Accounting honors club Beta Alpha Psi hosted Kyle Stoner from Deloitte for a career talk on Feb. 20 in the Scianna Hall. Deloitte is a multinational accounting firm that provides auditing, consulting, tax, risk advisory, and other related services to select clients. Some of Deloitte’s biggest clients are Yamaha Motor, the United States Golf Association, and Sunrise Senior Living. Deloitte has also been employing students from different majors from Southern Miss as interns in the company.
Kyle Stoner, who is a senior consultant at Deloitte, is an alumnus of Southern Miss and was also a member of Beta Alpha Psi when he was studying at Southern Miss. In his lecture, he talked about some of the possible career paths that an accounting major could take such as risk assessment and financial advisory. Among all the other possible career paths, he emphasized ESG, which stands for environmental, social, and governance.
ESG is a set of issues that are considered in business investment and management. It is a framework that helps investors and business owners understand risk management and opportunities in business and investing. Also called business sustainability, ESG takes the holistic view that sustainability goes beyond just the environment and also considers other factors.
Stoner explained the importance of ESG in business management in his talk. He also talked about different skills that are required in ESG and how they can be transferred from accounting to ESG. He explained how understanding ESG is important for investors, customers, employees, suppliers, and policymakers. He also talked about the future of ESG and data management in his lecture. He also talked about what he does at Deloitte in his job and what qualifications he needed to get his job.
Stoner was engaged with his students throughout the lecture and frequently stopped to ask questions or opinions from the Beta Alpha Psi members who had attended the meeting. He also answered any questions that any attendee had during the lecture. After his talk was over, he also answered a few questions from students separately.
The Beta Alpha Psi faculty mentor, Julia Bradley, also thought that the students were engaged throughout the lecture.
“The meeting was a success and all of our students were engaged throughout the meeting,” Bradley said.
Beta Alpha Psi also hosted a mentor and mentee event after the lecture was over. In the event, the mentors and mentees were separated into two different groups and drew a name from two different sets. The names included names of some classic combinations. For example, if a mentor got peanut butter in their name, they would be paired with a mentee who got jelly. Since there were not enough mentors for all of the mentees, there were some groups of three.
In the event, the mentors consisted of people who were more experienced than mentees in the field of business and accounting. The mentors gave the mentees advice on different parts of their careers and education and shared some experiences with them. The mentors also gave them advice regarding internships.
