As week 3 concludes, I am beginning to realise I have built a basis of knowledge already. The team around me have worked hard to do this! I can see through our conversations and training sessions, the extensive knowledge they each have. We have covered a wide range of areas, such as business environments, offshore jurisdictions, company law, finance, corporate service providers, and why providing a great client service is our top priority. My brain is buzzing but it hasn’t quite exploded yet!
Last week, our head of legal broadened my understanding of company law beginning with a deceptively simple question: what is a company? Before joining Martyn Fiddler I would have said something like, a company operates to serve a market and produce sales – now I understand that companies are their own entity, with separate legal personality and limited liability, which allows companies to be able to purchase assets, sue or be sued, enter into contracts and so many other actions. I have learnt about the role and different types of directors (and why shadow directors must be avoided!), corporate structures, shareholders, legislation and constitutional documents.
I have also learnt what it means to work within a Corporate Service Provider (CSP). There are multiple sectors where CSP’s become useful to a potential client – aviation, yachting, HR, tax & accounting, wealth management and many others. Businesses often look to outsource to a CSP as they relieve pressure and resources from an organisation; these sorts of responsibilities require focused expertise and knowledge.
Overall, I have expanded my mind to new ways of thinking and re-developed skills I haven’t used in a while, such as independent learning, cross analysis and undertaking research. I am grateful to those who have taken the time to teach me (in brief of course) their area of expertise. I’m looking forward to the coming weeks ahead!
I have also been given the opportunity to write my own ‘Back to Basic’ series which I have fittingly called ‘An apprentice’s guide to corporate and tax services’. You can find my week 1 on Companies here. I’ll be delving into a fresh topic each week, based on the training I’m receiving here at MFA. I will explain the fundamental principles of corporate and tax services from the perspective of someone completely new to the industry.
I hope this short series will provide people like me, who are starting out in the industry, with bite size, easy to digest information to save, study and explore as they too continue to expand their knowledge of corporate and tax services. Stay tuned for next week on Corporate Service Providers!
As week 3 concludes, I am beginning to realise I have built a basis of knowledge already. The team around me have worked hard to do this!
