In 2010, when I was 12 years old, I was invited to attend the annual party of my mother’s company at the time. At the party, her boss announced that my mother was promoted as a CFO and praised my mother for her great achievements and contributions for the company. She successfully found an account value of 30 million RMB that should be paid doubly booking in Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) because of the replacement of new ERP, which helped the company avoided of paying for the extra account. As a little kid, I was shocked, because 30 million RMB was really big amount in my mind at that time. So, I was really proud of my mother and also realized the importance of accounting work. From then on, I really want to be an accountant just like my mother.

When I grew up, I gradually knew that many people, like myself, also wants to study accounting. How to compete with so many people came to my mind. How my mother became a CFO? I asked my mother, and my mother smiled and said: “There is neither lowliness nor nobleness in careers. A CFO stands for more responsibilities. Rome was not built in a day. I first had to be a cashier, a stock accountant, a costing supervisor, a finance manager, an internal auditor, and then finally a CFO. To be a CFO requires a lot of abilities such as professional qualification, good leadership, effective communication, problems solving. A CFO never stops learning to keep up with the times and needs to work much harder than others. The most important is that a CFO must find ways to maximize the value of a company.”

I remembered my mother ever read CMA books at midnight and did continuous overtime work for six months for ERP implementation. After listening to her words, I realized that there isn’t shortcut; A CFO is poured with more sweat.

Besides, I heard about the cases from my mother about how Nestle maximized great value through global M & A and how fast Alibaba created big value through IPO activity in the New York Stock Exchange. And especially after my mother telling me about the case that hundreds of millions of RMB tax was saved in the sale of shares of one local listed company because of a good organizational structure designed by the CFO, I was lost in admiration. A CFO can create so great value for  the company, and I really want to be such a CFO. Hence, I need to major in accounting in college and first get to the field after graduation, and at that time I can be closer and closer to my goal of becoming a successful CFO.