Destination: Chartered Professional Accountant
The path of becoming and being a CPA can be winding, but it’s all part of the journey to a successful and fulfilling career
The road to becoming—and being—a CPA is different for everyone who gets to add those three letters to their name. Some methodically plan their route from start to finish; others end up in accounting without truly knowing how they got there. Some begin with a different destination in mind but fall in love with accounting along the way. And some end up there after stopping at a few other places first.
But no matter what, the designation provides a solid roadmap upon which CPAs can plot and plan their own unique journey.
Hitting the road
“I actually first intended to become a French immersion teacher. I never in a million years thought I would become an accountant,” Alicia Fowler CPA, CA says with a laugh. “My biological father is an accountant, my biological grandfather’s an accountant, and my stepfather’s an accountant. And it really was not something I wanted to pursue.”
But then she had the opportunity to join a scholarship program to do a business diploma.
“I thought ‘Well, this is a good opportunity to learn a different skill set. I’ll never go wrong with doing a business diploma, and I’ll learn a lot of valuable skills,’” says Alicia. “And within four months, I realized I really, really liked accounting—and this is not good! I didn’t want to be an accountant…but I’m very much an accountant.”
What really made the decision for her was talking to several teachers and accountants and asking them one big question: If you had to do this again, would you still pursue the same career? “And every single accountant I talked to said yes,” says Alicia.
Kemi Awoniyi Ige CPA, CGA, on the other hand, always knew she wanted to be an accountant. “In high school, I had the option to go into the sciences or commerce, and I went into commerce because I realized I enjoyed accounting,” she says. “My school was one of the few where accounting was offered as a subject, so I could find out if I had a knack for it.”
While she jokes that, at one point, she may have wanted to be an astronaut, she never really considered doing anything else. “I’ve always loved accounting,” says Kemi. “As soon as I really started thinking about what I wanted to be, I found I had a passion for accounting and a passion for helping people with numbers.”
Kemi studied accounting in university in Nigeria, and when her family moved to Alberta, she decided she wanted to pursue her accounting designation. “There’s confidence in people who have the designation versus those who don’t. There’s that recognition that you’ve gone through the rigour, and you have a good understanding of what’s required,” she says.
Navigating ups and downs
Though she spent much of her career in public accounting, Alicia decided to start her own business during the COVID-19 pandemic. She was home with two small children, and while she wanted to stay in the workforce, she needed flexibility. So, she started reaching out to her network to see if there was interest from other women in similar positions.
“And there was,” says Alicia. “I picked up a contract with two other women who were in the same situation as me, working with two little kids at home and needing flexibility in our lives…. We supported an organization with an acquisition of $115 million over a six-week period. It was a wild project, and we liked it.”
From there, Alicia founded MOD Accounting & Tax, a full-service virtual CPA firm that balances the flexibility she needs with her passion for supporting women, both as colleagues and as clients. “It’s been an empowering experience to start my own business,” says Alicia. “Supporting [entrepreneurs] and helping them understand their numbers and seeing that it’s actually making an impact for the women, their families, and their communities…it really makes a difference. We’re actually making a difference using our designation.”
Kemi similarly points to her ability to give back to her community as a highlight of being a designated accountant. She has been a mentor formally within the profession and informally within her community. “When I mentor people in my community, some of them don’t even know anything about accounting,” she says. “It’s the combination of seeing the wow factor on their faces when you tell them something about accounting, and…[seeing them] realize how important it is.”
She is also passionate about going beyond the financials and offering free business advice to newcomers to Canada and those who want to become entrepreneurs. “I want to one day be part of this person’s success story,” she says. “I want to be like, ‘Remember when you first started, and now it’s flourishing, and everybody now knows the name of your business?’ It’s a good feeling to be able to do that. To be able to help people and say, ‘See, it’s not just debit and credit. We are more than numbers.’”
But like most other things in life, the journey can be a roller-coaster ride. Kemi and Alicia have both found a lot of empowerment and satisfaction in becoming and being a designated accountant, but neither path has been without hurdles.
Though Kemi’s love for accounting has never wavered, she does admit obtaining her designation had some difficulties. “The hardest part would have been when I had to take all of those classes!” says Kemi. “But it wasn’t really just the classes; it was the fact that I was new to the country. There was a lot going on, but it’s kind of a catch-22 because it was also an opportunity to meet other people, and I made a lot of friends.”
For Alicia, some of the roadblocks she’s faced are with the norms or stereotypes of the profession. “It’s a very conservative industry in general. It is changing, but it is historically a very conservative industry, and that doesn’t fit for everyone,” she says. “It doesn’t always fit for moms, and it doesn’t always fit for clients we want to work with.”
She says it can be intimidating for people, and that can hinder a CPA’s ability to make the difference they’d like to. She does stress that the industry is changing—even if it’s slow—and she wants her business to be part of that. “I think how we’re doing it differently is we’re providing opportunities for clients to meet with us online and to meet on their terms and their time,” says Alicia. “We’re not stuffy, and we’re trying to bust barriers for [our clients], so they understand what it is they’re signing or understand the information they need to have.”
Preparing others for the journey
When asked if they have any advice for students considering the CPA path, they both have the same answer: Just do it.
“It’s like in the Nike motto,” Kemi says with a laugh. “Don’t think about doing it later. Do it now.”
If you wait, you might miss out on opportunities, Kemi says. You also might get too comfortable and be less likely to return and get it, but that designation has so much value. “If there are two people who apply to the same position, and one has a designation and the other doesn’t, there’s a high likelihood the one with the designation will be called first,” she says. “You always want to have that added advantage.”
“There’s no downside to obtaining your CPA designation, in my opinion,” says Alicia. “You’re never going to not be able to use it…. I think the biggest skill you learn as a CPA is how to obtain information and make decisions based on facts and information available to you, and that’s a giant life win.”