When your company offers you the means to achieve your ambitions, take the chance and turn it into an opportunity to move up the ladder.

Senior Tax Manager Olivier Levesque shares his story about how by jumping feet first into what life throws our way, we can move forward successfully.

What makes your career path unique?

The summer I obtained my bachelor’s degree, I did an internship in taxation at the Chicoutimi office. The team must have seen something in me, because I was offered a consultant position before I even started my master’s degree. In my second tax season, I was invited to comment on the federal and provincial budgets on the radio. That was the opportunity that launched my career.

I loved this experience and, the following year, I was offered the chance to participate in the government budget analysis during the lockdown. For two years, in 2018 and 2019, I was there with my team at the lockdown and was invited to discuss it in various media outlets.

I was also invited to co-host the 2019 partners’ meeting and make myself known to the firm’s partners. By saying “yes” to an interview (even though I wasn’t sure I was up to the task), I opened doors to several projects that I am passionate about.

That’s the beauty of working in a team like mine. Regardless of my title, years of experience or age, I had the support of my bosses to go for it.

What do you think is the key to success?

If my story can teach anything to people starting out in an accounting firm, it’s probably that, to be successful, you have to seize every opportunity, internally and externally!

For me, success is far from being measured by my title. If you’re satisfied with being a manager or consultant, you’re confined to one role. To move forward, you have to go beyond responsibilities and expectations. You have to create tasks for yourself, always say “yes” and, most important, make sure you deliver something you can be proud of every time.

Whether the project is big or small, it’s worth the effort because you never know into whose hands it might end up. In my experience, it’s very rare to sow a seed and nothing grows, it’s just some things take time!

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A CPA’s career can take different directions. Business advisors, who are increasingly in demand, is one option to consider.

The business world is rapidly changing and entrepreneurs want to be offered efficient solutions to remain competitive in their market and continue to grow.

In our firm, our Chartered Professional Accountants (CPAs) must be able to provide entrepreneurs with all the support they need to meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges, for all facets of their development.

This is why, for the past few years, we have been encouraging our accounting professionals to take on a broader role, that of business advisor to our entrepreneurial clients.

To apply this approach in practice, we give our CPAs the tools and training they need to assess a company’s complete situation and identify the client’s needs.

Once the overall picture has been defined, the business advisor can help our clients move forward by involving our specialists in the relevant disciplines, such as tax, financial advisory, strategy or business valuation.

For CPAs, acting as a business advisor opens the door to new challenges and numerous opportunities to develop their talent and expertise. In a context where more and more accounting tasks are automated, mastering this field of expertise adds substantial value to the accountant’s role.

Pilot projects in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region

Several projects and initiatives are planned or already in place to reinforce this strategic direction and equip the firm’s business advisors.

In the Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gaspésie and French New Brunswick, we plan to develop a dozen entrepreneur advisors in the short term. They will serve as strategic advisors to clients and coordinate all of the specialized resources they need.

These entrepreneur advisor positions will be filled by young CPAs who will receive specialized training and be mentored by experienced partners. Similar programs are planned across the Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton network.

Candidates for these positions stand out for their strategic and entrepreneurial vision, emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills and problem-solving ability.

We offer multiple career opportunities across Quebec, so that all young CPAs can choose the path that interests them, be it in a specialty, as a manager or as an entrepreneur advisor.

We value self-reliance and empowerment so that everyone can achieve their full potential.

Our thanks to Richard Chrétien, Partner, Vice-President, who initiated this pilot project in the Bas-Saint-Laurent, for his invaluable contribution to this article.

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For a young CPA, the best way to grow is to get involved in assignments with experienced professionals right from the start.

This is what David-Alexandre Lamirande-Lamontagne, Manager – Tax, from our Gatineau office, believes. Together with the other managers on his team, he’s leveraging practice-based mentorship.

Why is it important to make young CPAs fully participate in assignments right from the start?

It helps them gain confidence and experience, so they understand what customers expect of them. For example, even before recruits have started their master’s degree in taxation, they are given assignment sections. Then, during their studies, they can already make the connection between theory and practice.

Are they confined to a certain type of assignment?

We want our recruits to touch on everything from the beginning, not just tax compliance. I believe that if it takes a number of years for young people to work on transactional or tax reorganization projects, they lose opportunities to grow within their career.

Do you give them a lot of freedom to act?

One of the objectives of mentoring is to encourage initiative. We don’t tell our recruits what to do. We encourage them to express their ideas and give them feedback on the work they do. Their mentoring is focused on business development: how to build client loyalty, how to put forward their ideas to the client, etc. The sooner they master these aspects, the sooner their career will take off.

What motivates you in this type of mentoring?

My goal is to help young CPAs climb the ladder as quickly as possible. This is how the whole team grows.

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Mentoring is about mutual aid, communication and passion, reminds us of Caroline Plourde, our firm’s assurance partner.

For accountants beginning their profession, what’s better than being able to rely, at any time, on the support of one’s colleagues to grow?

In our Rimouski office’s assurance department, every effort is made to ensure that young accountants can quickly develop their talents and take on responsibilities commensurate with their aspirations.

Caroline, you lead a team of about 20 people. How do you train your recruits?

We get them involved in assignments very early on. We make sure we provide them with the right tools and introduce them to clients under the supervision of more experienced colleagues. This way, our recruits become self-sufficient more quickly. We prepare a detailed integration plan for each, provide them with the right training and assign them a mentor, a young professional available to guide them.

Why do you want the young CPAs to be self-sufficient so quickly?

Our office is growing rapidly and our recruits want to contribute to our success from the very beginning. Furthermore, young Gen Y and Gen Z want to have the chance to take up challenges and develop their careers very quickly. This is why it’s so important to help them develop their skills.

How do you help young CPAs grow in their career?

By constantly communicating with our young talents, we take their interests into account. If they wish to specialize in a particular field of expertise or activity sector, we support them in this process. We also encourage them to participate in various working committees and provide training based on where their interests lie. It’s important that each person makes a personal contribution to the team.

What motivates you most about mentoring?

The recruits inspire us and bring new ideas to the table. For me, as a mentor, I like to make the young professionals feel comfortable, help them unlock their full potential and develop their own business network.

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