Finance leaders 'need to do more'

Leaders in the financial sector need to do a better job of using the talent that is out there, a recent survey from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) has found.

A full 70 per cent of finance professionals surveyed said that they felt there had been an element of luck in any career progression that they had made.

Organisations must concentrate more on ensuring that there are programmes in place to ensure the development of their employees, ACCA stated.

Tony Osude, head of learning and development at ACCA, said: "For an empirically trained profession, accountants are usually sceptical of concepts such as luck in the world of business.

"This particular finding suggests that being identified for and being enrolled into leadership development programmes is less systematic than might have been thought."

The survey canvassed 3,500 members of ACCA from 116 countries around the globe. Overall ACCA has 115,000 members in 170 countries.