Content, required skills, competition, career opportunities... Charles Daussy, Head of the programme, reveals everything you need to know about the new MSC available from September 2020.

Can you talk about the programme's goals?
Charles Daussy: The objective of the new programme is to prepare students for careers in financial control and finance and also in audit and consulting, with a focus on the development of financial skills in relation to decision-making, planning and control in the value creation process.
As well as developing technical skills, the MSc AAA aims to help students take their strategic thinking beyond numbers and figures and to implement and manage the process of value creation to meet the expectations of a multitude of stakeholders (internal and external to the company) and to help organisations manage the disruptive evolution in the use of new technologies.
Plus, the MSc has a clear international focus. First of all, all the courses will be taught in English and secondly, we have entered into a process of certification with the CMA (Certified Management Accountant), a globally renowned American certification.

Has The programme been designed to respond to market developments?
C.D. : Exactly!
In addition to having the required technical skills for these professions, the students need to develop a capacity to respond to the challenges and changes of tomorrow's environment, including issues related to sustainable development and new technologies.
Our objective is to prepare students to understand and analyse the environment around them rapidly and to view things from a different angle that will help their organisations to challenge themselves and adapt to an ever-changing context.
Courses such as 'Managing challenging organizational environments,' for example, will allow students to challenge the dominant models and test their ability to react to a blurred environment.

How can you be sure that this is in line with market demands?
C.D.: Quite simply by designing a programme that combines academic courses and professional instructors, who are the students' future recruiters.
Technical skills such as financial analysis, corporate finance and financial management will be taught by the school's professors.
Numerous companies, such as large audit and consulting firms, will also be involved in teaching key concepts such as societal performance management, corporate governance and ethics, data management, block chain, AI, RPA (robotic process automation)...
A similar programme is available only at two other Business Schools in France. NEOMA certainly stands out as a pioneer with the creation of this MSc Accounting, Auditing & Advisory!

Can you outline the career opportunities available to the students?
C.D.: This new MSc will provide graduates with a dual competence allowing them to access positions of management control, internal and external audit, risk management, and consulting in strategy, HR, management, sustainable development... in major consulting firms and with the Big 4 in transaction services, consulting or financial management positions.

Can you tell us a little about your professional experience?
C.D.: My professional career started off in business. For 27 years, I was a management controller, an administrative and financial manager and a Business Unit director, with companies of various sizes (large groups and SMEs) and in a number of different sectors of activity (electronic, public works and insurance in particular).
I also tried my hand at entrepreneurship and set up a communications company creating training material based on board games and comics for companies
It was whilst working in business that I started teaching management control and management accounting courses at the School, on a freelance basis. Then I joined the school as a professor in 2010.  In 2016, I defended my thesis on the introduction of a CSR policy into an organisation's strategy and internal processes, with particular focus on cooperative banks.
The topic of the decision-making process is central in my teached and my varied professional experience has involved an encounter with two of its aspects: the one where you are the person who helps in the decision-making process and the one where you are helped, which has become the main theme of my teaching.

>Read more about the MSc Accounting, Auditing & Advisory programme of NEOMA Business School