Robert qualified in first place in 1975 as an Irish Chartered Accountant after graduating in Economics from Queens University. He trained in practice with Price Waterhouse and later worked in industry with a subsidiary of Shell (UK). His teaching career started with Business and Accounting Training (now Griffith College) in Dublin where he taught mainly on the professional examination courses for ICAI, CPA, CIMA and ACCA in Belfast and Dublin. In 1984 he was appointed a full time lecturer in Queens University and later moved to Ulster University in 1992 as a Senior Lecturer. In 1994 he was appointed to the Chair in Financial Reporting at Ulster. He was made Emeritus Professor in September 2019.
Robert specialises in the teaching of and research into the development of accounting standards in the United Kingdom. He has published 18 books and numerous articles in both academic and professional journals. His latest publication co authored with Stephen McNamee (May 2020) is the second edition of ‘A practical guide to UK and Irish Gaap’ (552pp) published by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland.
He has lectured extensively within Ireland and Great Britain on the subject of accounting standards to such diverse organisations as British Gas Plc, GEC, Pilkington Glass, The Post Office, British Aerospace Plc, East Midlands Electricity, The Prison Service, the Department of Enterprise and Employment, Sheffield Teaching Hospital, NATO, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Ireland, John Laing Plc, Barclays Bank, Deloitte & Touche (Dublin) and Reed International Plc and has become one of the main CPD speakers in that field over the last twenty years for The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland (ICAI), The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Ireland (CPA). He also lectured on several occasions for The Chartered Institute of Public and Finance Accountants (CIPFA) and The Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA).