foreign [Music] we'd love to hear about your story and career development let's start from the very beginning how did your post-secondary experience lead you to where you are today and how does CPA play a role in your career development thank you for having me I'm happy to share a little bit about my background so from post-secondary I completed my undergraduate degree at the Commerce program at Queen's University which is a great business school based in Kingston Ontario yeah I really enjoyed that program it was academically challenging but it also has a really vibrant Student Life
on campus so there are lots of opportunities for students you know to join committees and run conferences and I had the chance to chair the Queen's women and leadership conference and the Queen's accounting Association both which are still going strong my undisclosed number of years since University so that's right the financial accounting stream was also really strong at Queens as well so we had a great pipeline of talent to the big four mostly from mono mostly to Toronto as the feeder school and so what drew me to the profession as I got a chance to
learn a little bit more about the big four was you know the high regard that the CPA designation is held in and that CPAs are really trained to assess business issues from lots of lenses Financial Accounting being one of them but also from you know a risk management perspective treasury financial reporting lots of other considerations and so I like the breadth that that the CPA designation exposed you to after I graduated from Queens I started at a big four firm PWC in their Assurance practice where I worked with primarily Mining and utilities clients and you
wouldn't think or expect necessarily that an accounting designation would allow you to travel the world the accounting Frameworks are lined up is that you know most countries have been unified under International financial reporting standards so you can take that to different countries and that expertise to different countries so I had the chance to travel South Africa Nicaragua Uruguay while at my time at PWC and so it's a little bit different than other professions like the legal profession is really specific to certain countries or even provinces but the accounting designation is more aligned and and broader
so that's a benefit of the designation for sure that's amazing that's such a journey I I something I wouldn't have expected an industry that you'd be able to travel in as well and I love how it started I would love to know how does that Journey differ from what you expected in your career is this path something that you always knew you would follow or were there any events along the way that altered your trajectory yeah it's a good segue the travel component so I knew from high school that I wanted to work in business
I'd always had had an Acumen for numbers but also you know the application of that not just sitting behind an Excel spreadsheet but how do you impact a business and so the CPA designation really enabled that how it's a little bit different than what I expected is you know I joined the firm I thought I would be there for the rest of my career but really it opened doors to a lot of other opportunities and I ended up leaving the firm after about eight years which is a long time these days to stay in one
place for a career I joined a diamond mining company out in Calgary with mines based in the Northwest Territories which really gave me a chance to work on something different at that time as Financial Planning and Analysis which is different than audit and Assurance but the CPA was a very transferable skill at that point and having left and gone into industry you kind of see what what other opportunities are out there and I had the chance to come back home to Ontario and join Ontario power generation which is where I am now and this is
a crown owned Corporation meaning our only shareholder is the province of Ontario and we own a number of diverse generating assets across the province nuclear hydroelectric gas facilities solar facilities so you know the CPA is foundational but you get to work in a lot of different areas with that skill set yeah definitely it's really inspiring that you were able to see that that might be something that that career holds for you and to achieve it so seamlessly and successfully so that's amazing we know that you're actively involved in electricity Canada as you mentioned as a
vice chair OPG has recognized that you're leveraging your strong financial Acumen to help better the entire electricity industry can you tell us a bit more about your experience there as a vice chair and I would also love to know in what ways you might be better in the industry that OPG refers to sure so in my current role I Vice chair the Finance and Accounting Committee of electricity Canada and really that's a committee comprised of my peers from electricity industry players or other utilities across the country from British Columbia straight across to the maritimes we
have a really Broad and diverse group of members which is awesome part of my responsibility is to stay up to date with emerging issues in the industry of which there are many so some recent examples are you know understanding what finance's role is in the evolving energy transition that our industry is undertaking the changes in federal regulations for investment tax credits how do we manage the impact of inflation and on top of that the technical accounting changes that are coming down the pipeline which never stop cloud computing or rate regulated accounting so I work with
industry Partners to share information to the wider committee on these topics but the biggest and most you know the most value-add component of this role is really being able to interact with my peers at these different utilities and you know having that Network to understand some of the issues we're facing and that they're not that different from one another even though we're sitting in different provinces so you ask the question about how are we making a difference or better in the industry and I think everyone on the committee has a role to play there you
know my role as by shares to kind of help to enable that dialogue and bring these emerging issues to the table and start the conversation but you know sharing that knowledge collaborating with one another that will really take the industry further in terms of tackling these issues that are in front of us just uh just building that Network and Sharing those relationships yeah definitely with the electricity industry being so ever-changing and yet so vital to society working towards bettering it is a very large role to take on so it's really impressive and you're also the
director of business planning and Reporting at OPG and as well a university counselor at Queens where you graduate did so much involvement requires a great deal of organization and time management have you always had those skills or were there specific opportunities along the way that helped you build them great question definitely developed over time I would really encourage people to stay busy but really to stay busy on topics or issues that bring the most meaning to you so it's a lot easier to stay engaged and to be impactful when these are elective issues that are
closest to your heart I'll give you an example on my role with University Council I was interested in that role for many years but I was pretty selective as to the point when I ran for election so I chose a time when I thought I had a skill set developed enough of a skill set to share back to the university as a benefit and also a time when I in my career I thought I had the flexibility to you know spend time on these topics so there were times in my career where the actual lift
would not have been possible or enjoyable for that matter so while I'll say and I say this also there's no time like the present I think it's important to kind of step back sometimes and manage whatever is in front of you with the other competing priorities in your life which will naturally change over time but in more practical terms for the people who might be listening I learned a lot of time management skills through the CPA qualification process and my time at PWC so you're studying you're studying you're juggling that with working your first full-time
job at a university you're managing client deliverables and relationships you might be navigating time zones or traveling for work also and so it was a really great training ground to challenge yourself to see how much you could accomplish in the 24 hours that everyone has in a day yeah definitely that's really important information for our listeners who might be needing to hone in those skills and having CPA be such a great role in honing those is really important to know and you've also worked on a lot of cross-functional projects and collaborations during your role at
OPG as well can you share some tips and advice to listeners on how to effectively collaborate within a team so a piece of advice that I love to share when I'm asked this question is don't underestimate the value of being someone who is easy to work with and by being easy to work with it means you're a team player and that you collaborate but it also means that you're prepared for meetings and discussions and you're informed with the topics and you bring good questions or solutions to the issues that are at hand you want to
challenge your colleagues constructively but you also want to be there to help roll up your sleeves whenever it's needed so in order to effectively collaborate and be a good team player everyone has to have the buy-in at the end goal is the best possible outcome as a team and not on an individual basis so the other thing I'd add there is like to do this and be a really collaborative team player you need to build trust with your colleagues so you know you demonstrate this over time it's not a naturally inherent assumption you know demonstrate
this by the Integrity that you bring in your actions and then secondarily through the technical skills that you might bring to the table but it never has failed me in my career where I try to get to know people personally and understand what's going on and their lives and what motivates them and understanding that they are people outside of you know the project that you're working on in the moment and so when you take that time to get to know the people who are around you the teamwork and effective collaboration and trusts are just natural
byproducts yeah out loud that's a really great way to break down collaboration in a way that an individual can work on and aim towards so you've mentioned team collaboration and time management organization are there any other critical skills that you can think of to help youth succeed in the world of business and if so how might they focus on acquiring those skills yeah so the general piece of advice I'd give is to stay curious and subscribe to lifelong learning as you mentioned Sophia the world is changing at such a fast pace and taking the time
to understand what's going on around you is is so important and this can be in relation to technical skills you know a lot of people are interested in developing their coding skills or maybe their financial Acumen technical accounting skills but also learning about soft skills like how to effectively communicate or manage and Lead teams and that's an Ever evolving skill set you know you start your career you know learning how to effectively communicate with your boss or your peers around you but as you move into leading teams that communication strategy changes and as you progress
in your career and you're learning to to communicate with the c-suite that skill set changes and so it moves naturally as you progress in your career and as your audience evolves um in terms of lifelong learning I'll say that I went back to school people after 10 years from undergrad to do a master's in business law at Osgood Hall Law School in Toronto and the reason I did that I was curious about the legal Frameworks that required us to you know execute or structure transactions in a specific way and there are lots of rules and
laws that underpin that process and I just want to understand the basis for why those Securities regulations were developed and doing the llm it allowed me to develop depth in that area but also breadth and a different dimension to the finance aspect you'll see there's cross-functional collaboration across teams in many aspects but it was really a great partnership that legal background and that CPA lens just to round out overall business Acumen the final piece of advice that I'd give to to listeners is that in order to succeed in business you really need to maintain a
balance in your personal life so it's really easy to throw yourself into your work but I'd remind people that careers are marathons and they're not Sprints so it's really important to pace yourself as important as it is to focus on you know your career and advancing and progression which I know there are lots of type A personalities who will focus on that it's equally important to focus on things that matter to you outside of work like your family your community your artistic or musical Pursuits whatever the case may be and prioritize those along with your
career because sometimes spending that time away from work and prioritizing you know creative Pursuits will help you kind of round out your business personality put it that way and give you a new framework or lens to look at the issues in front of you so that would be the ideal scenarios to find some seblance of balance between those two yeah it's really great advice I feel like promoting putting interest in your personal life sometimes gets lost along the way and as well to stay curious and continue learning throughout your entire life is a really key
piece of advice for our listeners so thank you so much for sharing on that thanks Sophie [Music]
