INTHEBLACK October 2021 - Magazine - Page 23
from a desk job, away from sitting in an office. It can enable
you to travel around the world, because business is so much
more internationalised. And, while I travel, I can take my
camera and take photos.”
After graduating from the University of Miami with
a masters of business administration in accounting, Jui
knew he’d likely have to spend five or six years in a major
accounting firm to earn his auditing stripes, before getting a
chance to travel. “But I wasn’t a very patient person,” he says.
In his first job with EY, his clients were hospitals, old
people’s homes and medical clinics – not exactly global,
glamour businesses. He fed his obsession with international
matters by reading The Economist. One day, he saw an ad
in the magazine for auditors required by Arthur Andersen’s
Shanghai office. He applied and got the job.
Jui had not been back to Asia since he left as a teenager.
“It was a real culture shock for me,” he says. “I looked like
everybody else, but I didn’t behave like everybody else.”
However, just as he’d done several times in the past, Jui
wholeheartedly threw himself into learning and experiencing
a new culture.
Eight years in China were followed by a role with the US
Government’s capital markets securities regulator, the US
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). In his role
as the associate chief accountant in the SEC’s Office of the
Chief Accountant in Washington, DC, Jui was able to work
with regulators around the globe.
This exposure led to his being appointed to the IAASB,
first as a technical adviser on the IAASB and International
Federation of Accountants board, and currently as the
organisation’s deputy chair. He is also a member of the
ChiNext Board Listing Committee with the Shenzhen
Stock Exchange and a member of CPA Australia’s Centre
of Excellence for External Reporting.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS AUDIT HEADING?
Jui’s varied roles have given him a unique view over the audit
function, including its current and future states.
The pace of change in audit, as in almost every other facet
of accounting, is accelerating dramatically, Jui says. This is
partly because technology has changed, but also because of
the pace of globalisation.
“We think about accounting and auditing as a lot of
numbers, a lot of books and records on paper,” Jui says. “But
now you can do a business transaction from your phone. You
can do your banking or order takeaway from an app. That
information is not paper-based any more. It is in the cloud,
in a database somewhere.”
This means that such data, like Jui’s career, is borderless. It
can travel and be accessed from anywhere. It may no longer
only be restricted by national rules and shaped by national
frameworks, but instead is part of a new global accounting
order. This is why auditors need to change their mindset.
“Accounting has been such a traditional, conservative type
of profession for such a long time,” Jui says. “An accountant
has traditionally gone through an apprentice type of process,
spending 10 to 15 years in a firm to become a partner.
“Audit as a profession is about
protecting the public, so we will
always need public trust. To achieve
that in a global environment, we need
people speaking the same language.”
“But people now, particularly the younger generations,
don’t have the patience to be sitting for five or 10 years in
a desk job. Now, people are more innovative. They want to
be creative. They want a work–life balance and they want
life experience.”
The new world of audit – where auditors must learn
about and adjust to different practices, laws, regulations and
standards across numerous jurisdictions – is one that offers
such experience.
Jui says at present, 130 of 200-plus jurisdictions are
using the International Standards on Auditing, and
70-plus jurisdictions, mostly developing countries, are not.
“But the largest economies in the world, and the majority
of countries, are using international standards. If we’re
playing in a global economy, we all should be applying
the same standards.
“Audit as a profession is about protecting the public, so
we will always need public trust. To achieve that in a global
environment, we need people speaking the same language.
“I think of it the same way I think of photography. When
you take a picture, it seems very transparent, and it seems
as if it represents reality. But you can take pictures from
different angles, making things look different.
“A different perception, shadow and highlights might
distort the reality of what we’re looking at. Financial
information is no different. The future of audit is about
ensuring all photographers shoot the same way, through
the same lens, producing clear and consistent realities.”
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TO BORROW
Auditing,
Assurance
Services and
Forensics
from the
CPA Library
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