Mr Money

Mr Money

In his role at Fulbright Financial Group, QP graduate Stevan Tam is both an investment expert and a media commentator

Audit Advantage

For Stevan Tam, Associate Director of Fulbright Financial Group, studying for the QP was a path into a career that would ultimately lead him, not to accountancy, but to asset management. The analytical skills he acquired while qualifying as a CPA and working as an auditor, he says, have stood him in good stead as he has built a career advising clients on investing their assets and being a commentator on financial affairs across broadcast, online and print media.

Stevan had originally decided on a career path in accounting early in his decision making, opting to study accountancy for his degree at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. “I made that decision near the end of my A-levels,” he says. “It was recommended to me by my class teacher, who thought I was good at science and math. She shared her husband’s knowledge of the profession, and told me about the clear path of promotion and development.”

Like many accounting graduates, he took his first steps into the professional world as an auditor for a Big Four firm: in his case, PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he worked with financial services clients.

“I thought it would be a good start to my career to audit at a Big Four firm. It was my choice to join the Financial Services Division of PwC; I got four offers from different departments. I was mainly focused on working with banks, investment managers and insurance companies. It’s the sector that interests me the most. Through auditing them, I got to understand these companies’ operations – looking through their accounts, talking to their management.” Where for most of his auditing peers at PwC, stock taking meant visiting factories, he adds, for him it mostly involved visiting banks, or even Travelex currency exchange outlets at the airport.

While working at PwC, he also started to study for the QP. “It equips us with essential knowledge to qualify as a professional accountant,” he says. “PwC really provided us with huge support. The most impressive thing about QP was the amount of technical and practical knowledge that we can share among ourselves and that we can apply in the workplace.”

After deciding to move on from auditing, his career temporarily took an unusual turn, with a secondment to the Hong Kong Monetary Authority for just over a year, working as a Contract Assessor for the Securities Enforcement Department.

“It was at the end of 2008 and there was the financial tsunami,” he says. “I handled investors’ complaints. I interviewed them to see if there was any evidence of misselling. The analytical skills I learned as an auditor were still useful, and so was my knowledge of financial products and of internal controls in financial institutions. In many cases, the investors just thought they were doing fixed deposits, but they were actually really sophisticated products.”

Mr. Stevan Tam,
Associate Director of Fulbright Financial Group

Financial Focus

With his financial expertise, he then decided to continue to focus on the financial services industry – but as a practitioner rather than an accountant, with a series of jobs with asset management firms. His first was as Business Development Manager and Strategic Research Director of Midland Financial Group, mainly focused on conducting research into various mutual funds and insurance products, supporting the company’s frontline investment managers by providing them with in-depth analysis. “Based on my interest in investment markets, I enjoyed reading a lot and making recommendations; I didn’t do any selling.”

Although his next move three and a half years later was to another investment management firm, Alquity Investment Management, and he was still called upon to use his expertise in financial markets, his job as a Director there was very different from at Midland. For a start, his new employer was an international company, headquartered in London, and his role involved travelling both to London and to other Asian financial centres, including mainland China and Singapore. Also, this time his job was far more public-facing. “I had to present myself rather than just reading and analysing and providing a report,” he says. “I wanted to try presenting my ideas.”

He moved again in 2015, to Fulbright Securities, and has worked there ever since. His multifaceted role as Associate Director involves advising clients on locally listed stocks, but also giving investment seminars and being a regular media commentator on financial matters.

“I had always been interested in more media exposure,” he says. “At Midland, I was on TV sharing some of my macroeconomic analysis. At Alquity, we invested a lot in emerging markets, and there was a lot of explanation to markets, to clients and to the media.

“I enjoy public speaking to a big audience. I enjoy standing on stage giving seminars and speeches. My most memorable moment came in 2018, when there was a bullish market, and I held an investment seminar with more than 1,000 people in front of me.”

Interview and reporting by Richard Lord