Profile: Henry Saville
Author:
Henry Saville
[Excerpt] I was brought up in Malahide, Co. Dublin where I lived from the age of 2 until I had to emigrate to the south side when I married Helen in 1977.
My father was from Co. Wicklow. He had started his working life in the Northern Bank but left in the late 1940s to go into business in north Co. Dublin with his three brothers, hence the Malahide connection.
My mother was from Banbridge, Co. Down but had been brought up in Belfast.
I was sent off as a boarder to Portora Royal School in Enniskillen in 1958. Although I am not quite sure how I ended up there, I stayed until 1967 and I do know that Enniskillen seemed an awfully long way from Dublin during the 60s.
When I left Portora, I studied economics and political science at Trinity College in Dublin, and graduated in June 1971 with a second class honours degree.
I always intended to become an accountant and it was a short journey from the front gate of Trinity to the front door of what was then Stokes Bros~Pim. In those days there were still five parts to the Instituteâ??s examination system of which non-relevant graduates, including economists such as myself, were only exempt from the first part. By the time I qualified in 1974 Stokes Bros~Pim had merged to become part of Stokes Kennedy Crowley and I had to migrate from College Green to Harcourt Street. My entire career has been with SKC and its successor firms, which have although manifold in terms of name, have always been the same continuing entity. Indeed, during all of my time with what is now KPMG, I only once felt sufficiently frustrated (at a very early stage in my career after qualifying and before even becoming a manager in the firm) to submit a job application elsewhere.
SKC had established an office in Belfast in 1974 and was keen to maximise the links between Belfast and Dublin. It seemed to me that there might be an opportunity for somebody who had spent a considerable amount of time training in Dublin but because of family background and schooling and so on might be able to put down roots in Belfast. I let it be known that I would be interested in moving, and the rest is history.
I was never very actively involved as a member of the Leinster Society or indeed the Student Society during my years in Dublin but when I moved to Belfast WB (Ben) Wilson, then Partner in Charge in KPMGâ??s Belfast office, himself a Past USCA Chairman, encouraged me to get involved. I have been involved on a continuous basis ever since.
I was elected to the main Ulster Society committee and subsequently served as Chairman during 1991/92 after which I stood for election to Council and was successful in a contested election.
The most important area of involvement for me both with the Ulster Society, and with the Institute, has been that of education and training. I chaired the Ulster Societyâ??s Education and Training Committee for a couple of years in the late 80s, and, as a result of that, was invited to sit on the main Education and Training Committee of the Institute. I also sat on the Professional Exam Committee which I subsequently chaired for a period during the early 90s. After my election to Council I again served on the Education and Training Committee which I chaired from 1996 until May of this year.
During my time on Council I also chaired a working party reviewing the activities and structures of District Societies as well of course as the Education and Review Group more recently.
One other committee that stands out in my mind is the Conference Committee which I chaired on the last occasion the Instituteâ??s annual conference was held in Northern Ireland. That was during Cecil Donovan's presidency in 1986 when we held the annual conference in Newcastle, Co. Down. I still remember the horror with which it became known that we had invited Hugh Leonard to be the after dinner speaker at a time when he was castigating us in the Sunday papers over the very public collapse of a well known accountancy practice in Dublin.
My involvement with the Education & Training Committee, and particularly my time as Chairman, has been a labour of love for me. It is very rewarding to be so intensely involved with issues that are critical to the continuing success of our profession.
Whilst we should be very heartened by the continuing strength of the numbers of students entering the profession - each of the last 4 or 5 years has produced successive record numbers - it is imperative that we keep on tailoring the qualification to ensure that it retains its relevance. The buoyancy of the last few years reflects in part opportunity in the marketplace where strong demand creates training opportunities but clearly the qualification itself is also attractive. Historically the Chartered Accountancy Training Contract has been perceived as a tough three years and people will only take it on if they believe that there is positive benefit on completion. Today, the need for postgraduate qualifications, and in particular postgraduate professional qualifications, is clearly understood by students entering the marketplace. The standing of the Chartered Accountantsâ?? qualification in terms of mobility within the marketplace, particularly between practice and business, commerce and the public sector, as well as the international portability of the qualification have been the major factors sustaining our strong student intake.
Emigration, once an economic imperative for young people, has in the recent past become an attractive alternative. In that context, the international portability of the Chartered Accountancy qualification, and in particular the portability of the Irish Chartered Accountantsâ?? qualification, together with the personal social skills carried so easily by so many of our young people have been a world beating combination.
In the coming year we need to do a lot of work on the Instituteâ??s finances. It is important to have significant financial reserves in order to reflect our Instituteâ??s standing reputation, to have sufficient capital to defend and develop self regulation, to maintain our ability to undertake strategic initiatives such as premises development, and to add strength in the context of potential mergers or restructuring of the profession. These are each and every one important and taken together they are a compelling reason to significantly restructure the financial reserves of the Institute.
In conclusion, I am looking forward enormously to the year ahead. I confess to being concerned about many of the challenges but I am confident of the support of my colleagues around the Council table and also that of the Institute Executive.
I look forward to meeting many members over the coming year and to representing each and every one of them to the best of my ability. And while I will be getting out and about travelling the length of the country, and indeed further afield, to ensure that I take the chance to meet as many members as possible, I hope that as many members as feel so inclined will take the opportunity to meet me and through me to feel that there is some direct contact with their Institute.
In all of the above I am blessed by the enthusiastic support of my family which at this time mainly means Helen. Both our children are at University. Indeed one, hopefully, will be a graduate by the time this appears going on to do her professional pre reg year to be a qualified optometrist. Whilst it is nice to have one's family round about one at all times the benefit of being "Darby and Joan" is that Helen and I will be able to travel together more often during the course of the Institute year. In a busy year that will be a bonus.
Accountancy Ireland Vol 33 No 3 June 2001