Meet Ryan Herman, Editor, CA Magazine
The ‘CA' in CA Magazine stands for chartered accountant, but throw away any misconceptions you may have about bean counters - this industry bible is anything but dull. Produced 10 times a year by The River Group for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), it attracts interviews with heavyweight businesspeople, politicians, thought leaders and entrepreneurs. We spoke to CA Magazine editor Ryan Herman about his role.
Six months into his role as editor of CA Magazine, Ryan Herman is bringing the human stories of finance professionals to life while, at the same time, striking at the heart of the key issues facing companies in these tough economic times. Having contributed to the magazine for two years prior to his appointment, and with a career resume that reads like a Who's Who of business and sport, Herman is fast putting his stamp on the publication. Starting out as a cadet reporter on a local west London newspaper, Herman earned his journalistic stripes reporting from the touchlines, before scoring a job at acclaimed football magazine Four Four Two. Becoming editor of Sky Sports magazine would not only cement a 10-year association with the broadcaster - including a stint overseeing marketing emails to six million subscribers that saw open rates increase from 12% to 36% - but would also see Herman, from his desk in London, oversee a now legendary cover shoot with Shane Warne in a pool of 6,000 cricket balls in India. His versatility as a journalist, saw Herman transition into business publishing with top-flight CEO interviews as contributing editor of Director magazine, while still quenching his thirst for sport with commissions from the New European, GQ and the Rugby Journal.
When I took the job at CA Magazine, friends said, ‘that's very dry, it's just all accountancy'. While it's true there's accountancy in there, we're showing that you can take the CA qualification and do anything you want with it. We showcase the amazing array of talented chartered accountants (CAs), as well as diverse thought leaders, CEOs and entrepreneurs across the business community.
"We look at the business world through a finance lens"
Angela Malik, a chartered account, who became a chef and appeared on the Great British Menu, is proof of that. She's working on a project to reverse a trend of diabetes. It's going to become an epidemic because diabetes is so high, increasing year on year, particularly among the South Asian community. Malik is using a mixture of AI, tech and culinary skills to try and prevent a massive escalation of diabetes among South Asians.
CA Magazine is a business title: we look at the business world through a finance lens. It is available online (without a paywall) and is emailed to 23,000 chartered accountants and 4,000 students, based all over the world: CEOs, CFOs, and entrepreneurs running start-ups, in every sector imaginable.
We interviewed Lord Simon Woolley, political activist and founder of Operation Black Vote, in the days following the King's proclamation, so we were able to ask him about working with the then-Prince Charles around Black Lives Matter. Baron Woolley - who as principle of Homerton College is the first black man to head an Oxbridge college - gave us fantastic insight. He spoke of his delight that [Prince] Charles had shared the same desire to see progress move quickly on the cause as he did.
I have enormous respect for anyone who have taken the CA (Chartered Accountancy) qualification. It provides an extraordinary range of skills that allows you to look at any business, not just from an accounting point of view but holistically. It's been likened to an MBA.
CAs are the people in organisation, who should be questioning things and calling out smoke and mirrors - and we reflect that. A good example right now is greenwashing. It's CAs who will call out when a company is giving a false picture about its environmental credentials. If you put that into a financial report, you can get pulled up for that. So CAs are the last line of defence; the gatekeepers.
After I interviewed Bruce Daisley [former EMEA vice president of Twitter], I wrote: ‘Although he isn't an accountant, he thinks like one because he questions everything.' He looks at something and says that if it doesn't look right, it probably isn't right. The feature was on the myth of resilience and how resilience has become an industry itself.
The entrepreneur Paul Lindley, who founded of baby food brand Ella's Kitchen, is a trained chartered accountant. He isn't ICAS-trained but he's had a fascinating career [including deputy managing director at Nickelodeon] and made a worthy interview with some really interesting views on reshaping capitalism.
CA Magazine is a calling card for chartered accountancy to the wider world. The majority of our interviewees are CAs because we want the magazine to highlight to an outside audience the amazing things CAs go on to achieve. Having an accountancy qualification is more than just profit and loss, there's so much more you can do. I remember interviewing Lisa Tomkins, who studied microbiology at Heriot-Watt University but then decided to become a CA after her degree. She now works for Oxford Biomedica, which produces the AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. Her CA qualification helped her achieve her vocation.
"CA Magazine is a calling card for chartered accountancy to the wider world"
There are several key themes that will influence the editorial strategy going forward which include responsible business, sustainability, mental fitness and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) - which is where ICAS as an organisation has made huge strides.
One of my strategies as editor is for us to be bolder with our covers. Bold covers shouldn't only be the preserve of Time or the New Yorker. One of my most memorable covers was as editor of Sky Sports magazine, with the cricketer Shane Warne photographed in a pool of 6,000 cricket balls [in homage to the rose scene from American Beauty and we used the headline, You Beauty!]. I was in London, the shoot was in India. I'd planned it with his agent for six weeks, determining Warne's precise location while on tour, with a short window in which to shoot. Time was against us, the 110C heat threatened to melt our equipment and I got word from our photographer that Warne had turned up knowing nothing about the shoot. Fortunately, he was a wonderful character and he just said, ‘Ok let's get on with it.' We had no contact from India for an hour, then suddenly an email came through: it slowly revealed Warne's head popping out of a sea of cricket balls. We had the cover!
CA Magazine has plenty of commercial opportunities too. We used Xero as our commercial partner for a survey in autumn. In turn, that survey revealed the biggest challenge for CAs running small practices is spreading the workload evenly through the year. Making Tax Digital should address that problem so we hosted a follow-up webinar with Xero. As part of our new strategy, we are producing special reports on specific topics. These range from the government's Making Tax Digital programme, to accountancy in the metaverse and the business of space, which is the next big opportunity for accountants because no one knows how to audit space!
Every day on this magazine is like a new day at school, interviewing people from all different walks of life. I've interviewed so many CAs and I love doing it because they are all uniquely interesting people with fascinating stories to tell.
https://www.camagazine.co.uk