Sethurathnam Ravi, the former BSE chairman shares his observation on the ICAI partnering on nation-building

Sethurathnam Ravi, popularly known as S Ravi is the former chairman of Bombay Stock Exchange Limited (BSE). On the 74th National CA Day, in an interview with BW Businessworld, Sethurathnam Ravi, currently Managing Partner, Ravi Rajan & Company and Chairman, TFCI reflects on how the role of chartered accountants has evolved over time both in practice and scope, becoming critical to a company’s, a sector’s and the economy’s growth story.

The former BSE chairman explains how he has seen a CA’s role broaden over the years. According to him, “If you look at the earlier years the profession was about statutory audit and internal audit but later it migrated to other fields such as forensic audit, due diligence, merchant banking and also things like insolvency in recent reforms. The profession widened significantly from practice and participation in bigger changes. Today, we see many CFOs, CHROs, CTOs who started as CAs. There are many CAs in the banking sector as well. If you were to compare it with two decades ago, the role has completely changed”. He says that it has become much more diversified, and the ecosystem has changed given the various reforms due to which both the practice and scope are impacted.

Sethurathnam Ravi BSE

Sethurathnam Ravi also shared his observation on the ICAI partnering on nation-building. In his view, the ICAI has played a very vital role. “We got independence in1947 and the institute was formed in 1949. You can see how the system recognised the importance of CAs at the time and they have been part of the nation-building process because CAs audit companies and are part of the growth story but we are also the conscious keepers and watchdogs to a great extent”, he says. He also explains that the CAs help in small-scale industries in imparting knowledge and explaining things such as budgetary, statutory and economic changes where otherwise the domain knowledge is limited. CAs help across this spectrum, contributing toward nation-building. Sethurathnam Ravi also highlights some points on what more can be done to develop the next generation of accountancy professionals. In his opinion, this is a very important area of focus. “Passing a CA exam itself is tough but the training process should be intensified so they are ready for the changes taking place in the environment. So, more practical orientation is equally important though the institute has taken various steps of imparting practical knowledge even after people qualify the intensity of real-life problems to have to be increased”.

The 21st World Congress of Accountants 2022 will be hosted in India for the first time. According to Sethurathnam Ravi, this is the opportunity to showcase the accounting profession, which is globally well recognised. “It is time to show what Indian accountants can do, their depth and knowledge. Also, it will be in exchange for experience with all the leading countries and their accounting practices”, he concluded.