‘You can do anything you set your mind to’ executive John tells CBS awards ceremony
GUEST speaker at the annual awards day for students at Charleville C.B.S. Secondary School was past pupil John Chrysostomou, now a senior consultant at the Dublin based Deloitte & Touche advisory firm.
Addressing the students, John recounted his own experience at the C.B.S. He said he really didn’t apply himself during his school years as he had little interest in his studies leading up to sitting his Leaving Certificate in 2005.
After school he spent the summer working mainly doing manual labour until, after a long wet and cold 12 hour shift working on the Fermoy bypass, he decided there must be something better. He decided to give college a try and so he entered Waterford Institute of Technology and in 2009 he graduated with a First Class Honours International Business Degree and was placed in the top 5% of the Business School.
John then entered the Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School at U.C.D., gaining a First Class Honours Master Degree in International Business before joining Deloitte & Touche as trainee accountant. He qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 2013, with three international placings, coming 1st in Ireland on two occasions and being placed 2nd in the world out of circa 9.000 students.
He was appointed senior consultant in the Deloitte Management Consultancy Department in 2014 and was also made a brand ambassador for ACCA. This year John was elected to the ACCA Ireland Financial Services Panel.
John’s message to the students was that even if they had not applied themselves in the years leading up to their examinations, or if they do not receive the results they had hoped for in their Leaving Certificate, it need not hold them back if they want to progress their careers. “My advice to you is that you can achieve anything you set your mind to and if you work hard enough at it you can achieve your goal,” he told his young audience.
Also present at the awards ceremony was retired Detective Garda Ben O’Sullivan, who shared the presentations of the awards to the young students with John Chrysostomou. The coveted Student of the Year award went to Billy Millar, who is chairman of the school’s Student Council and who will sit his Leaving Certificate examination in June.