Become a Chartered Accountant
In this 'Become a Chartered Accountant' podcast series you will hear directly from members and students of Chartered Accountants Ireland and how they decided on the ACA qualification, their journey and how their careers are going.
Become a Chartered Accountant
Ruth McLoughlin: From International Tax to Sustainable Fashion
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In this episode, Sinead Fox Hamilton speaks to Ruth McLoughlin, Chartered Accountant, tax adviser, business consultant and fashion rental business owner, about building a career on your own terms. Ruth reflects on her journey from Deloitte and international tax into senior in-house roles, before launching her own consultancy and stepping into retail entrepreneurship with Happy Days. A standout moment comes when she shares the striking statistic that 1.7 million sequined garments are sent to landfill after Christmas, highlighting the sustainability mission behind her business. Warm, practical and energising, this episode is full of insight on entrepreneurship, confidence, travel and why investing in yourself can open unexpected doors.
Making that solid investment in yourself for three or four years and then being able to do whatever you want to do in the future is such an empowering thing to be able to do.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:This is the Become a Chartered Accountant podcast. My name's Shania Fox Hamilton, and I'm talking to chartered accountants doing interesting things. And in this episode we have Ruth McLoughlin, who is an interesting character. She wears many hats, chartered accountant, tax advisor, business consultant, and most recently fashion retailer. How does that happen, Ruth? Tell me more. Tell me the journey.
Ruth McLoughlin:Oh, no worries. Thanks. Sinead, thanks so much for having me on. Yeah. So many hats is right, and also a mom of three kids. Oh, wow. Um, yeah, which keeps me very, very busy. But, um, yes, I probably decided I wanted to become a trade accountant in my late teens. Um, just loved it, loved the maths, loved the English side of it, and knew a couple of people kind of around that had done it. So, um, did a b com in UCD. Which was great. Good basis. Then a master's in accounting and then joined Deloitte. Um, and then from there did my tax exams and obviously my charter accounting exams and spent some time in Deloitte, spent some time in industry and then, yeah, now have my own consulting firm and, um, own Happy Days, which is, uh, like occasion wear, fashion rental. In Leopardstown. So yeah, busy, busy,
Sinead Fox Hamilton:busy, busy for sure. No, it's probably not a traditional story. Did you train all the way through tax in, is that what you trained in, in Deloitte?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, so I trained in international tax, so think like the big US multinationals that are here. So a lot of that, so saw a huge like raft of variety of clients. Um, and then spent some time on secondment, um, which actually was great. So for, um, company called CNC, which owned ERs Oh
Sinead Fox Hamilton:yes.
Ruth McLoughlin:Um. So, yeah. And obviously a big fan of bummer. Anybody that knows me, a bummers light is my drink. Um, so that was nice. Convenient. Yeah. Convenient and nice to be able to start to see things that you do in real life.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Yeah.
Ruth McLoughlin:You know, start to see, oh yeah, the boomers in the shop rather than, you know, you just get a bit more of a variety that way too.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:And I think there's probably a misconception that. Chartered accountants, they're at their desk and they're just worrying on working on dull, uninteresting projects. But as you say, like ER's entirely recognizable. Any other interesting sort of pieces of work?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, like I think. I really loved my time in practice. Yeah. Um, but I knew once I'd done the industry route that that was for me. Yeah. Um, so once I worked in CNC for a year, I joined ancestry.com Okay. Which is, I think I was there eight years as their head of international tax. Um, so that was really interesting. Like, and came with a huge amount of travel. So like I've seen like an astronomical amount of, um, America. I've seen huge amounts of Europe, um, which is great getting travel work too, right? And that the Chartered accountants helps you do all of that, right? Because you become a valuable kind of business leader in-house somewhere. Um, so did that and then I left Ancestry and I joined, um, Keurig, Dr. Pepper, which is. The Dr. Pepper brand. Um, they also own seven Up. They own like a raft of brands. Um, and then spend some time with them. And now I have my own consulting firm, um, and also own Happy Days, which is a huge part of my life now.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:And tell me more about that. How did you get into that space? It's not a natural pivot, if I may say so.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, so I've always been a huge lover of sustainability, right? Yeah. From Dead dot. I am that person that like walks into the kitchen and takes yogurt pots outta the bin and washes them and puts them in the recycling. So. It's always been a huge part of my life, and I was one of happy Day's top customers. It's just around the corner from my house, and I've always loved fashion too. So when the opportunity came available to, you know, get involved with it, I said, well, why not? Like I can do that. Right? And that's part of what being a chartered accountant is. It's, you know, you remove that fear of entrepreneurship, right? You remove that like, well. What if I can't cope with it? Because you, you have learned so much skills through the exams, through the training that you're confident in your own ability to just, you know, go and do it. I'm like, what's the worst that can happen? I mean, it's great. So I love it. I love it. And I love meeting customers. I love the brands. I love obviously the buying aspect, the wearing aspect of it.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Absolutely.
Ruth McLoughlin:Um, the perks of the job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The perks of the job. Yeah. No, so it's great.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:I'm interested to know more about Happy Dayss. Can you tell me more?
Ruth McLoughlin:Uh, no.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:I'll go on. Right. Lemme twist your arm. Come on. I wanna know. It's such an interesting business. Tell me
Ruth McLoughlin:more. Yes, so Happy Days has been around four years, um, which in the life of like rental clothing is crazy, right? Yes. It's like, um, one of the OGs. Um, so we're based in Leopardstown. You can order online or you can come to the shop, no appointments properly, like cash stroll on in, and, uh, when the girls give you a hand, um, we cover sizes four to 26.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Amazing.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, it's huge. And like that's part, that's, that's part of our vision too, right? Yeah. You know, it's this inclusivity component of it. Yeah. Um. Predominantly occasional wear, but like the suit is from there. You know, we have a lot of other kind of stuffs. Yeah, yeah. Um, so we also play a huge, like social media is a huge part of our brand. Um, and we post every day on Insta and then regularly on TikTok, which comes like a huge amount of fun. You can go a bit crazy.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Absolutely. You get involved yourself.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yes, there are, there are plenty of, um, of instant tiktoks with me out there.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Any dodgy dancing? I need to go look up
Ruth McLoughlin:there. There's certainly some, but you might need to look pretty hard to find them. Um, yeah, we, and then we deal a lot with like slabs and some of the talkers and Yeah. And that's a huge part too. And you know, they come in, they take videos, they do reels and yeah. That part's fun too. Like as an accountant, that is certainly not like getting up there and filming tiktoks and being around and being in people's vlogs and all of that is not what people think is a, in a day-to-day church accountant's, uh, accountant's role.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Absolutely not. But that's why I said we're talking to interesting people. This is a cool story. And off camera, we were talking a bit about the. Other sort of areas that you get involved with through the business? The female empowerment piece. Tell me more about that.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, so we, um, in happy days we obviously have a retail presence, so over Christmas we do like a local market for Irish businesses that are, um, female entrepreneurs. Yeah. Oh,
Sinead Fox Hamilton:fabulous.
Ruth McLoughlin:So where they don't have a presence, they a store presence, they come in and they stay there with us for the seven weeks of Christmas. Which is great and great for their brands. Right. And like we've quite an amount of followers and a loyal base on Insta, so that helps their brands grow. Um, and then we do like yoga in store. We do like, um, swap shops. Yeah, we've got PLAs now coming up, so we're always like, we're quite community based too, which is also a lot of fun.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:As is our profession, so community focused. So I love this. Um, lots of synchronicity, but I must go and get following. I need to see all this activity and folks tuning in. Better go and follow happy days. So thanks for sharing more on that for us.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, great. Right.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:So for now, like what does your day to day look like? Your week look like? You're busy juggling the tax you work, you're juggling the shop. Have you stopped? How does it all work? How do you do it all and be a mom?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yes. So we do have staff, which is great. We have some amazing staff and the girls are very good. So I tend to be in the store a couple of days a week. And then, um, I do a couple of days in the consulting arm. Lots of late nights, you know, lots of Saturdays. But my husband is great, you know, family are great and the kids are great and the kids love the shop off of. They come in on Saturdays early and they Hoover and mop and in exchange amazing. They get a packet of jellies for later. Great.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Start them young, train them young. Amazing. And something you mentioned earlier was the travel piece. That's something I'm always quizzed on. You know, the next generation, they wanna be able to travel. This qualification obviously enabled you to do that. What would you say to someone if they have travel on their vision board and they're considering the profession?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, and that's definitely a huge plus of it, right? And I know loads of people that have traveled and worked as trade accountants abroad and. You know, numbers are the same everywhere. Right. And the Charge Accountants is a really recognizable global brand. Yeah. And it's that. It gets you in the door. Someone is always going to want to interview you when you apply. Yeah. Right. And I know that because I've looked at hundreds and thousands of CVS over my life of hiring people and when you see it, you go, oh yeah. It's worth having a chat with that person.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Yeah.
Ruth McLoughlin:You know, 'cause you know what they've got and you know, the training, they've gotten the skillset and, and that's across the board now globally. Yeah. It definitely allows people to give that springboard to launch, to travel if it's in your, if it's in your, uh, bucket list.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Oh, absolutely. And you're touching on something there. I'd love to get your thoughts on skills. What are the key skills of a chartered account? What skills do you need in, in your career? What have really stood out? Yeah,
Ruth McLoughlin:like. I like the problem solving aspect of it, right? The trusted leadership, the ability to, you know, analyze and assess and come up with solutions. Like that's really at the heart of every role, right? And when you get that training and you get somebody that literally pours their own skill sets into you. You know, why can't you take on anything you want to do? Like what? And whatever that is. Like I know Charity, Kansas City, loads of things. You know, this idea of like the shoebox of receipts or the sitting with the calculator and the puel comes out. That's just not our world anymore. Like, you know, and I know loads of them, like I, I come across 'em in the business and, and I meet female founders all the time. I meet other entrepreneurs all the time, and so many of them have a charge accountant base. You know, it just lets you, lets you run the business and take the idea that you love. Make it financially viable and, and make it be what you want to do. You know, so why not
Sinead Fox Hamilton:give it a go? And the sustainability space, obviously that you've got into, it's a big area for chartered accountants now, and I'm not sure Joe Public realizes that it's in our syllabus, we, you know, we teach sustainability now. Was that something that was always a personal passion and obviously it's translated into your career now or. Where did that start for you?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, it always has been. And like some of the statistics you read are crazy, right? There's an report from 2019 where 1.7 million sequined garments are put in landfill after Christmas. Think of that 1.7 million, 1.7 million sequined garments post-Christmas, right? Ooh. And like sequins are predominantly made of plastic. Yeah. Like that's not gonna go anywhere. So the idea to come into somewhere like happy days and rent or borrow from a friend or look in your wardrobe and get the sequence you had last year or vintage or a depop or anything like that is so much better for the environment. Like you can't, we, we just can't continue in this idea of like, you know, sheen and buy and bin and like, it's just not sustainable for anybody. And you can see it across the globe already.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:So it was a natural move for you then. You're
Ruth McLoughlin:definitively a natural move. Yeah. Bit of a sustainability advocate,
Sinead Fox Hamilton:but amazing fab. And you're using your skills for the better. And actually that's something I suppose the chartered brand. It's invested in the public good, making a difference, a positive impact. So it's great seeing you put that all to the, well, not necessarily the test, but put it into reality, into practice, which is fabulous.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah. And just to be able to use what I love, like the skillset that. And mirror it with the sustainability matters so much to me too, like from a personal standing as an advocate for it.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:And I'd be interested to know, have you any tips for someone who may be. Is thinking about an entrepreneurship route is maybe thinking about, shall I get into owning my own business space? What would you say to them?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah. I would say careers are long. Right? And don't be afraid of the fear of failure. Yeah. You know, everybody starts everywhere at all sorts of ages, all sorts of skill sets. Right. Talk to a few people. Talk to, you know, your local enterprise office, reach out to, there's, there's endless amounts of supports for people and like my door is always open, everyone's, a lot of entrepreneurs will give, I will give, um, their time to, to be built. I actually had a conversation yesterday with a lady who's thinking about rental rent, renting bridal bouquets.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Oh.
Ruth McLoughlin:So instead of, um, yeah, instead of real life flowers, they would be silk flowers.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Yeah.
Ruth McLoughlin:And, um, she sent us an email on. On through our, um, our inbox in a dm. And I said, yeah, I'll pick up the phone. And sure, we talked for half an hour, do you know,
Sinead Fox Hamilton:done you,
Ruth McLoughlin:and she's gone off now thinking, yeah, I can do this. I'm like, that's only half an hour outta my day
Sinead Fox Hamilton:know to empowering others.
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah. And I have that skill, so why not pass it on to somebody else, you know?
Sinead Fox Hamilton:And what would you say to someone considering the profession, chartered accountancy? What would you have said to them?
Ruth McLoughlin:Yeah, I would say it's an investment in yourself. Right. You know, it's a solid base that will allow you to springboard to whatever you want to do, wherever you want to do that. And careers are long. And, you know, making that solid investment in yourself for three or four years and then being able to do whatever you want to do in the future is such an empowering thing to be able to do. And it's such a solid base and you know, just do it. Why not
Sinead Fox Hamilton:just do well, what a note I think to wrap up on. Ruth, thank you so, so much for coming and spending some time with us today. I've really enjoyed that chat.
Ruth McLoughlin:Great. No worries.
Sinead Fox Hamilton:Well, folks tuning in. Thank you for listening for more conversations like this. Check us out on Spotify or wherever you listen to your podcast. You'll also find us on YouTube if you'd rather watch us on the Chartered Accountants Ireland page and also check out our become a chartered accountant.com page. Lots of careers inspiration there, all things chartered, and thanks so much for watching, and until next time, we'll see you soon.