IT was the Clonakilty Black Pudding Co which directed Imelda Hurley towards a business career. Today she is an audit senior with Arthur Andersen, the worldwide chartered accountancy group. Her time in the offices of the local company in Co Cork was invaluable, she says.
As a teenager while on holiday from Clonakilty's Convent of Mercy secondary school, she worked over the course of two summers in the company's offices, doing general accounts and invoices. It was this work that gave her "a feel for it," she says. "I knew that I liked it. It seemed to be for me. I was interested in it".
The idea of solving problems, of dealing with figures, "of making things balance, and sitting back and asking - does that work?" gave her a taste for business and for accounting in particular.
"I loved accountancy in Leaving Cert," she explains. "My mind was geared towards it, the idea of being logical and rational, that if you do X then you must do Y. It's probably because I have a fairly logical mind. That's how it came about."
At 17, she felt, she was very young to make a decision for the rest of life. So her next port of call was the University of Limerick to study a four-year business studies degree course. The course allows students a certain latitude by providing a general business focus during their first two years, giving them a chance to study and decide which area they will specialise in. In third year, students split into one of five different options.
The lure of being able to rationalise, quantify and impose order on any tangled mass of accounts proved too strong to ignore for Imelda Hurley. She knew before first year was out that she wanted to study accountancy and finance. "I was sure so soon into college" she says.
"It's not an easy four years, they used to have exams every three months, the big cram never let up, the exams were so close to each other. But if you work consistently you'll be fine.
Hurley found that working as a team with two friends helped her get through. They graduated with first class honours from UL in 1994. Even after university, when their exams in chartered accountancy continued, the three friends stayed together and studied on. "Often during study leave we'd be on the phone."
Hurley was the first woman to win the Gold Medal when she got the highest results in the country in her final chartered accountancy exams, which she completed two years after graduation from UL.
Today she equips herself each day with her lap-top, a mountain or two of files, some audit cases, tons of stationery and a can or two of Diet Coke. She is in charge of the team from Arthur Andersen which arrives like the "A-team" at a company to audit the accounts. "We go out to the client. I co-ordinate things with the company, you move to different companies every few weeks. You meet lots of different people."
Hurley is wary of the "boring" tag that is often associated with accountancy. The work of an audit senior can sometimes be laborious, but "as you move up you get the bigger picture, as you understand the thing you move on to another level," says Hurley. "You don't get cubby-holed and stuck into an area." She says that there is always a challenge and excitement.
