July Accounting and Finance Summer Schools 2020 at NUI Galway

Throughout the month of June, the Accountancy and Finance department at NUI Galway’s J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics held their annual ‘KPMG-led Summer School in Data and Analytics’ and their inaugural ‘Disruptive Technologies Summer School’.

The summer schools are co-ordinated and delivered by academics and programme directors, and are on offer to students currently enrolled in all three of the postgraduate programmes within the department: The Master of Accounting; MSc in Corporate Finance; and MSc International Accounting and Analytics.

Speaking following completion of the 2020 KPMG Summer School in Data and Analytics, Laurence May, Head of KPMG in Galway, and Adjunct Professor in Accounting and Finance at NUI Galway, noted: “This year’s Summer School was the third year of our partnership with NUI Galway on delivery of this programme, with it going from strength to strength each year. The programme was mainly classroom based in its first two years, but in response to the measures introduced to mitigate the impact of the global pandemic, we switched to an online delivery model this year. We were very pleased with how well this went, with the revised online programme being very well received by participants. I would like to thank NUI Galway Faculty Staff and our guest lecturers, including many colleagues from KPMG, for their flexibility and commitment to delivering the programme in these challenging times.”

This year’s KPMG Summer School guest speakers included: Helen Kelly, KPMG; Conor Clifford, Medtronic; Mathieu D’Aquin, NUI Galway; Mark Gantly, NUI Galway; Marie Joyce, NTR; Giovanni Tummarello, Siren; Joe Smyth, Genesys; Niamh O’Brien, KPMG; and David Cunningham, Sedicii.

Andrea Crean, Lecturer in Accountancy and Finance at NUI Galway and co-coordinator of the programme, said:;”At the start of this year, in conjunction with KPMG, we were planning for the third year in-house running of the KPMG-led Analytics in Accounting and Auditing Summer School. In mid-March, due to a global pandemic and the restrictions that ensued, our summer school was switched from an on campus to an online delivery model. With the expertise of Laurence May and his team in KPMG, and the excellent range of guest speakers who were only happy to accommodate the running of this online platform, this made the transition to the first virtual KPMG Summer School seamless. The delivery was hugely successful with fantastic feedback from participants. It is ironic that, while many elements of the summer school focus on the benefits of technology in this current era, without the use of this technology, the switch from in-class to online delivery would not be possible.”

The second Summer School held recently, was the first ever Disruptive Technologies Summer School designed and delivered by NUI Galway Lecturer in Accounting Sharon Cotter, who said: ”The rapid scale of development and adoption of techniques such as robotic process automation, machine learning, and powerful data analytics tools means that accountants today and in the future, need to be tech savvy as well as proficient in fundamental accounting concepts in order to survive and thrive as trusted business partners.”

Guest speakers for the Disruptive Technologies Summer School included: Don Hicks, Grant Thornton; April Morris, California State University; Marsha Maly, Intuity Technologies; John Munnelly, Chartered Accountants Ireland; Cathal Nolan, PWC;, Seamus Conaty, PWC; and Paul Doyle, Hewlett Packard.

More information on the programmes offered by NUI Galway Accountancy and Finance department can be found at http://www.nuigalway.ie/business-public-policy-law/cairnes/subjectareas/accountancy-finance/.

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