Career Options

Working Abroad

On the Road Again

Three accountants who jet around the world for their jobs explain the highs and the lows of travelling for business.

by Yves Schaëffner

[ 2009-08-25 ]

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Étienne Poulin, M. Sc., CMA, Senior Advisor, CRC Sogema, photographed in Montenegro.
Photo: Patrick Tarraf

A new generation of accountants have traded their calculators for their passports as their must-have professional accessory. Étienne Poulin, Jean Gagnon and Mathieu Jacques have all been globetrotting while crunching numbers for Canadian companies. For these accountants, commuting has involved much more than merely hopping on a commuter rail into a city’s financial district.

From Europe to Africa to North America, they all have been to seemingly glamorous and exotic locations but they all know that travelling for work has its ups and downs. Each experience is unique – Étienne Poulin is usually abroad for several weeks at a time, Jean Gagnon returns home every weekend, while Mathieu Jacques totally relocated, living as an expat in a foreign country – but they all agree that working abroad is a rewarding experience. And they’re not just talking frequent flier miles.

From Rwanda to Kosovo

Today, Étienne Poulin, a 33-year-old Certified Management Accountant, can pack a suitcase in a record time. “At a certain point, you get used to it. It takes me less than 30 minutes to pack and to be ready to hit the road again,” says the seasoned traveller a few days after landing at Montreal’s Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport from Kosovo.

In the last four years, Poulin has collected passport stamps from Antigua, Dominica, Madagascar, Rwanda, Senegal and Kosovo. Who picks up the bills for sending him to these exotic locations? CRC Sogema, a management consulting firm specializing in the implementation of large-scale projects in developing countries. Senior Advisor Poulin assists governments in implementing IT systems that calculate taxes and revenues.

Before working for CRC Sogema, Poulin never expected that his CMA certification would take him to the far reaches of the world – and so often. “I didn’t think that I would conduct so many missions abroad, but it was an aspect of my career that I wanted to develop,” he admits.

Until now, the highlights of his travelling-accountant career have taken place in Rwanda and Senegal. “Arriving in Rwanda ten years after the genocide was something,” he says. “There is a history when you get there. You don’t know what to expect. You wonder: ‘Is it going to be violent? Are people psychologically scarred? Etc.’ Then, you realize that after 10 years people have successfully turned things around and the situation has evolved. Personally, I was impressed to see how people can resume their normal lives after such an event.”

Work-wise, his experience in Senegal has been his most rewarding. Based in Dakar for a year and a half, he had to work on a project with the government to develop a system that manages taxes and revenues for the country. “I worked on the project from A to Z. It was great going through the whole process.”

During his stay in Senegal’s capital, he particularly enjoyed having to work with the locals. He was in charge of training them and making sure that the system was running smoothly. “Because we are working in developing countries, there is another rewarding side. You feel that you are doing something that can be really helpful. You are helping them to develop and increase their revenues to invest in their country,” says Poulin.

Home sweet home

Naturally, not everything can be rosy even when the world becomes your oyster. The most difficult thing for Poulin? Being far away from his friends and family. Birthdays, births, weddings – he doesn’t count anymore how many events he has missed whilst working abroad.

Poulin is not the only accountant-without-borders who distance as a downside. Jean Gagnon, a Certified General Accountant who usually spends two weeks a month on the road, found it somewhat difficult to be constantly estranged from his family.

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DID YOU KNOW?
According to a 2008 survey by Robert Half Management Services, 71% of US CFOs think that working abroad will soon be “necessary” for accountants. While the professionals we interviewed have more moderate views on the subject, they agree working abroad is a good idea. “It’s always a plus to see how things work somewhere else,” says Étienne Poulin, Senior Advisor at CRC Sogema. “It’s a worthwhile asset for accountants,” adds Jean Gagnon, Vice-President and CFO of Dialogic.

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