2. The leaders of tomorrow
Image: from left, Senpathi Jayawickrama ASA, Vanessa Matti CPA and Josie Collins CPA
Senpathi Jayawickrama ASA
Chief Procurement Officer for Vietnam Operations, Hirdaramani Group
Bien Hoa, Vietnam
Senpathi Jayawickrama ASA is comfortable with change. In fact, transformation has been a key theme of her finance career. A former chief transformation officer of the knit division at Sri Lanka’s apparel and textile giant, Hirdaramani Group, she has held several business strategy roles in her career.
Jayawickrama recently seized the opportunity for more change by taking on the role of chief procurement officer for Hirdaramani Group’s Vietnam operations.
“Procurement is very new to me, but I’m learning so much,” she says.
Jayawickrama began her career as a management accountant but was drawn to opportunities in business strategy.
“Many organisations create five-year strategies and stick to the plans they put in place,” she says. “But in the world right now, those strategies are just high-level goals and everything has to change. I’m interested in how we manage those transformations. Most changes happen through people — you can’t just change a system or a process and expect everything in the company to change.
“People are diverse and their levels of acceptance to change are different, but I enjoy the process of working with individuals to drive change, and I know how important communication is.”
Jayawickrama is currently studying for a master’s in digital transformation and says she is keen to apply those skills in the future. “I keep telling people that if you’re going to be working for the next 30 years, be ready to work with youngsters who are going to talk technology. You need to know what they’re talking about,” she says.
Vanessa Matti CPA
Accountant, Remington Steel
Melbourne, Australia
Mentorship has made a world of difference to Vanessa Matti CPA’s career. She recently joined CPA Australia’s mentoring program to help boost her confidence at work. Matti has since taken on more responsibilities and sees greater value in her professional opinions.
“I used to be shy, and I was scared to talk in front of people,” says Matti, who moved to Australia from China more than a decade ago. “I was fortunate to be mentored by Stephannie Jonovska FCPA, who manages finance transformation at BlueScope.
She suggested I challenge myself to make a little change every day. I’ve pushed myself to do that, even if it’s just being the first one to say good morning to someone in the office.
“The next thing I learned from Stephannie was how to express my opinion in front of others,” Matti adds. “There’s no point saying, ‘Oh, I think this is right’. You have to give a reason and back it up with a resource. This kind of advice has really lifted my confidence.”
Before taking up accounting, Matti studied software engineering, but a love of numbers convinced her to change course. She recently took on the responsibility for payroll at Remington Steel and was awarded CPA Australia Mentee of the Year for 2024.
“My accounting team merged into one department, and I took on more responsibilities,” she says. “I think that’s one of the reasons I won the award.”
Matti is also using her software engineering knowledge to help Remington Steel transition to a new software platform for stocktaking.
“I’ve done some simple things like change the settings to make the system automatically push through invoices to the accounting software,” she says. “I think it’s making our job a bit easier.”
Josie Collins CPA
Commercial Analyst, Helimods
Sunshine Coast, Australia
Josie Collins CPA was completing her business degree when she discovered that among more than 200,000 registered accountants in Australia at the time, only 38 of them identified as Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander.
“I just thought … what’s going on?” says Collins, a proud Gomeroi woman. “At that time, I didn’t have the capacity to contribute meaningfully to changing that situation. As soon as I finished the CPA Program, I reached out to ask how I could get involved.”
Outside of her day job at Queensland aircraft special mission system manufacturer HeliMods, Collins is a member of the Indigenous Advancement Committee of CPA Australia’s Queensland division. She is also a board member of the Caloundra Chamber of Commerce and part of the executive committee for the Sunshine Coast Young Chamber of Commerce.
“Volunteering is a really good way to give back to the communities you belong to,” she says.
“We’re going through huge growth on the Sunshine Coast and to have a voice in a lot of decisions is important. Through my role on the Indigenous Advancement Committee, I hope to inspire future generations to see that accounting is a valid career choice, because you can’t be what you can’t see.”
At HeliMods, Collins helps to shape operational decisions and strategic direction.
“I’ve also developed a keen interest in the technology side of finance, so I now oversee the effective integration and optimisation of our corporate systems,” she says.
“I’ve always loved to challenge the status quo. I like to champion what the future of accounting looks like, but with the caveat that we’re in the future right now, and if we’re not scared of it and we embrace it, then the opportunities are endless.”
