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Young Difference Makers: Sophie Sweeney On Education, Courage, And A Human-Centred Accounting Career · Difference Makers Podcast

• 0:00
  Sophie Sweeney: What I want to do with my academic career is to make sure that it is all human-centered, that I'm leveraging the accountancy skills that I have to really make again make the world a better place and keep empowering young people.
• 0:18
  Sophie Sweeney: Hi, my name is Sophie Sweeney.
• 0:23
  Sophie Sweeney: I am a lecturer at the University of Galway and a member of Chartered Accountants Ireland.
• 0:27
  Sophie Sweeney: But that's what makes stories beautiful, is everyone is so unique in how they got here.
• 0:49
  Sophie Sweeney: But what unites us is our membership.
• 0:52
  Sophie Sweeney: So education has been a very important part of my life.
• 0:56
  Sophie Sweeney: My mother had me at 17 years old, and she has been my biggest inspiration.
• 1:05
  Sophie Sweeney: And when she had me, she was, you know, told that this was so embarrassing.
• 1:14
  Sophie Sweeney: She was ashamed of the family.
• 1:16
  Sophie Sweeney: She ended up leaving school and kind of you know putting me first, right?
• 1:23
  Sophie Sweeney: And she she worked jobs constantly to buy me milk, and and she always says this.
• 1:29
  Sophie Sweeney: She um went into hospital, uh, gave birth to me, and she didn't even have a nappy.
• 1:34
  Sophie Sweeney: And the the midwife in in hospital said, But where's her clothes?
• 1:37
  Sophie Sweeney: You know, are you gonna breastfeed?
• 1:38
  Sophie Sweeney: Blah blah blah.
• 1:39
  Sophie Sweeney: And she says, I have no idea.
• 1:41
  Sophie Sweeney: She was on her own, totally isolated.
• 1:43
  Sophie Sweeney: And five months later, my dad died.
• 1:48
  Sophie Sweeney: Now they weren't together, um, but even further, she just was completely isolated.
• 1:55
  Sophie Sweeney: Fast forward, then you know, a few months later, she said, actually, I'm gonna go back to school.
• 2:01
  Sophie Sweeney: I am going to get an education and I'm gonna provide the best life for me and Sophie.
• 2:11
  Sophie Sweeney: And she did that.
• 2:13
  Sophie Sweeney: She got the highest result for essentially her A levels.
• 2:17
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, out of her year, she got the third highest out of everyone in the class who sat the exams that year, um and she was the first in her family to go to university.
• 2:27
  Sophie Sweeney: And I was two years old, and the two of us got on a bus from very North Ireland, Donegal, down to Galway, and she brought me to university.
• 2:36
  Sophie Sweeney: So I went to university at two years old, and I I used to sit at the back of the lecture theatres with her, um, and she'd bring me into computer rooms, and I remember going on these like big white old computers and her printing colouring pages for me, and I would have do beautiful colours, and and I was like famous around the university, and people still to this day who know my mom say, I remember you know, this little two-year-old following you around, um, we were we were connected at the hip.
• 3:05
  Sophie Sweeney: That sense of the importance of education was just there from the very beginning, and it was the greatest gift she ever gave me was motivating me to create, you know, a future for herself, a future for me, and give us the best opportunities.
• 3:29
  Sophie Sweeney: She worked multiple jobs.
• 3:32
  Sophie Sweeney: She used to ask her her college friends to babysit me, and actually, myself, my mom, and her best friend slept in a very small double bed for over a year during that time.
• 3:45
  Sophie Sweeney: So it was really tough, but I still remember it as like so much fun, like what an experience.
• 3:52
  Sophie Sweeney: She did, you know, her third-level qualifications.
• 3:58
  Sophie Sweeney: We moved back to Donegal.
• 3:59
  Sophie Sweeney: I started in into you know my own kind of education journey in school, and it was it was you know great.
• 4:06
  Sophie Sweeney: I loved it, but I always find I was not challenged enough.
• 4:08
  Sophie Sweeney: My brain couldn't function.
• 4:10
  Sophie Sweeney: I was always searching for more.
• 4:12
  Sophie Sweeney: I had this hunger for education.
• 4:15
  Sophie Sweeney: And when I started in secondary school, I loved business.
• 4:23
  Sophie Sweeney: It was just something that connected with me.
• 4:26
  Sophie Sweeney: I saw the value and the power that businesses had, and especially from an accounting side, I thought of it as you know, this is like telling stories, telling stories with numbers.
• 4:39
  Sophie Sweeney: Um and for some reason, because there's nobody in my family that's an accountant, but for some reason I was like, I really, really like this, and I'm so good at it.
• 4:47
  Sophie Sweeney: I used to have a friend who'd sit beside me.
• 4:50
  Sophie Sweeney: So we used to race to see who could complete our accounts the fastest, and my teachers used to be like, Sophie, stop doing so much work, stop doing so much homework.
• 5:00
  Sophie Sweeney: So I'd get my homework done in school, and then I'd be asking for more work.
• 5:03
  Sophie Sweeney: I was that person that used to say to the teacher, uh, you forgot to give us homework.
• 5:08
  Sophie Sweeney: So I I loved education, um, went and did my my final um again kind of my leaving search as we have in Ireland, and I remember arguing with um kind of the the career guidance counsellors saying, So you need to pick a science subject, you have to do a science subject, you're closing off the doors, you know.
• 5:33
  Sophie Sweeney: And I said, Nope, not doing it.
• 5:36
  Sophie Sweeney: And they were like that, you're gonna regret this now.
• 5:39
  Sophie Sweeney: So I did business, accountancy, and economics.
• 5:42
  Sophie Sweeney: I got my first preference in the university course that I wanted, which ended up being um a course in the exact same university that my mom brought me to.
• 5:52
  Sophie Sweeney: And it was a beautiful full circle moment of me sitting in the lecture halls that I sat in, you know, 20 years or even 16 years previous as a as a two-year-old.
• 6:06
  Sophie Sweeney: And proceeding then, you know, specializing in accountancy, and and what I love about the profession is the the kind of career path is set for you.
• 6:24
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, of course, you have the ability to to do whatever, but you know, the exams with Chartered Accountants Ireland, um, I love structure, and structure works for me, and having that structure of go into practice, enter this contract, um, sit your exams, and and the world is your oyster then, and it is the best training ground, and and I absolutely loved it.
• 6:46
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, but then I was like, it's not fulfilling me.
• 6:51
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, you know, I I I saw the value in my qualification as a chartered accountant, and I didn't want to, you know, be doing these accounts and tax returns for for the wealthy companies.
• 7:03
  Sophie Sweeney: I wanted to do something different, I wanted to help individual people, not you know, just talking on emails about okay, our profit margins.
• 7:13
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, it just wasn't fulfilling for me.
• 7:15
  Sophie Sweeney: So I kind of found my way into education.
• 7:18
  Sophie Sweeney: I was asked, would you be interested, Sophie?
• 7:20
  Sophie Sweeney: We we we kind of see that you might be good at lecturing.
• 7:23
  Sophie Sweeney: I'm good at talking, and I I'm really good at kind of disseminating really difficult and complex ideas and and making them um approachable for people who who maybe don't understand.
• 7:35
  Sophie Sweeney: And and someone saw saw that in me.
• 7:37
  Sophie Sweeney: It was a partner in in KPMG and he recommended me and I got a part-time lecturing role.
• 7:43
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, started that during COVID, and again, that was the university that I went to when I was two year old, two years old, and I just loved that story of my life and my mom's life being interconnected and just coming full circle.
• 8:00
  Sophie Sweeney: And now everything I do is is just pushing that education is the best power you have.
• 8:07
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, and and the thing that that really kind of brought me along, especially after I finished university, was getting my chartered accountants qualification because there's nothing I can't do now.
• 8:18
  Sophie Sweeney: The the One Young World Summit and um being here, what I expected versus reality, it's really like Instagram versus reality, it's so much better.
• 8:47
  Sophie Sweeney: It's so hard to explain how impactful, how inspiring it is, and how grounding it actually is.
• 8:59
  Sophie Sweeney: Um being chosen as Chartered Star and getting to come here and you know having that my professional body support me, so we believe in you, we believe in the work you're doing, we believe that you know you are the right person to represent us.
• 9:16
  Sophie Sweeney: Um and then also getting chosen to fly the Irish flag was just I mean the icing on top.
• 9:24
  Sophie Sweeney: Um it was amazing.
• 9:26
  Sophie Sweeney: There was over 190 delegates chosen from each of their countries, and I've met and spoken to people that I probably never ever would have um met, you know, from countries that I mean I probably didn't even know existed, and it was it was so lovely to to have conversations and hear people's experiences, but that flag-bearing ceremony walking across the stage where you have the most influential people, um, and I shared a stage with them, and I remember sitting down after and I got so teary-eyed, I was like, I'm so proud of myself.
• 10:03
  Sophie Sweeney: I was like, I can't believe I just did that.
• 10:05
  Sophie Sweeney: That was amazing.
• 10:06
  Sophie Sweeney: There's definitely a lot of key lessons that I'm gonna take home to to not just my students, but to I definitely think my colleagues will really benefit from from hearing a lot because they are in positions of power, and I don't think we utilize especially chartered accountability worldwide um as a professional body.
• 10:31
  Sophie Sweeney: So um bringing back that networking and connections, um, the impact, but also that you don't have to solve all the problems, you just have to use your position.
• 10:46
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, and that was Sir What Sir Bob Galduff talked about was that you know he knew something needed to be done, he didn't know how to do it, but what he said was how can he leverage his position, his network, um, and I think we need to just keep that at the forefront of our mind that you know we all have our skills, we don't all need to be the same, we don't need to be doing the same things, we just need to to come together and and work as a team and be collegial.
• 11:16
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, and also I feel like a big lesson I've learned is that you know, and it can be kind of hard because you're in the room with like these amazing people and you get a bit of imposter syndrome, but that you know, I deserve to be here.
• 11:31
  Sophie Sweeney: So I think from a personal aspect, it's again it's that pride in myself and the pride in what I'm doing and and the influence I have over all my students, um, to motivate them is gonna make the world a better place for for not just themselves but for my children, for their children, for future generations.
• 11:51
  Sophie Sweeney: Um, and it's just been so inspiring here.
• 11:55
  Sophie Sweeney: Yeah, I think of 10 years' time, and I think of my daughter being 12 years old, 13 years old, and going into the teenage years, and that is so scary.
• 12:11
  Sophie Sweeney: But time is flying.
• 12:15
  Sophie Sweeney: And I feel like the older I get, the more I feel like the days are are going so quickly.
• 12:27
  Sophie Sweeney: And I always say to to new mothers, a lot of my friends have just become mothers, and I say to them, you know, when they're up late at night with their their children, and I say the days are long but the years are short, and I'm really seeing that not just you know, personally as a mother, but also in my career, and it's very easy to push things out and say, Oh, I'll get to that, I'll get to that.
• 12:50
  Sophie Sweeney: Um and you know, I procrastinated applying for my PhD, and this year I finally did it, and definitely in 10 years' time I will be Dr.
• 13:00
  Sophie Sweeney: Sweeney, and I'm so excited for that.
• 13:03
  Sophie Sweeney: Um but what I want to do with you know my academic career is to make sure that it is all human-centered, that I'm leveraging the accountancy skills that I have to really make again make the world a better place and keep you know um empowering young people.
• 13:24
  Sophie Sweeney: I really do believe I will still be in that university.
• 13:27
  Sophie Sweeney: I will still be standing up, teaching, motivating, and I really hope in 10 years' time that some of the students that I have taught in the past come back and I get to hear their stories and and maybe hear how I was, you know, a trusted person in their life that motivated them to take their career path.
• 13:49
  Sophie Sweeney: Um so I hope that you know I stay on this path and that I can continue bringing people together and motivating people.