Outside the profession, accounting may be unfairly considered a desk-bound job with limited opportunity for travel and adventure. However, for those with the CA designation, the reality is the opposite. International work, particularly across Asia, has boosted careers, broadened networks and shaped leadership styles.

Hong Kong, currently celebrating 50 years of CA ANZ presence, has been home to thousands of those stories. Among them are three members who have built enviably adventurous global careers – John Spence FCA, Donna Buckland FCA and Angelina Kwan FCA. Each says international experience doesn’t just make you better at your job, it changes the way you see the world.

For Spence, managing director of Asian Capital Advisors and an honorary adviser to the CA ANZ Hong Kong Overseas Regional Council, his CA designation was the foundation for decades of cross-border leadership in insurance and financial services.

Spence began his career in Sydney with a sponsorship from Peat Marwick Mitchell & Co. (now KPMG) that saw him attending university full-time and working for the business during university holidays. His first audit assignment was with a life insurer and that, plus other early work experiences, proved catalytic. 

His CA training, discipline and professional grounding paved the way for roles in Sydney, then Melbourne, Canada and ultimately Hong Kong, where he has lived for 25 years.

“I think being a chartered accountant gives you the broadness of knowledge to understand a business,” says Spence, who has just returned from a business trip to Kuala Lumpur. “It becomes inherent. It’s a discipline, a framework to work to.”

For Buckland, 2025 chair of the CA ANZ Hong Kong Overseas Regional Council, global mobility was not a bonus: it was the entire point. Her career spans Hong Kong, the UK and 24 markets across Asia and Africa.

“A CA designation has been a perfect credential for my work,” says Buckland, currently holding several board and advisory positions, and guest lecturing at HKU Business School during a break from corporate life. “By definition, the way you are qualified as a CA means you need to have determination and you need to have curiosity.”

Those qualities, she says, opened the door to Hong Kong and, from there, to an extraordinary multicultural career. “It gave me a licence to adventure,” she says.

Kwan, CEO of Stratford Finance and a long-time adviser to the CA ANZ Hong Kong Overseas Regional Council, agrees.

“The credential opens a million doors,” she says, speaking to Acuity from Phuket, where she has been presenting at a post-quantum blockchain conference. “It gives opportunities you’d never think you would get and it’s a precursor throughout your career to setting you up for something even better, something even more amazing.”

Working across cultures

By gaining experience in new cultures, Spence says, a professional shift inevitably occurs not so much because of the technical work but because of the people, places and patterns. In fact, he says, experience in Asia is essential to understanding how regional business works.

Working across Japan, Indonesia, India, the Philippines and beyond, Spence learned that cultural literacy is not a soft skill, it’s a strategic one.

“It makes you better at what you do because when you’re talking to clients or counter parties, you have a framework to understand where they’re coming from,” he says. “You understand what’s happening on the ground in their country, and why they would have certain concerns and certain issues they want to deal with.

“The second thing is, a lot of interactions are around pattern recognition. Because you’ve had these experiences and seen these concerns, you’ve also seen what the arguments are to assist in providing real solutions.”

Buckland agrees, saying experience in various Asian territories is important in helping professionals realise that Asia is far from homogenous. "What works in Thailand differs from Vietnam and Vietnam differs from Cambodia," she says.

Her decade-long tenure at a global insurer headquartered in Hong Kong, overseeing strategic finance initiatives across Asia and Africa, required a strong grasp of different market nuances.

“Aligning group vision across regions meant learning each market’s specifics, which improved my adaptability and flexibility,” she says.

Cross-border experience strengthens judgement, leadership skills and even courage, Kwan says. She was once sent into a foreign country to lead an internal audit investigation for a large financial services institution, where it was suspected a senior executive had stolen a large sum of money.

“We needed to find the funds and bring her to justice,” Kwan says. “She was using the funds to bribe people and for once in my life, I was actually scared. I also felt protective over my staff because in that particular country, bad things could happen.

“So, there was fear and there was excitement. And you know what? I found where that person had stored the funds. I was able to give a full report and we brought the person to justice. Accounting and internal audit taught me to find and trace the breadcrumbs.”

Advice for CAs considering moving abroad

For those considering an international posting, particularly in Hong Kong:

• Be open-minded and stay curious: “Sometimes common sense is not that common … so be open-minded because every opportunity is another lesson,” Buckland says.
• Learn fast and stay humble: “If you think you’re hot and you know all you need to know, you’re wrong,” Kwan says. “Always continue to learn from your elders, learn from your bosses and work hard.”
• Listen deeply to build cultural intelligence: “You have to treat people with respect, listen carefully and probe,” Spence says. “To do great business you need to really understand the business.”
• Use your CA qualification as a passport: Buckland emphasises the strength of the Global Accounting Alliance. “It facilitates talent mobility and it’s a great passport for a global professional career,” she says.
• Seek adventure and be willing to grow: “Always remain open to opportunities as they will give you an arsenal of abilities you can call on,” Kwan says. “And once you learn, then you can teach.”

CA ANZ Hong Kong’s 50th anniversary

Today, Hong Kong is home to more than 1000 CA ANZ members, many in senior leadership roles across banking, insurance, consulting, technology and public practice.

As Buckland, originally from New Zealand, notes, the Hong Kong milestone coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the CA ANZ amalgamation “Not many professional bodies merge this successfully,” she says. “It’s a credit to both organisations.”

Over the next 50 years, a new generation of CAs will make Hong Kong their home. And, if the experiences of Buckland, Kwan and Spence are anything to go by, they will have plenty to write home about.