Above and beyond the bottom line

Voluntary severance provided the catalyst for Judy Moore’s radical career change: from a customer services role in commercial banking to an accountancy role in humanitarian aid, says Anna King

Just before the dawn of the year 2000, Judy Moore MAAT made the biggest career change of her life and has never looked back.

After 17 years in commercial banking, she swapped the comfort and security of a nine-to-five office job for seven years’ contribution to humanitarian aid projects in Serbia, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

It was the best decision that she’s ever made, she says: “I would definitely recommend the experience; it was a very rewarding career change. At the bank, it was all about income generation and targets; it was a completely different motivation. [Working for NGOs overseas], we had projects to fulfil, but it was for beneficiaries rather than for profit. You get to go out into the field and see the projects first hand; you’re meeting refugees or project beneficiaries, and you can see the end result of your work.”

Working overseas also gave Judy a great chance to put her AAT training into practice, in what was, at first, a very hands-on finance role.

It spelt a radical change from her role at the bank, where she worked in customer service for medium-sized companies – reviewing, rather than preparing, accounts.

But it was the bank, and its ‘restructuring’ – a term that usually evokes negative connotations – that sent Judy’s career spinning in another direction: “As I was filling in a form to apply for my own job, I realised that it wasn’t really the job that I wanted. Very fortunately, I was able to choose [voluntary] redundancy, which gave me time.”

It was time that she spent wisely: kicking off her AAT studies, applying for jobs, taking computer training, and testing her aptitude for work in humanitarian aid with six weeks abroad on a voluntary programme.

But the voluntary programme wasn’t her first experience of aid work. While still employed by the bank, she took some aid parcels to a refugee camp she was visiting in Serbia, which opened her eyes to the deep needs of people ravaged by years of war.

After leaving the bank, she joined an international disaster management team in Serbia on an 18-month contract, providing shelter to refugees from Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia. Her next contract was in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where she spent four months as part of a programme providing health education, building schools and improving water and sanitation facilities. She then returned to England for a year, but itchy feet soon led her back to Serbia again, where she worked as a Finance Manager for an organisation providing a drug rehabilitation programme for young people. Now, eight years of international work and many good deeds later, she feels ready to set down some roots.

“When you’re in the field, it is difficult to put down roots. I felt that it was time to come back to the UK and put some roots down here for a while,” she says.

She decided to contact Mango (Management Accounting for NGOs), which provides financial management support to humanitarian and development organisations, placing finance professionals in positions in the UK and overseas.

“It was very useful having Mango find the opportunities for me, especially when I was abroad and it wasn’t so easy to trawl through all the job websites,” she says.

When Judy returned to the UK in July 2007, she attended interviews with four NGOs and received two offers of employment.

She accepted the position of International Finance Officer with Mercy Corps – an international humanitarian aid and development organisation – in the European headquarters in Edinburgh.

Speaking just six weeks into the job, she says that she still has much to learn to get up to speed with what is required in the role and with local charity accounting in the UK. She has also enrolled to study for CIMA, so she will have plenty of continuing professional development (CPD) to keep her challenged in the UK.

Meanwhile, Judy’s current role allows her to continue to make a meaningful, rewarding contribution to people’s lives – not just the bottom line.