Grant Thornton Isle of Man has congratulated two members of staff after they successfully gained further professional qualifications.

Joe Coyle and Lucie Shimmin collectively sat a total of 28 exams to qualify as chartered and certified accountants respectively.

Having joined the company as a 20-year-old in 2015 Mr Coyle, from Douglas, has recently been promoted to assistant manager, as well as completing the ACA qualification through the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW).

He said: ’I am delighted to have qualified and happy to be able to call myself a chartered accountant. It certainly has been a challenging process, moving from the youngest in the company to assisting those who have joined more recently.

’I actually sat 15 exams in total.’

Also achieving first time success was assistant manager Ms Shimmin, from Onchan, who joined the firm in 2016 and has since completed 13 exams over a three-year period.

She said: ’Accountancy is something I have always been interested in and, being a training firm, the management at Grant Thornton were accommodating with my workload so I was able to plan ahead as much as possible.’