Meet the next generation of female accountants

The International Council for Small Business (ICSB) identified the leadership of women and youth as a trend shaping micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSME) through 2024.

Women are still the minority across the accountancy industry.

ONS data from March 2023 reveals that women make up 41.1% of finance professionals:

• 44.6 per cent of chartered and certified accountants
• 37.5 per cent of finance and investment analysts and advisors
• 45.3 per cent of taxation experts

The scale tips the other way for bookkeepers, payroll managers and wages clerks – women make up 69.5 per cent of that cohort.

In this article, we speak to two women about their accountancy careers, the challenges they have faced in their roles and how they plan to pass the baton to other young women coming through the ranks.

Rachel Harris, Director, StriveX

As a young woman who “absolutely loved” maths, StriveX Director Rachel Harris found comfort in the “explicit clarity and organisation of numbers”.

“I was told by a careers adviser at school that most people who love maths become actuaries or accountants but that I had ‘too much personality’ to do those jobs,” she says.

“I took that away with me, and went online to do lots of personality tests and quizzes to see what job I might like in the future – a lot of them came out as an accountant.”

After school, Harris undertook a Business Administration apprenticeship in the finance department of her local council while also attending night school to complete her qualification. She credits the apprenticeship with giving her the soft skills that helped her succeed in her future roles, both in-house at technology companies and in accountancy firms.

She has since gone on to found one of the UK’s fastest-scaling accountancy practices, alongside a thriving community on social media.

“I’m disrupting the accounting industry with my online community [@accountant_she] of more than 90,000 accountants, students and business owners,” she says, explaining her goal of increasing access to financial education and lowering the barriers to entry into the profession.

So far in 2024, she has appeared on prime time television on This Morning and BBC News discussing the finance industry and promoting financial wellbeing, as well as in Forbes.

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She expects the year ahead to hold more content, more in person events, more community building, more impact and (in her words) “more Barbie fuelled accounting content!”.

“I’m hugely passionate about lowering the barriers to entry for everyone entering the industry and I do have a specific passion for supporting women. I’m a key signatory on the Women in Finance Charter, work very closely with government on legislative changes and worked very hard on the recent amendments to the UK angel investment thresholds which impacted women disproportionately.”

Kat Wellum-Kent, Founder/CEO, Fractional Finance

Fractional Finance Founder Kat Wellum-Kent realised from a young age that accountancy was for her. She traces the knowledge back to the many hours she spent as a child helping her dentist dad reconcile his practice accounts on a large paper ledger.

“I can remember a Saturday afternoon when I was about 13,” she says. “He'd been trying to get the bank accounts to reconcile and they wouldn't. He took a break and went to do some gardening. I sat there for an hour trying to work out what was missing. When he came back, it all agreed and I felt proud that I'd done it.”

From that point on, she knew a career in accountancy was calling. First she studied Accounting & Finance at Warwick University before undertaking certification while working for Deloitte, where she stayed for 16 years.

She says that “a message from the universe” in the summer of 2022 set her on course to found her business.

First she met Michelle Kvello, a fellow Top 50 Women In Accountancy winner, who is based in Sydney. Following a lunch with Kvello in London, Wellum-Kent sat in the park and sketched out the bones of what would become Fractional Finance.

“I came into some money through an inheritance that meant I had a 12-month runway to quit my job and grow the business, before I needed it to be profitable,” she says.

“So on 15 July, I quit my job and incorporated Fractional Finance Limited. I can honestly say that I have never looked back.”

In that short time, the business has grown to a team of six servicing 14 clients. However, building the business has not been without challenges.

“Growing up, I lacked confidence and was always looking for approval and recognition from others. I would avoid conflict at all costs and make decisions that allowed me to blend in with the crowd. My inner critic was constant, and I tended to catastrophise, turning every small issue into a possible disaster,” she says.

“All of these traits would make starting and scaling a business more challenging.

“I had started addressing these issues a couple of years ago, as they were holding me back in my career. But once I made the decision to start Fractional Finance, I got laser focused.”

Wellum-Kent committed to 12 months of mentoring with a more experienced female entrepreneur who had scaled and exited a seven-figure business.

“I had monthly coaching sessions to clear other blocks I had and to stop behaviour patterns that weren't moving me closer to my goals,” Wellum-Kent says.

“I made time to reflect on the resistance I was feeling, the stories I was telling myself, and the real facts.”

That work meant that when a month’s sales didn’t meet her expectations, Wellum-Kent didn't panic, but carried on.

“It meant that when opportunities went quiet after I sent a proposal, I didn't think that meant they thought it was rubbish, and so would all the other leads.

“It meant when prospects asked about our pricing, I explained our approach with confidence.

“It meant I could show up on LinkedIn as my authentic self without apology, or worrying that I might stand out. Instead, I hoped that I would.”

The year ahead, she hopes, will be slightly less intense, incorporating “intentional slack” into her days and weeks. She is making time to think and become more proactive, as well as taking part in a six-day retreat in Bali with her mentor.

She also remains an active member of the Global Women's Accounting Influencers.

“The group gave me the nudge I needed to share my story about being paid less than a male colleague in the same role. Sharing our experiences, and giving others the courage to share theirs, is the first step in highlighting the inequity that still exists within the profession.”