Nathan Morsillo CPA is passionate about his work with the Central Land Council as a finance manager.

Q. What does your job involve?

A. I am finance manager for the Central Land Council (CLC). The council is an elected body of 90 Aboriginal people from the southern half of the Northern Territory.

Reporting to the general manager, and as a member of the CLC management team, I lead a team of accountants / clerks and provide broad financial / operational support where required across the organisation.

Q. What attracted you to the public sector?

A. I originally made the move from the corporate world (PricewaterhouseCoopers) with grand intentions of making a difference. Over the years I have found many public sector / NGO organisations to have missions, goals or strategies about which I am passionate. Believing in where you work is a must for me.

Q. Have you found it to be different from the corporate world?

A. In some ways, there (often!) feels like very little difference to the corporate world — bills need to be paid, revenue earned, reports written. However, at the middle-manager level, the differences become more pronounced. Issues far removed from the bottom line will often come into play, and the work culture can be very different. Away from the corporate world, it also feels like the finance function gets closer to the coalface. People are real, not customers. You get to see the difference your actions make to individuals.

Q. What do you like about your job?

A. I like the challenges and the variety.

Q. What are the challenges?

A. Organisationally NGOs can have very broad goals and objectives. This can lead to real complexity for finance and other reporting processes. At a day-to-day level, there is a very low level of financial literacy among many of our constituents. Bank accounts? Birth certificates? Identification? These are some of the easier but trickier issues. I am lucky to have a great team who can decode some things that are said, and recode for me some things that need to get out there.

Q. What are your goals?

A. My goal is to always continue to learn — be open to new ideas and ways of doing things alongside organisations that I believe in. All the while, hopefully I am getting time to train, train, train junior staff.

Reference: March 2008, volume 78:02, p. 16