NOW MOTIVATE YOURSELF!!! 2.0 : Unknown Winners - Inspirational Stories of CAs in India

There are some amazing stories about CAs in India:

Prema Jaykumar

She lives out of a 300 square feet room in Mumbai along with 3 family members. Her dad drives an auto-rickshaw for a living and earns Rs 15,000 a month. So what’s so special about the lady, Prema Jayakumar? Well, she has topped the all-India Chartered Accountancy exam with a stunning total of 607 out of 800. Thanks to the national media she has rightfully attracted nation wide attention for her extraordinary performance. She clearly symbolises the spirit of “Yes We Can.”

And there were others...

Padma Harirangan

There have been others in the past who have shown similar grit. A lady, at the age of 42, on the untimely death of her young husband, decided to do CA. 4 years later she qualified at the age of 46, Padma Harirangan. This, mark it, happened in the 1980s.

B Jairam

A young lad, going 95 per cent visually challenged, underwent Internship in Chennai, attended classes like any other soul, did his reading with the help of a computer and wrote his exams with the aid of a scribe to qualify in 2006 as a CA. Today, he works with the Reserve Bank of India in Hyderabad. That’s a clear victory of mind over matter.

Ajit Shekawath

Imagine someone having cerebral palsy. This is an umbrella term that refers to physical disability in human development. Its closest cousin is spastics. It has no cure. Imagine such a person wanting to do CA. We would have laughed our heads off. Even to the best of brains CA is a challenging course. Yet a person born with such cerebral palsy cleared the CA exam in June 2009. When he passed his exams he was 27-year old.

Shailesh Ghule

He lived out of a 12x25 room in a ghetto with a family of five; born to a housemaid mother and a textile loom worker father. He himself worked as an office boy and rode 7 km to office for work. But none of this stopped Shailesh Ghule from emerging as a Chartered Accountant. Indeed, a classic case of rising above poverty to compete with those who are materially well off.

Age is matter of mind...

P S Menon

A stockbroker who had passed his CA Intermediate examination in 1987 came back nearly 20 years later to pursue his CA-Final. In his mid forties now, with a profession to look-after, he takes on the agony of the final examination and there is ecstasy in the end.

S D Bala

At age 57, a former banker, decides to take-up Chartered Accountancy undaunted. He goes through the contours of Internship, toils upwards in the night for his exams,battles with minds that are about 40 years younger than his; and in January 2002, days before he turns 60, he becomes a CA! That’s S D Bala; the man who proved that what could be imagined can be achieved.

R Balagangadharan

If these stumped you,this one will make you drop your jaws. 69 years young R Balagangadharan,partner at a top Chennai firm, registered for his ICWA and at age 72 qualified as a Cost Accountant.

Each of them symbolized the spirit of “Yes we can.”

Amazing stories of grit and of determination; stories that symbolize the spirit of “Yes We Can.” And I am sure there are more thathave not yet been heard of.

CA spawns a web of exciting winners. The daughter of an auto-driver, a widowed home-maker, a young visually challenged lad, another fighting cerebral palsy, a gentleman in his 40s,another in his late 50s and still another in his early 70s – all crack the CA code. You also can.

NOW MOTIVATE YOURSELF!! : The Inspiring Story of Akeem Oyewale

AKEEM OYEWALE

He has arguably the fastest career rise in Nigeria’s financial services industry. No, he is not the son of Mike Adenuga. His father never owned the company he worked for. He joined the firm, writing test like everyone else. His rise is phenomenal, it is teachable. His story has never been told by any newspaper or magazine before, underscoring his humble, unassuming, self-effacing, probably media-shy nature. And when I say media-shy, I don’t mean he doesn’t talk to press. But wait, he talks only about the Africa’s financial markets, not his private life. Jarushub thinks aspiring youths of today can learn a thing or two from Akeem Oyewale, the Group Head, Global Markets Sales, Stanbic IBTC Group and Director of Equities Brokerage at Standard Bank Group, the South African banking giant. Ride with us:

EARLY LIFE

• Akeem was born in October 1977 in Offa, Kwara state. He was named Oluwashina – meaning, ‘God has opened the door of success’ by his parents because his birth coincided with the period his then young parents were making financial breakthrough as young couples. You think name doesn’t matter? Give your child a good name.
• He started his elementary education at Adeola Model School, Offa, reputed to be the first private primary school in the old Kwara state (now Kwara and Kogi states). Guess what? He didn’t finish. No, he wasn’t rusticated. So brilliant was he that he was made to ‘skip’ primary six, wrote National Common Entrance Examinations at primary five in 1987, and gained admission into Offa Grammar School, Offa (do you know that almost 90% of successful personalities from this community attended this school?) . He not only coped with his ‘seniors’ in primary school at OGS, but continued the academic streak. By the time he finished secondary school in 1993, age 16, he emerged the best graduating student in the school and one of the best in Kwara state, finishing with nine distinctions, five of which were A1’s. He had A2 in English Language – that dreaded subject, and biggest headache to public secondary school pupils.
• Akeem was said to be a very studious pupil. He never played with academics. He was mostly seen reading at the school library, and at home, supported by his parents.
• The then pint-size Akeem was actually an all-rounder. It wasn’t about books alone. Everything he learns, he grasps quickly. At aged 15, he was already a good driver – well, by the rural Offa standard. Far before that age, he had completed the Qur’an in Arabic. Talk of a genius.

FROM THE ‘VILLAGE’ TO THE CITY – THE UNILAG DAYS

• Offa, even by 1993 when Akeem left, wasn’t a village per se. And even if was, the young Akeem can’t be said to be a village boy in the sense of the word, because one that had been watching CNN and aware of global events even from the remote Offa, can’t be said to be unexposed. But this is Lagos – the city of wisdom.
• In UME 1993, Akeem scored 263 (and the highest score in Nigeria at the time was a little above 280). The first candidate to score above 300 in UME was Johnson in UME 2000. (Jarushub shall track him and feature him on this platform one day. Keep visiting). That was before JAMB was bastardized and every Dick and Harry buys 300 marks.
• Yet, his admission into Unilag wasn’t exactly seamless. How on earth would someone score 263, less than 25 marks less than the score of the best candidate in Nigeria for that year, yet his name didn’t come out of first batch of admitted students? Not good, but Akeem wouldn’t want us talk ill of his revered alma mater. So we are not delving into what Unilag has turned into, not taking anything away from the good sides of the school.
• Akeem gained admission into Accounting department of Unilag in 1994, age 17. Now, why would someone that had A1 in Physics, Chemistry, amongst other Science subjects, suddenly turn to Accounting? Keep reading.

CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT BEFORE 21

• His father had always admired accountants and actually wanted him to be one, but the then principal of his secondary school was able to convince him that this boy was too good not to be a science student. He went on to finish secondary school as a science student.
• Added to that, he once told someone that, in 1993, at the 50th anniversary celebration of Offa Grammar School, after receiving his prize as best student for that year, one of the VIP alumni present, Prince Yunus Oyeleke, who was one of Nigeria’s earliest Chartered Accountants of the generation of the Doyen himself, Akintola Williams, called him aside and enlightened him on the difference between an Accountant and a Chartered Accountant. The old man’s advice to the 16-year-old Akeem stuck. Akeem started ICAN just the next year, 1994, in his year 1 in Unilag. By the time he celebrated his 21st Birthday in 1998, he was not only a graduate but a Chartered Accountant. He was one of the youngest persons to qualified as a Chartered Accountant in Nigeria. Who are your own advisers? Do you learn from masters in your trade? It isn’t too late. That is why JarusHub has dedicated this section to discuss the success of personalities.
• Akeem finished from Unilag in 1998 with Second Class Upper (Jarushub believes he was a First Class material, lost the First Class target probably because he was writing ICAN simultaneously). Yet, he finished as best student in Unilag’s faculty of Administration for that year. Actually, before he finished from Unilag, a number of job offers were flying around, including from Anderson, one of the world’s biggest accounting firms then. He wrote and passed the recruitment test of the then Investment Banking and Trust Company (IBTC) and joined the company for pre-NYSC in late 1998. He did his youth service there, and guess what, he is still with that investment banking giant today.

FROM IBTC TO IBTC-CHARTERED TOO STANBIC IBTC TO STANDARD BANK – A RISE IN LEAPS

• Akeem joined IBTC at a time the company was using a relatively small office in Marina, before its edifice at Bonny camp was completed. He was to grow with the company and rise within short time, and by 2004, at age 27, he was promoted the Chief Executive Officer of IBTC Asset Management Limited, the biggest asset management firm in Nigeria. For his role in positioning IAML he was nominated by Thisday newspaper for the award of Nigeria’s Young Manager of the Year 2006. He was later moved to IBTC Stockbroking Limited as pioneer CEO. He currently holds the dual position of Head, Global Markets Sales at the enlarged Stanbic IBTC Bank and Director, Equities Brokerage at Standard Bank.
• Despite the metamorphosis and business combinations that IBTC went through it is worthy of note they keep turning out beneficial to the young stockbroker as he continues to rise within the group.
• He became a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA) in 2008 at 31, and in addition to that he is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers of Nigeria (FCS). He also holds membership certificate of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN) and Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN). His insatiable quest for knowledge also drove him to Manchester Business School in UK, where he did his MBA.

SECRETS OF SUCCESS

• Akeem is one of the most self-effacing persons Jarushub has ever come across. So humble that when ones sees him one would not believe he is the man we have written all these about.
• He just doesn’t like the publicity and that is why he has never been featured in any formal or informal media, and his career rise is perhaps underreported. He is one that is concerned probably only about his job and family. But like a Gold Fish, Jarushub believes he has no hiding place. That is why we are the first media outfit to to bring his career under spotlight, aside the Thisday profiling in 2007.
• He is so hardworking that as the beginning of his banking career, his family members hardly saw him, as he was always leaving for work so early and returning late in the evening, sometimes going to office on weekends too. Seeth thou a man diligent in his work…….
• He is also known to be very religious and a firm believer in God and prayer in addition to hardwork. He used to recite Qur’an everyday before he leaves home for work. He also doesn’t joke with prayers for any endeavor he wants to undertake. He doesn’t drink either.
• Those that work him also testify to his uncompromising nature when it comes to integrity. To him, the right cut is the only cut.
• Perhaps driven by his humility, Akeem is not the flamboyant type. Someone once asked one of his siblings couple of years back: how can Akeem be driving Camry when people that are even lower than him in the industry drive Jeeps? No, Akeem isn’t doing Ijebu to himself; he just doesn’t believe auto ownership is where to make a statement.