After 8 years of working in the Middle East, this CA returned to Nepal and founded a BPO

• Hello, I am Nageshwar Prasad Yadav. Hailing from Janakpur, Nepal, I am a qualified  Chartered Accountant from India.
• When it was time to decide a career path, after a lot of thought I decided to move to India from Nepal so I could study Chartered Accountancy.
• At that time I would’ve never envisioned myself pursuing Chartered Accountancy since I was looking forward to becoming a doctor. Sadly that plan was futile because of our financial drawbacks.
• After qualifying as a CA, I took up opportunities in the Middle East and Africa. All was going well but I knew it was time to return to my home country Nepal and make most of the growing opportunities.
• So in May’19 after 8 long years, I returned to Nepal with the hopes of starting something of my own.
• In 2020 in the middle of the pandemic, I launched Glocal Consultancy Nepal Pvt.Ltd, a Business Process Outsourcing company.

Where it all started

Belonging to a farmer family in Janakpur, Nepal my childhood was undoubtedly challenging. I used to help my father out in the field and due to our demanding situation, my parents had to work really hard to afford my higher education necessities.

However, since my adolescence, I’ve aspired to become a  leader, as I have always been extremely competitive with far-reaching visions in my mind and always worked diligently to accomplish my goals.

When it was time to decide on my career path, I wanted to become a Doctor however since it was an expensive affair I planned on doing another qualification which was rewarding and yet affordable. That is when my elder brother brought in the suggestion to pursue the Chartered Accountancy from ICAI(The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India) as it was quite affordable as well as rewarding.

(ICAI is highly renowned for producing innumerable amounts of successful CAs. The leading reputation of ICAI is also evident in Nepal.)

Additionally, CAs earn a considerable amount of recognition, and because of that sole reason, I made up my mind to become a Chartered Accountant from India.

I discussed this with my parents but my father wasn’t convinced as I had to move to India to study the CA course but after a lot of convincing he agreed! Yay!

I then started reaching out to the local Chartered Accountancy students for some guidance. And with the assistance of their valuable advice, I opted for the commerce stream in high school.

Consequently, after my 12^thgrade, along with a friend I traveled to ICAI, New Delhi intending to pursue CA, and here started a new journey!

From Nepal to India: Becoming a CA against all odds

The roadway to becoming a CA was not at all straight as I had to overcome various obstacles throughout the journey.

When I first landed in India, I was completely unaware of the enrollment procedures of the chartered accountancy course. It was very stressful and after just one week in India, I returned home discouraged as I didn’t have any mentors to guide me with the entire process.

Once I returned to Nepal, I got to know about a relative in India who instantaneously offered to help once he learned about my predicament. Luckily, his nephew was also pursuing CA Intermediate in India. With a lot of hope, I returned to New Delhi, but this time with proper resources and guidance. 

I am more than grateful to my relative’s nephew for helping me tremendously. From helping me with my admission, accommodation to educating me on the course for a whole month, if it wasn’t for him, I could’ve never reached my goal of becoming a CA.

Fast forward, in 2011, after three failed attempts and loads of learnings, I qualified as a Chartered Accountant.

Working in the Middle East and Africa

While pursuing CA, I was extremely eager to experience the diverse global work culture. But after qualifying, the objective changed where I wanted to just find a job and get settled!

Accordingly, I joined a Big 4 PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in New Delhi where I worked for a year on a retainership basis. Thus my journey as a finance professional began.

Working certainly offered significant exposure to various workplace cultures and I garnered profuse industrial knowledge. Yet after working for a year I figured that doing a job in India is not fulfilling my dreams at all. That’s why I moved to the Middle East to start a new chapter and gain some global industrial experience.

I started my career in the Middle East with GATE CITY TRADING that had its headquarters in Africa. While working here for almost three and a half years I had to travel back and forth from Doha to Uganda as per my job requirements.

After working for GATE CITY TRADING, I moved to CDT WLL Qatar (a subsidiary of BFC International ) in 2016, where I worked for almost three years as a CFO, managing their overall finances and accounts. I had the opportunity to learn numerous industry-related skills while working in France as well for a project.

While living in Doha I also became a member of The Institute of Chartered Financial Analyst of the US from CFA Institute, Virginia in 2019.

Returning to Nepal and taking an entrepreneurial leap

Working for almost 7 years abroad made me realize that my actual dreams are entirely different than my current reality.

And with some much-needed self-reflection and introspection, I discovered that my initial plan always was to garner experience and eventually return to my home country Nepal to start something on my own.

The thought of making my dreams a reality made me so exhilarated that I was keen to execute it right away. Besides the condition of my health was deteriorating and to make the situation even worse my father became unwell.

In 2019, I eventually returned to Nepal.

What next now?

Idea to start a BPO on lines Glocal

After my return to Nepal, nearly 3 months went by without any significant accomplishments.

Not knowing what to do next I joined a new company but quit after working only 6 months as I didn’t appreciate their workplace culture.

Around this time I heard the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi say that the Indian Business of the IT Industry particularly BPO and IT Enabled Services are growing exceptionally and he was encouraging the youth to partake in the operation. His wonderful vision inspired me to a great extent so much so that I found my business idea from there.

The BPO industry is expanding at a great rate all over the world thus it was time for me to execute all those plans I had in mind practically to build a local consultancy business that is unlike any other company in Nepal.

Ultimately, I founded Glocal Consultancy Nepal Pvt. Ltd. in 2020.

I commenced this journey with a small team of MBA, IT, and some CAs.We encountered some difficulties with the work as the clients overseas were unable to send us any data. But regardless we are thriving as a team.  And we have extended our service to countries like Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Nairobi and planning on serving worldwide.

The team currently consists of 11 skilled members. Our company is still in its developmental phase. However, I believe that with our constant diligence we will be at the top in the next 5 to 10 years.

Serving our clients with expertise

The core value of GLOCAL is to serve the clients with excellent expertise in Accounting or Taxation etc. We carefully apprehend the requirements of our clients and then serve them accordingly.

We are striving to establish our presence overseas as it would take some time for us to grow our business in Nepal because of the developing market. Regardless I am trying to build even more relations with other companies in foreign nations so that we can serve globally.

I am also preparing to become a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nepal as well as trying to pursue the Actuary course so that we could serve in the Insurance market as well.

Currently, we have clients in Nepal, UK, Kenya, Qatar, Doha, Saudi Arabia, and Nairobi and we primarily provide the following services - Customer services (Inbound, Outbound), Financial Advisory, Payroll Processing, Inventory Management, accounts, and taxation.

Facing the ongoing challenges

The major issue of the Nepalese Market is that it's still developing. They usually overlook modern ideas because of their traditional organizational culture. But eventually, our new ideas will become very popular in Nepal.

We are still trying our best to understand new processes and ideologies of work that will help them with regard to a sustainable working environment, cost-effectiveness, time management, planning, and public relations.

Essentially, we are serving our customers as per their requirements with unique and improvised expertise. And my intuition says that BPO companies will be performing most of the Accounting and Taxation work in the next 10 to15 years.

Advice to other Nepalese CAs

If you want to do something different than a usual 9 to 5 job, then work diligently, acquire various industry knowledge, and master new skills to start something on your own in Nepal. It’s a developing nation, so there is great potential in the Nepalese market.

Most importantly, do the things that really interest you and make you happy and keep learning new things as the world is changing with time, and be patient. 

Now It's Your Turn...

Are you looking at starting your career in Nepal? Do you have questions for Nagesh, please comment and he will get in touch with you.