Football Industries MBA grad to PwC Indirect Tax Senior Manager: Yusuf's story

Posted on: 30 April 2025 in Where are they now?

Yusuf Molade is an MBA graduate in Football Industries from the University of Liverpool Management School. During his studies, he served as the captain of the course football team, Frumba FC, and a Sky Sports and Kick It Out Scholar. He is currently a Senior Manager in PwC UK's Indirect Tax Consulting team, specialising in the sports industry.

Can you walk us through a typical day in your role as an Indirect Tax Consultant?

A typical day in the life of an indirect tax consultant is a bit of an oxymoron because we tend not to have typical days. The role is truly varied. I know that is very cliché, but in my case, it truly is. Last week I was working in the office and arrived at about 9:45 am. I began by completing my timesheet from the previous day. If you work in professional services like tax, legal, accounting, or consulting, and you work in practice at a firm with clients, you're normally required to complete a timesheet daily or weekly. This records the tasks you've done and ensures accurate billing for client work.

That day, we had a client-facing event where we presented updates on VAT through workshops. We had over 100 clients attend, and I was speaking at two workshops. After finishing my timesheet, I did some final preparation with the Director before heading downstairs to the event space.

I delivered the first presentation, then had lunch where I mingled with clients, catching up with some familiar faces. After lunch, I presented again. Following that, I spoke with more clients during the break before wrapping up the event.

Back at my desk, I had a call with a client from a major record label regarding a VAT issue with their workplace schemes. Later, I conducted research for a new project involving a large energy company building a facility in the UK. After the research, I caught up with an Associate working on these projects. We reviewed meeting notes and outlined project expectations, including timelines, deliverables and time allocation and with that my workday ended.

What are the most rewarding and challenging aspects of working in tax?

The most rewarding aspect of working in tax is the variety of organisations I get to work with. Tax impacts every business, which means I have worked with a diverse range of industries. I am particularly passionate about sports, and I have had the opportunity to work with Premier League clubs. I have also worked with charities, helping them navigate complex VAT issues and sometimes saving them hundreds of thousands in VAT - money they can use to further their charitable missions.

Another rewarding aspect is the travel. My work has taken me to places like Beijing, Hong Kong, Munich, Amsterdam, Delhi, and soon Prague. It’s fulfilling to deliver VAT advice to clients worldwide.

The most challenging part is that tax is constantly changing. Laws and regulations are updated frequently, both locally and internationally, so you must continuously learn and stay informed to provide accurate advice.

What key skills do you think are essential for success in a tax career?

I would say there are five key skills essential for a successful career in indirect tax:

• Attention to detail – Indirect tax and specifically VAT works on a transactional basis, meaning every single transaction a business makes, has an underlying VAT treatment which you need to be aware of. Therefore, you need to have a very good grasp on what the business does that you're working with and get a detailed, granular understanding of what they do. We also naturally deal a lot with numbers and often dealing with spreadsheets with thousands upon thousands of rows of financial data. We're often required to analyse that data and use that data to condense it to submit VAT returns. So therefore, you need to have a lot of attention to detail.
• Communication skills – You also need to be a very strong communicator both verbally and orally. Often, we're having to communicate complex tax information to people that don't understand tax as well as we do and that means learning to be concise and learning to speak in a clear, understandable manner.
• Problem-solving – You need to have very good problem-solving skills. Often, we're faced with complex tax issues for which we're obliged to provide innovative solutions that help businesses and our clients in a way that is practical and commercial for them.
  Time management – You need to have very good time management skills. Often, we're juggling multiple deadlines, multiple clients, multiple stakeholders all at one time so we need to be able to keep a track of all of these deadlines and all of these stakeholders to ensure that we still deliver work in timely fashion.
• Resourcefulness – And lastly, you need to be resourceful. There's a wealth of information out there regarding tax. Tax is always in the media and there's a lot going on in tax space - it’s constantly updating. So therefore, you need to be able to decide which resource is helpful for you at any specific point in time.

How did you prepare for the recruitment process and what advice would you give to aspiring tax professionals?

When applying for tax roles, I found the following methods useful:

• Researching the firm – What I found really useful was firstly the firm's website. This sets out what they do, the firm's wider offering, so not just indirect tax. What else does the firm do? What industries do they operate in? And then lastly, the kind of key values that they have so that I could find and demonstrate to them how I align with those values.
• Learning from others – I also looked at websites where individuals shared their experiences at working at that firm and also the experiences of the application process. A lot of firms have open days for graduates where they'll set out what they do, what roles they have available to graduates etc. They'll normally have a graduate there as well that you can speak to. You can ask questions about the role, the application process, about what it's really like working at that firm and get advice on if you were to work at that firm, what kind of attributes stand out and get advice on how to make yourself look the best candidate in the application process.
• Building extracurricular experience - I did a lot of extracurricular work so that I could demonstrate that I have the kind of competencies that firm is looking for. Joining societies, playing sports for example, all of this helps demonstrate that you have the required attributes that the firm is looking for.
• Staying commercially aware – I also kept my commercial knowledge really intact by listening to the news, finding out topics or news about the firm and the wider industry as well and demonstrating that during interviews.

What resources or training opportunities would you recommend for someone looking to develop their tax knowledge before applying?

For those looking to build tax knowledge before applying:

• Research - Have a look at Google or YouTube, looking at an introduction to indirect tax. Maybe an article or a video to give you a high-level broad view of how indirect tax works.
• Follow Tax News – Now, once you have that, supplement that by paying close attention to whenever tax comes up in the news and also being proactive. Going on the BBC News's finance page and looking at tax articles, going on the Financial Times and just typing in tax into their search function or VAT or indirect tax specifically. And then read up on these articles so you understand the latest trends and developments that are taking place in the VAT space. This should really help you develop your tax knowledge before even applying for a role in indirect tax.