Sena Dake, President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG), has encouraged women to go into the Accountancy profession.

“As women, there is a lot more we can offer in the Accountancy profession because of our special attribute of paying attention to details,” she noted.

“I encourage a lot of women to join the practice and for a lot of young ladies to become chartered accountants,” Ms Dake said.

The ICAG President made this call during the opening session of the 2023 Practice Management Conference, as part of activities to mark ICAG’s 60th anniversary.

The conference, being the second edition, was organised by the Practice Society, the first wing of the ICAG.

It brought together accounting practitioners as well as local and international accounting firms.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency on the sidelines of the conference, Ms Dake expressed concern about the low numbers of women in the profession.

One factor that accounted for the situation, she said, was time constraints on the part of women.

She noted that the accounting profession was male-dominated because it required a lot of investment of time, particularly for studies.

She explained that the practice also involved advisory and giving assurance to businesses on their audits as well as helping with tax planning, reporting and assessment.

She said, however, many women were confronted with the challenge of combining family care and work demands, thus making it difficult for them to go into practice.

“Some of the men may have their full-time job but use their extra time to do the practice.

This is not the same for women because, whilst they are not on their full time job, they are probably helping with family duties at home,” Ms Dake noted.

Another challenge she highlighted was the capacity for women to feel confident that they could set up their own businesses and steer them to a successful end.

She said the profession required one to be enterprising.

However, she indicated that some women got discouraged upon getting negative comments from people, thereby discouraging them from taking the bold steps.

She called for more leadership training and provision of soft skills, technical skills, as well as entrepreneurial skills for accounting professionals.

“We can inculcate these into women through a lot of training, continuous professional development, engagement, and networking,” she said.

“When women start seeing the success and celebrating other women who have made it through thick and thin, it becomes easier for them to also feel they can do it,” she added.

Being a woman herself, Ms Dake indicated that determination, hard work, family support, and not being complacent on her achievements, were the factors that had helped her rise in the accounting profession.

“Where your family and friends are all encouraging you to do it, it is easier to get that motivation to take certain bold steps towards realising your career dreams,” she said.