How this CA(SA) went from struggling with Financial Accounting to becoming a CFO: Meet Yusuf Bodiat

• Hi, I am Yusuf Bodiat, a Chartered Accountant, Chief Financial Officer, and Executive Director of The Federated Employers Mutual Assurance Company (RF) (Pty) Ltd (FEM), from Johannesburg, South Africa.
• I studied at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) and obtained my Bachelor of Commerce [BCom(Accounting)] in 2008, and a Higher Diploma in Accounting in 2010.
• Throughout my CA(SA) journey, I struggled with Financial accounting and had to repeat my honors including the papers I had passed the first time. But, I didn’t give up, and with persistence, I cleared my board exams on the first attempt!
• After qualifying as a CA(SA) in 2014, I started my journey with auditing but later transitioned to finance in the insurance industry.
• Today I am a CFO and I can boldly say that current struggles do not guarantee failure in the future.

The growing interest in Accounting

I come from a family of accountants; my parents as well as three of my uncles followed the accounting route. (So, you can imagine the amount of influence they had on me!)

When I was in high school, I wanted to study something within the IT field. However, having a relatively weak IT teacher and a very good accounting teacher resulted in me understanding and enjoying accounting quite a lot.

The planning of the route to study was quite straightforward and by the time I was 16 and entered Grade 11, I was sure that I wanted to become a CA.