Star struck

Accountants rarely get to be famous. Luca Pacioli, Jeffrey Skilling, and Mick Jagger are a few notable exceptions. But the father of accounting became truly famous only after his death; the former Enron CEO is famous for all the wrong reasons; and the Rolling Stones front man is famous because he stopped studying accounting and finance to pursue his musical career. So, rather than finding fame, finance professionals more often settle for working with the stars – though finding a job in film, music, or television can be almost as tricky.

‘I’ve worked on a number of films now,’ says Jason Saliba FCCA, an accountant who was recently responsible for attracting funding, then managing the finances, for a recent film starring Ewan McGregor. But despite a love of film that dates back to his childhood, his involvement in the film industry happened almost by accident.

‘I met a TV producer in a lift,’ recalls Saliba, and they got talking. ‘I’d recently lost my job so I was feeling depressed, but he was quite a character and we hit it off,’ and when he stepped out of the lift Saliba had a job offer – despite his total lack of production experience. But Saliba doesn’t believe in lucky breaks, and he has worked hard to turn that opportunity into a career.

‘The industry is nothing like as glamorous as people think it is,’ he says, and your ability to do well is more dependent on diligence than drama. ‘It is what you make it,’ he asserts. ‘I’m very committed, and I tend to work 24/7’ – an attitude that has been essential to his success at Michael George Associates, the London-based firm where Saliba has worked his way up to become a director.

Be a self-starter
‘When I first started working with Michael George I had to develop my own client base,’ he explains, but he has found that the more contacts he makes in the entertainment sector the more involved he gets. ‘I started out with just one client, now I get phone calls from all over the world,’ he adds, and he has even made it on to the big screen a couple of times. ‘I have been in a few films,’ he laughs, adding ‘I was an extra in Gladiator.’

Although Saliba’s involvement in the entertainment industry has helped him to build a practice, most finance professionals make their transition into media from the opposite direction. Betty Lau Sui Hing FCCA is currently the chief financial officer with Cosmos Discovery in Malaysia, where she is responsible for ‘the full spectrum of financial matters of the company’ and is head of its human resource and administration department. But she began her finance career with one of the top six accounting firms in Hong Kong, did a five-year stint in audit, and spent seven years working as the financial controller for a NASDAQ-listed US company, before moving into entertainment.

John Smith FCCA may be the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) chief operating officer and the chief executive of BBC Worldwide, but he also started his career in professional practice. Smith worked for a variety of large commercial entities before making his transition into the broadcasting industry – and he was recruited for his first post at the BBC, he didn’t seek the job out. Bizarre as it may seem, your enthusiasm for the entertainment industry could actually be a barrier to entry.

Employers are wary of accountants who seem more enthusiastic about the industry than they are about finance. ‘In my experience, employers are more interested in recruiting people who want to be finance professionals in entertainment, than those who see finance as simply a way into the industry,’ cautions Zelda Kay, a recruitment consultant who has worked with a lot of clients in the publishing and entertainment sectors. So if you manage to get as far as a job interview, make sure your long-term goals stay well within the finance function.

Be a volunteer
If you are more enthusiastic about the entertainment industry than the potential it offers for a finance career, perhaps you should think about getting involved on a voluntary basis, like Olivia Bisegna Meher FCCA. From her base in Italy, the English accountant is a freelance language translator specialising in banking and finance, but she also writes scripts for British-style pantomimes. ‘I set up a not-for-profit organisation to give people the opportunity to experience a proper British pantomime,’ she says.

So far she has tackled Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Little Red Riding Hood. ‘The children love them,’ says Meher, who also cleverly uses the plays as a format for tackling some of the tricky moral issues troubling today’s society. And she has found professional members of the entertainment industry surprisingly supportive. ‘Paul Patterson, the composer who wrote the music for the Little Red Riding Hood film (featuring Danny De Vito, Ian Holmes, and Julie Walters), let me use his music for free,’ she explains, and directed her to his agent for a free copy of the CD.

Even if you don’t want to give your time freely, a move into the entertainment industry could mean taking a drop in salary, and status. When Brian Schofield decided he wanted to be involved in the music business, he had to start out as a bookkeeper – despite qualifying with one of the Big Four firms and having experience working in the banking sector. ‘If you are keen to get involved in the music business it’s best not to set your sights too high,’ he suggests, adding ‘a lot of people get in by working for free during their holidays,’ so you have to take what you can.

‘As bookkeeper, I was expected to do anything and everything,’ he explains, ‘from royalty accounting to personnel,’ but joining the industry at a low level gave Schofield the chance to learn about the business, and his finance skills helped him to work his way up. ‘It may be hard to get into the music industry, but it’s worth the effort,’ he says, because enthusiasm and talent will take you a long way.

Be prepared to take the long view
‘You may have to start at the bottom, but you quickly get noticed if you’re good,’ he says encouragingly. Schofield stayed with his first employer for 10 years, and by the time he left he had risen to become commercial director. ‘MCA was a small company when I joined,’ he recalls, ‘but now it’s part of Vivendi Universal,’ the world’s largest music company.

After working with a number of organisations, he eventually started his own business, Music Copyright Solutions (MCS), and today Schofield is the chief executive. MCS is an international music publishing company with an extensive catalogue of songs including works by David Bowie, Fat Boy Slim, and Daft Punk, while its client list includes Endemol Entertainment and Pathé Pictures. So despite his humble beginning, he’s glad he followed his heart. ‘It is a lot of fun,’ he says, ‘and that’s not something a lot of accountants can say about their work.’

Lesley Meall is a writer on business and technology issues