controls and assist them in managing their strategic and operational risks, which is one of the reasons why she opted for the ACCA qualification, a qualification which helped her contribute to her role even more.

Nadeen has been recently announced as an ACCA Global Prizewinner for the Advanced Performance Management(APM) paper for her stellar performance in the December 2020 exam sitting! This is truly a great achievement, one which would not be possible without hard work and perseverance. But how did she get here? Read her story to find out.

How did your ACCA journey start?

During my university days, my professors always spoke very highly of the ACCA qualification and how it equipped students and professionals with the right set of skills and knowledge. Hence, since then, I have set obtaining the ACCA qualification as one of my career goals. When I joined PwC, they gave me the ultimate freedom to choose the qualifications I want to pursue and connected me with ACCA students and members to brief me on how the qualification works and how it supports their technical knowledge and skills in their daily work. This has given me the comfort to pursue my goal with all the support that PwC has given me.

What was your study plan that landed you the global prize winner status?

I followed all the instructions that the Academy’s instructor, Waleed Minhas, has provided from the first day on the course. I solved all the past papers in writing and under exam tight timing conditions to ensure I am equipped to deal with the time pressure on the exam day. Also, I did my best not to ignore any of the syllabus material even if the topic was not frequently tested before. Allocating a fixed number of hours every week was of great help to me because it is really easy to get distracted by all the work and personal commitments.

How is the ACCA qualification helping you in your current role?

After every paper I complete, I realise the tremendous amount of knowledge that I gain and able to apply in my daily work. This knowledge is not only restricted to technical accounting, finance or management knowledge, but also covers the professional skills that are heavily emphasised upon in each of the ACCA advanced papers.

Any words of advice to other students and professionals who are starting out on a similar journey?

Own your own development and plan for it well. There is no issue in seeking assistance in doing so, but beware that setting and executing this plan is your responsibility.

Always be curious to know the rationale behind any principle or task you are introduced to because technology has taken over a huge part of all jobs including accounting and will continue to do so. Therefore, make sure to always understand the ‘why’ and not the ‘how’ which will make you irreplaceable.