ANNIVERSARY MAcc celebrates its
30th T
birthday
The Master of Accounting at UCD Smurfit School has set many of the brightest and best business minds on their way during its existence. This year, as it celebrates 30 years, we talk to two high-profile alumni about their memories of the programme
HE Master of Accounting (MAcc) at UCD Smurfit School is a specialist accountancy programme for accountants who want to qualify as chartered account- ants. It has a success rate second to none, with a 97% pass rate in the Final Admitting Exam of the Institute of Chartered Accountants. “It combines the development of professional skills with the rich learning environment of a leading business school,” says programme director Dr Fiona Harrigan. While most MAcc graduates tend to have training contracts with the Big Four accountancy firms, many have gone on to very senior positions at these firms, or to take up positions as business leaders in other industries.
A career with Google John Herlihy’s (BComm 88, MAcc 89) career has taken him from chartered accountant at KPMG to heading up the Irish operations of search giant Google, where he is vice-president of online sales and operations. “In those days the MAcc was a great way of front-loading a lot of the heavy-duty technical exams that were necessary to become an accountant,” he says. “So you had a year of very intense, technical academic training, which then enabled you to go into the office and do a two-year run of pure work experience, before you had to do your finals – which was a huge benefit,” he explains. The ‘office’ in ques- tion was Stokes Kennedy Crowley – KPMG today. “If I remember correctly it was Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, from 9 to 5, and Wednesday was about trying to catch up on
38 UCD BUSINESS CONNECTIONS
‘Basically, the MAcc teaches you to
assimilate information and ask the right questions. It’s a
tremendous entry into business’
notes and stuff,” he recalls. “There were about 80 of us, and in those days we were based in Roebuck Castle in Belfield, which was a bit like being in an old church. It was a pretty intense year!” He says the network he built up from that time is irreplaceable. “Pretty much anyone doing the MAcc at that time was sponsored by their company, so back in those days we used to get paid to do it. They became my professional network, and still are today. I’d still be in regular contact with many of them.” Herlihy also made great personal friends from that year. “A bunch of us decided in January that, come what may, we were going to do a
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