CIPFA student conference 2022: the highlights

Last week, the student conference was held at PF Live at the ACC Liverpool, and it was great to see so many in attendance. Outgoing CSN President Sophie Darlington kicked off the day with a warm opening speech reflecting on the last year.

The senior managers’ talk then got underway, led by CIPFA CEO Rob Whiteman CBE and attended by senior managers Claire Gravil, Kirsty Stanners and Gareth Moss from the NHS, local government and CIPFA itself. They discussed their career paths and shared insights on how to shape a fulfilling, challenging and varied career and answered questions, providing lots of advice and inspiration to those in the room.

After a break, the attendees were then treated to a roundtable discussion comprising a panel of current CIPFA students about the levelling up agenda. Chaired by Jeff Matsu, CIPFA’s Chief Economist, the session featured Lucy Higgins from Coventry City Council, Joshua Malam from Leicestershire County Council, Nadim Zaman from London Borough of Hackney, Zydrune Condon from Bury Council and James Hall from Reading Borough Council. The panel shared their views on how public financial management could address inequality, both regionally and locally, and there was great audience participation thanks to some polling questions and open discussion.

The prizegiving session was the last at the student conference. The new CIPFA President and former CIPFA student Jayne Owen was delighted to be participating and handed out all the prizes to the students to commend the best performances in specific modules of CIPFA’s professional qualification.

Congratulations to all our winners

• Winner of the Arthur Collins Memorial Award and the Eric Gilliland Memorial Prize
  Amanda Atkins
  
  
• Winner of the Richard Emmott Memorial Prize
  Matthew Fox
  
  
• Winner(s) of the best overall performance in the Management Accounting exam
  Andrew Craig, Hannah Belok, Oliver Moore, Kimberley Magner and James Allen
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Financial Accounting exam
  Ellie Woodward
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Company Financial Reporting exam
  Fionnuala McCoy
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Audit and Assurance exam
  Sema Aydin
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Financial Management exam
  Daniel Fisher
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Corporate Governance and Law exam
  Matthew Kay
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Public Service Financial Reporting exam
  Michael Batey
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Business and Change Management exam and Strategy and Policy Development
  Jack O'Shea
  
  
• Winner of the best overall performance in the Taxation module
  Catrin Evans

Closing remarks

To conclude the session, there was an uplifting and optimistic speech from the incoming CSN President, Lin Liu.

We wanted to take this opportunity to thank all those who participated and attended conference this year, and we hope to see you again soon.