Member story: Zakir Vahora, Senior Tax/Treasury Project Manager, Huawei Technologies

1. Please provide a brief overview of your career to date.

I am a senior tax and treasury professional with broad in-house experience of working in leading FMCG and automotive blue chips, telecoms, financial services, retail and manufacturing sectors. My experience encompasses all aspects of management of direct and indirect tax, global tax risk planning and mitigation, tax reporting compliance, tax audit investigations, capital debt structuring, tax efficient value chain planning, risks and opportunities strategies, cross border transactions with leading edge tax governance and transfer pricing, treasury, cash liquidity and FX risk management, trade finance and effective treasury controls.

I have worked across various geographies such as EMEA, NAM, LATAM, RUSSIA & CIS, ASIA, AUSTRALIA & NZ.

2. In addition to your day-to-day role, you have a voluntary role as a treasurer for a charity. Please provide some information on why you chose to volunteer and what is involved with this role?

I am an honorary treasurer for a Parkinson’s Charity looking after the Waltham Forest branch’s treasury and banking matters. I started this volunteer role back in December 2016. I choose this volunteer position so that I could give something back to the community using the skillset I have developed over the years.

My role involves providing monthly treasury/banking reports to the Waltham Forest Committee meetings. In addition, I look after all in-goings/out-goings of funds, bank mandates, cash flows, budgets, Annual Financial Reports (AFRs), setting up budgets for future years, cash restrictions etc.

I really enjoy helping this charity. You get to meet people from a non-tax and non-financial background, your skills are appreciated and you feel you are helping the team as a whole. You meet sufferers of the Parkinson’s disease and see how unwell, poorly and in some cases lonely they really are. It can be very emotional.

3. Why do you think it is important to get involved with charitable causes?

Charities have on going expenses and they simply cannot afford to hire skilled accountants/treasurers. We can offer these charities a free hand, gain valuable experience and insight into how our communities work, who people really are, and give something back to poorly and needy individuals.

4. What do you like most about being part of the ACT?

he ACT is a young and fairly easy to approach association. I am a member of other institutes/associations but the ACT is most relevant to my role. I fit in, they listen, and as they are a bit smaller than other organisations you feel you are really listened to - you are not a small fish in a big pond. The ACT is highly respected globally, continuously feeds back to Governments and businesses. It’s more clued on to the real financial world.

5. What member benefits do you use most?

Access to the online ACT website, and in particular I look up past exam materials and examples (there’s loads of them) which I can use in my daily work. ACT updates are very useful too.

6. What advice would you give to anyone thinking of taking ACT qualifications?

Do it, it really is worth the effort. The qualifications are highly regarded and to be honest, help you to get the right financial remuneration, which matters. You can then do the MCT or another qualification to broaden your horizon but I’ve found the ACT qualification the most useful/relevant to my career in tax & treasury.

7. What has been your most memorable work moment?

Helping train my colleagues so that their work becomes easier for them which then helps the company/me as well.

8. What is the best piece of advice you have been given?

Try your best and don’t give up. Take constructive criticism well, learn from it but never let anyone put you down.

9. What book are you reading at the moment?

My youngest son’s whale adventures book, it’s really fun to read.

10. Who is your business hero?

Warren Buffet & Bill Gates