Temat: The CGMA explained

From 31 January this year, CIMA members have been able to use the additional letters CGMA after their name, representing the new chartered global management accountant designation. In this interview and video, CIMA CEO Charles Tilley FCMA, CGMA explains more.

Could you tell us more about the CGMA?
CIMA is a hugely successful organisation. We see ourselves as the leading management accounting body in the world. But we’ve always had a very low penetration in the US and North America.

When we were approached by the AICPA with a view to forming this joint venture we felt it was extremely valuable from two perspectives. From a geographic perspective, it was raising the profile of management accounting across the US and therefore widening its appeal across the world; and secondly, by working with the AICPA (the largest accounting body in the world), our resources combined would give us a huge amount more firepower to raise the profile of management accounting and support our members and students.

As we’re entering 2012, we have probably never been in more challenging times, from both an economic and environmental perspective. It’s never been more important to take the right decisions.

As a consequence, there’s never been a better time to be a management accountant. Management accounting really does combine the skills to enable effective decision support, and cash project and risk management. The management accountant is the partner to navigate through these very challenging times, to allow organisations and companies to have strong, successful and sustainable futures.

How do members gain and use the letters?
Our members are able to use CGMA at no extra cost, which is something now readily recognisable in the US as a consequence of working with the AICPA. This is in addition to their FCMA or ACMA letters.

What are the benefits for CIMA members?
All our members have worked extraordinarily hard to get their FCMA or ACMA, something they are rightly very proud of. But what we are trying to do is provide a set of designatory letters that are truly global: they cover the areas were CIMA has been strong, and also, very importantly, the US.

Working with the AICPA, we will be able to combine the work we’re both doing in the management accounting arena, and offer additional CPD products and services, thought leadership, and courses and conferences. This is in addition to what we already provide to members.

What new services will be available?
There is a new website with a whole range of new services provided through both CIMA and the AICPA.

There will also be a new online magazine, covering what is going in management accounting today, and where we see the future of management accounting. It will be packed with leadership videos, interviews, reports, webcasts, articles and discussions. We’ll be using experts right around the world to talk about the issues and challenges that management accountants face, to help you do your job better.

Furthermore, while CIMA is a community of approaching 200,000 members and students around the world, jointly with the AICPA that figure rises to around to 550,000. It’s a much bigger community that will be available to you on an online basis [CIMA login required]. This means a widening of expertise and a widening of geographic coverage and experiences from individuals around the world.

What is the value for employers?
Ultimately, the most important thing for any CIMA member is that their designation is recognised and valued by employers. The key purpose of launching the CGMA is to widen the recognition of what management accounting is and the value of management accounting for driving the long term success of organisations.

This new designation is widening the geographic coverage and understanding of what management accounting and what the designatory letters mean, providing a consistency across the world.

How does this joint venture assist CIMA's long term staregy?
For CIMA, like any other organisation, remaining relevant is absolutely crucial. Today we have a world that is increasingly global. The value of management accounting needs to be understand right around the world.

If I go back to CIMA’s history, we were founded in 1919 by Lord Leverhulme because he wasn’t getting the information he needed to run his business at that time.

What we do today is the same: providing good quality information and analysis to help organisations make the right decisions, in terms of progressing the organisation, managing risk, and effective oversight of what’s happening within the organisation.

What has changed is that we are global, and also technology has expanded hugely. The objective of working together with the AICPA is meeting those global needs and raising the recognition of management accounting across the world, and with the resources of the AICPA as well as CIMA, we believe we have a much better opportunity of doing that.