A journey of growth: from intern to junior assistant auditor

From Vietnam to Japan to Amsterdam; from intern to junior; from finance to audit. Tien Le started at Reanda last year after completing her internship. We talked about her journey and the projects she takes on as a junior assistant auditor.

Originally from Vietnam, Tien started out as a marketing major at an international school in Japan, and after a year she started to shift towards finance. “I found myself interested, but I was also still hesitating to make the switch; I feel like I’m a numbers person but I also like to take a creative role. I think finance has a good combination of both. I pivoted to finance as my major, graduated and continued to do my Master’s in finance in Amsterdam.”

Drawn in by a gut feeling

Looking for new opportunities and an internship, Tien visited the SEFA career week (a career event at the University of Amsterdam) where she learned about Reanda during a case workshop. She met Gerard, our partner, Victoria, supervisor, and Julia who was an intern at the time. “I found the case quite interesting, but what I liked even more was how those three interacted with each other. I liked how Gerard lifted everyone up and always asked them to share their experiences and I felt the relationship between them was really good. The reason I applied was really because the people drew me in. It was a gut feeling that it was going to be a good environment and that feeling was consistent throughout the case study, during the interview and my internship. After I came here, I could confirm that my gut feeling was 100% correct. One of the best parts about Reanda is the people and the environment. I feel very comfortable here.”

 

“I can confirm that my gut feeling about Reanda was 100% correct”

Tien joined Reanda fulltime in October last year. As an intern, she was involved in a lot of engagements and helped out in various parts in the audit process. “I loved that I got exposed to a lot of parts in the process instead of just sticking to one. I want to know about everything so it was a good start for me. When I started working full-time, they asked me what kind of tasks I would like to be involved in, and what my preferences are. A month after I started working full time, I got to be part of a big team handling a complicated engagement. It allowed me to dive into the details, focus and specialise in some specific financial statement items. It was challenging and frustrating at times, but it was also fun since I received a lot of help from my colleagues. We discussed how to resolve issues together and while the audit was daunting, the high team spirits really motivated me to keep going forward. It’s really rewarding and it feels good that we’re doing it together.

Taking the first steps together in ESG audit procedures

As junior assistant auditor, Tien’s main task is auditing, but she also works on another project at Reanda. “There are opportunities to be involved in internal projects and Net Zero Now is one of them. I am interested in sustainability and I wanted to do something related. It’s still a new area, where we are still in the initial phase, so I’m fascinated to be a part of that.”

“Net Zero Now is a mutually beneficial project”

Net Zero Now is recording the carbon footprint of Reanda and offers advice on the most effective ways to reduce that. “The main part of the project is that we want to know about our performance,” Tien explains. “But additionally, it’s very useful for our understanding of the ESG audit procedures. The project puts us in the position of our clients with Net Zero Now auditing us. It helps us advise clients as we learn more about the steps of the audit, what kind of data points they need to collect and how they are verified. It’s a mutually beneficial project, both for us internally and for the services provided to our clients, apart from financial audit.”

Room for unique talents

Besides auditing, there’s also room at Reanda for Tien’s unique skills. “Before I started full time I was asked about my preferred personal development path, how I envisaged myself to develop the best. I expressed my interest in data analytics and programming and I had the freedom while working on engagements to explore how I could potentially use my analytics skills. This was new for Reanda, but they were open to it. During my work I figured I could apply my skills to get things done more quickly by writing scripts and code, for example to extract information into confirmation letters. I’m excited to discuss analytics with other interested colleagues and see if I can apply these skills not just in my engagement, but company-wide. Reanda welcomes changes and I can initiate something if I want.”

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