Automation, machine learning and AI are reshaping management accountancy, new CIMA president says

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Amal Ratnayake has an ambitious task ahead of him: to help management accountants reinvent themselves at a time of rapid technological change.

Automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence threaten to reshape accountancy, and Mr. Ratnayake – who stepped into a new role on Friday as the president of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) – wants the organization’s members to be ready.

“It’s really important that we as a profession reimagine what we do because we need to keep up with the pace of change,” said Mr. Ratnayake, who previously held the role of deputy president. He is the first Canadian to lead the CIMA.

Britain-based CIMA, which was started in 1919 in part by Unilever co-founder Lord William Leverhulme, is the world’s largest professional body of management accountants, providing its 227,000 members with training and qualification in management accountancy.

In contrast to financial accountants, who focus on aggregating data into financial reports for investors and other stakeholders, management accountants are more concerned with gauging the effectiveness of a company’s internal operations.

Right now, a lot of the work that management accountants do involves mundane, tedious tasks such as collecting and analyzing data, Mr. Ratnayake said. “The good news for us accountants is that that is all going to get automated, so we are now going to be able to spend more of our time on what we really like – using that information to form insights, and using those insights to help make decisions and drive strategy."

His view is in line with that of the majority of finance professionals surveyed for a white paper published earlier this year by CIMA and the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. More than half of the 4,700 survey respondents said they believe their skills will need to change significantly over the next three years.

Some processes – including descriptive analytics, which involves analyzing historical data – are already becoming automated, according to the report. Sixty-three per cent of those surveyed said the processes they use to complete descriptive analytics are either fully or partly automated.

Part of Mr. Ratnayake’s role – which is a year-long, unpaid position – will be to visit the organization’s members around the world and help them understand the importance of developing new skills.

He will also continue to work at his day job as the chief financial officer of Official Community Corp., a Toronto-based brand-management company for recording artists, and as the chair of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, an organization formed by CIMA and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Mr. Ratnayake, 51, didn’t always intend to become an accountant. As a teenager, the Sri Lankan native dreamed of becoming an engineer.

“But then I took a bicycle apart and put it all back together and found that half the pieces were still lying on the ground,” Mr. Ratnayake said. That’s when he asked himself, “Is this really for me?”

After attending high school in Nigeria, Mr. Ratnayake returned to Sri Lanka to consider his options. The country was in the midst of a civil war and all of its universities were closed. His father, who at the time was the CEO of CIMA’s Sri Lankan chapter, persuaded him to give management accounting a shot. (The CIMA program is privately offered and therefore wasn’t affected by the political turmoil.)

Mr. Ratnayake reluctantly agreed to enroll in the program, but felt confident that as soon as universities reopened he would go back to school. Instead, six months later, he found himself working at a public accounting firm. B. R. De Silva & Co., while earning his CIMA designation.

“Working at that firm brought to life some of what I was studying, and then I started liking it,” Mr. Ratnayake said.

Mr. Ratnayake went on to complete an MBA at the Cranfield School of Management in the United Kingdom, and then moved to Saudi Arabia to head up corporate strategy at the Alesayi Group, a diversified group of companies.

In 2002 he moved to Canada, where he held increasingly senior roles at various organizations, including Sprint Canada and Rogers Communications. He’s been an active volunteer with CIMA for more than a decade, holding a variety of positions.

“We have come a long way over the last century,” Mr. Ratnayake said. “As we look to the next century, we’re looking to embrace the future and continue to evolve.”

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect acronym for the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. This version has been corrected.