Q& A With ACCA Southern Africa Head  Portia Mkhabela.

Portia Mkhabela -Market Head For Association Of Chartered Certified Accountants Southern Africa sheds light on the work of ACCA and industry perspectives in a Q &A with PAV. Currently led by one of its many female Chief Executives, ACCA has continued to close gender gaps in its leadership, with several functions and country offices now led by women, including South Africa and the wider southern Africa region, Portia Mkhabela says.

Can you Highlight the major milestones of ACCA in advancing financial inclusion in the continent?

ACCA's focus when it comes to inclusion is primarily around creating opportunity and equal access for everyone in the accountancy and finance profession.

As far back as 1909, ACCA began to lay the foundations of inclusion in the global profession by being the first professional accountancy body to admit a female member and the first one to produce a female president, decades later.

In the last 100 years, ACCA has remained committed to driving inclusion, not only in how we engage our stakeholders but also in how the organisation is managed. Currently led by one of its many female Chief Executives, ACCA has continued to close gender gaps in its leadership, with several functions and country offices now led by women, including South Africa and the wider southern Africa region which I am responsible for.

The last Africa members Convention is another testament to this commitment, as we saw female thought leaders and industry experts make up 40% of our speakers line up - a 100% markup on the number of female speakers we worked with in 2017 when we first hosted the convention in Addis Ababa.

What are some of the challenges and opportunities in advancing women entrepreneurs access to finance in Africa?

The African Development Bank estimates a $42 billion financing gap for African female entrepreneurs as they continue to face unique barriers such as prohibitive interest rates, simply because they are considered riskier to lend to.

We are however seeing great opportunities for entrepreneurs and business owners to access greener and cheaper sources of finance by embedding sustainability across the entire value chain of their businesses.

In a recent study around green finance skills, we recommend that governments and businesses need to work together in ensuring that the gender perspective is embedded in maximising global climate investments and to increase the number of women and girls educated and trained in STEM and sustainability-related fields. This way, more female entrepreneurs are better equipped to take advantage of the influx of green finance opportunities, especially into Africa.

 In your opinion and from policy perspective, what can be done to accelerate a more inclusive C-suite for most corporates?

We recently explored how professionals can better lead inclusively and found that over 50% of accounting and finance professionals engaged across Africa were unsure about what to do in promoting inclusivity in the profession.

There is a need for increased individual and organisational responsibility through greater awareness and advocacy on the gaps that need to be closed. More so, organisations must move from a place of compliance to where their organisational culture leads the diversity and inclusion agenda.

At ACCA, this has therefore become a key focus area which we drive through our public affairs and policy engagement strategy in Africa, to promote the UN- SDG on Gender Equality (SDG-5). We are working with our ACCA communities and female senior members in Africa to demystify male dominance in the accountancy profession and boardrooms.

Male led startups across the continent continue to attract investors and funding compared to female led ones, why do you think that is the case and how this improved?

While ACCA is not best positioned to give a view on the gender dynamics around access to startup funding, we believe that the accountancy profession has an increasing role to play in leading the journey to social equity, by accounting for value in a way that helps investors make funding decisions based on a broader view of performance, taking into account the risks and opportunities that should really be material and free to bias.

A lot of startups have of late struggled to maintain and accelerate growth with some collapsing after raising huge amounts of funding, why do you think this is the case? What are they not doing right?

Our recent study on integrated thinking finds that for SMEs to survive, the ability to apply integrated thinking in adapting business models to key internal and external factors, in a way that ensures long term value creation is crucial.

We believe that SMEs must also be supported by the right policies and enabling business environment needed to succeed, having adopted an integrated approach to business decision making and value creation.

 What are some of the strategic plans are you putting in place to realise your vision for the next 5 to 10 years?

We are committed to our strategic focus of being bold and seizing opportunities for the future. One fundamental strategy at the heart of this commitment is an investment in digital transformation.

From optimising internal use of our resources to scaling impact in the marketplace with greater speed, ACCA is poised to boldly deliver on its vision of being No1 in developing the accountancy profession the world needs, leveraging digital transformation and continuous innovation.

Do you have funding or scholarship opportunities for the young girls/women interested in pursuing careers in finance or accountancy? 

Being an equal opportunity driven organisation, ACCA's scholarship opportunities such as the Africa Student Scholarship Scheme are open to all students who meet the criteria. However, through our members, we continue to support the needs of various groups of students including the Simpson Scholarship awards for distinction students and the ACCA Women's Network Nigeria for exceptional female ACCA students in Nigeria.