The Year I Said Yes to ICAI and My CA Community

Last reviewed: October 2026

Quick answer. Why would a practising CA take on unpaid ICAI and association work? In my case, it started as a sense of obligation and became something closer to giving back. ICAI committee roles, speaking, and serving as Secretary of the Hyderabad Chartered Accountants Society (HCAS) cost billable time, but they surface the real concerns of younger professionals and sharpen how I explain technical ideas to clients.

Somewhere in the middle of a particularly demanding year for SBC, with new offices opening, a Dubai entity finding its feet, and client mandates I genuinely couldn’t afford to under-deliver on, I got a phone call asking if I’d consider taking on the role of Secretary at the Hyderabad Chartered Accountants Society (HCAS). My honest first reaction was that I did not have the bandwidth. My second reaction, about a day later, was to say yes anyway.

Which ICAI and CA community roles do I hold?

_Roles as described by the author. For official ICAI listings see icai.org and the ICAI GCC profile._

Why do I keep saying yes to work that doesn’t bill?

None of the roles I’ve taken on with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), or with Hyderabad’s CA community, pay in the way client work does. Each costs time I could otherwise bill, in a profession where time genuinely is the product. I keep doing this work anyway, and for a long time I couldn’t fully articulate why, beyond a vague sense of obligation to a profession that had given me everything.

I think I finally understand it now. It isn’t obligation, or not only that. The CA qualification gave me a career before I had any idea what to do with one, and the committees, the SICASA sessions and the association work are the places where I get to hand some of that back to people who are exactly where I once was, early in their articleship, sitting through lecture after lecture with no idea what any of it would add up to. Somebody gave up their evenings for students like me back then, usually without ever knowing what it meant to us.

What is it like to speak at TEDx and at ICAI’s WOFA 2.0?

In January 2023, I spoke at TEDxKalbadevi in Mumbai, and I remember standing backstage genuinely unsure whether an audience that had never heard the term “transfer pricing” would sit through my attempt to make it interesting. That fear resurfaced, in a different form, when I was asked to join a panel at ICAI’s World Forum of Accountants (WOFA 2.0) in early 2026, a much more technical room, full of practitioners who could catch a wrong number faster than I could finish the sentence containing it.

Both times, the nervousness turned out to be more useful than paralysing. It forced me to simplify ideas I’d been carrying around in shorthand for years, rather than performing expertise at an audience. I’ve done a fair amount of resource-person and speaking work through SICASA and ICAI’s Committee on International Taxation, and I still get a version of that same backstage nervousness every time. I’ve started to think that’s a good sign, not something to outgrow.

What does being Secretary of HCAS actually involve?

It is, mostly, unglamorous. Coordinating seminars. Following up on member queries that have nothing to do with my own specialisation. Sitting through administrative meetings that a younger version of me, still building his own practice, would have found impossible to justify against a billable hour. But it’s also where I first heard, secondhand, how many young CAs in Hyderabad were quietly struggling with exactly the question I’d wrestled with back in 2016: whether to stay inside a comfortable, secure role or take the harder, less certain path of building something of their own. I recognised every one of those conversations. I’d had most of them with myself. (My own version of that decision is in why I left a Big 4 career to start over from zero.)

Being in a position, through HCAS and through ICAI’s CITAX pre-Budget representations work, to occasionally point a genuinely good question toward the Finance Ministry rather than just answering it for one client at a time, has become one of the more quietly satisfying parts of this career. You can read more about that policy work, including my input to the CBDT’s Safe Harbour consultations for Union Budget 2026, in the about section of this site. For the official Budget documents, see India Budget and the Income Tax Department.

Is institutional work always rewarding?

Here is the honest bit: not all of it feels meaningful in the moment. Some committee meetings are genuinely dull. Some administrative asks feel disproportionate to their impact. I don’t think anyone who tells you institutional and association work is uniformly rewarding is being fully truthful. What I’ve found is that the meaning tends to show up later and sideways: a former SICASA attendee reaching out years afterward to say a session helped them decide to specialise in international tax, or a young CA at a Taxation Society event mentioning they’d read something I once said in a completely different context.

_The billable work pays for the practice. The unbillable work is usually why I still enjoy showing up to it._

Should you say yes when ICAI or your CA society asks?

If you’re a CA a decade or so into your career and someone from ICAI, your regional association or SICASA asks if you’d take on something unpaid and time-consuming, I’d gently push back on your instinct to say you don’t have the bandwidth. None of us do, genuinely. I said yes anyway, in a year I absolutely could not spare the time, and it remains one of the better professional decisions I’ve made, not because of anything it did for SBC’s growth, but because of what it quietly did for how I think about the profession I’m part of. Somewhere in your own story, someone once made that same trade for you.

Key takeaways

• ICAI committee roles and regional association work rarely pay in billable terms but offer a longer-arc form of professional meaning.
• Speaking to non-technical (TEDx) and highly technical (ICAI WOFA 2.0) audiences both force genuine simplification, which also sharpens client communication.
• Serving as Secretary of a regional CA society surfaces on-the-ground concerns of younger professionals that national policy conversations can miss.
• The value of unbillable institutional work usually shows up years later and indirectly.

Frequently asked questions

What committees can a Chartered Accountant get involved with through ICAI?

ICAI offers subject-specific committees such as the Committee on International Taxation (CITAX) and the Direct Taxes Committee, which also contribute to ICAI’s pre-Budget representations; Centres of Excellence; and speaking or resource-person roles at branch and regional level, including for SICASA, the students’ association of ICAI’s Southern India Regional Council.

What does a regional CA society like HCAS do?

Regional CA bodies such as the Hyderabad Chartered Accountants Society organise seminars, professional development sessions and member support, and often act as a bridge between practising CAs’ on-the-ground concerns and larger institutional or policy conversations.

Why do experienced professionals continue unpaid institutional or association work?

Many find it provides mentorship opportunities, forces clearer articulation of technical expertise, and surfaces perspectives from earlier-career professionals that client work does not, a non-financial form of professional return. It is also how CA community leadership develops: one seminar, one student session, one representation at a time.

About the author and recognition

CA Mithilesh Reddy (Mithilesh Sai Sannareddy) is a Chartered Accountant (FCA, ICAI) with an LLB, and Founder & CEO of Steadfast Business Consulting LLP (SBC). He advises multinational groups, venture-backed companies and founders on transfer pricing, international taxation, tax litigation and cross-border structuring from India and the UAE. Read his full profile. He serves on ICAI committees and as Secretary of the Hyderabad Chartered Accountants Society.

• Notable Practitioner (transfer pricing), ITR World Tax 2026: International Tax Review profile
• Shortlisted, Transfer Pricing Practice Leader of the Year, ITR Asia-Pacific Tax Awards 2026 (winners due 12 November 2026): ITR shortlist
• Named in TaxTech500’s Top 50 AI Tax Leaders 2026: TaxTech500 list
• ICAI roles: special invitee to the Direct Taxes Committee, co-opted member of the Committee on International Taxation, and active member of the Centre of Excellence for International Taxation: ICAI GCC profile
• Founding member, Taxation Society (UAE): member profile, which also records his Times 40 Under 40 Brightest Young Entrepreneur Award (2022)
• **Speaker, TEDxKalbadevi** (Mumbai) and ICAI WOFA 2.0
• Profiles: LinkedIn, SBC on LinkedIn, X

Continue the conversation

This piece is part of our series on building an independent tax and transfer pricing advisory in India. Read next: why I left a Big 4 career to start over from zero, what 50+ tribunal appeals taught me about tax litigation, or the real difference between a CA who practises and one who builds an institution. See the full professional journey, education and credentials, or reach out to the SBC team.

Sources and further reading

• Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI)
• ICAI GCC profile: CA Mithilesh Reddy
• TEDxKalbadevi event page
• Income Tax Department, Government of India
• India Budget, Ministry of Finance
• International Tax Review: Mithilesh Sai Reddy

_Editorial note: This article reflects general professional perspective and personal reflection. It is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or financial advice for any specific matter. Please consult a qualified professional about your own facts and circumstances. Any client or matter scenarios described are illustrative composites, with identifying details changed or generalised to protect confidentiality; they do not describe a specific, identifiable client, case, or engagement._