Growth Opportunity

Friends would often ask me, why am I decided to pursue my CPA?  My self-employed seems to be doing ok, provided me with the flexibility they wish they have. Why spend the money, time, and effort? 

Firstly, after a few years of being a self-employed bookkeeper and accountant, I have realized my service capacity to my clients is limited.  What I can offer to my hires in terms of career opportunities is also limited.  Although going into accounting was an unplanned endeavour, it is a profession I enjoy doing.  It is a profession that requires discipline, it is challenging and provides opportunities in a constantly changing environment. And most attractive quality is that it is a profession of integrity.  These are the things I value.

Make my Parents Proud

The most important reason is my parents.  In particular, my father, who is turning 80 years old in two years as of this article.  During a discussion on my career, I expressed my concerns about my self-employment and my dissatisfaction with the lack of opportunities to grow on my own.  I then expressed that I may pursue the CPA designation.  He was ecstatic.  As an immigrant, when my dad came to Canada he was having difficulty obtaining employment. All of his past experiences and accomplishments were unrecognized and disregarded.  We didn't come from a well-to-do background. My grandparents were very poor, my dad had a chance to obtain his education by a full scholarship, which led him to an opportunity in a large corporation, and he worked his way up by diligence and hard work. However, all that didn't matter when we moved to Canada.  Already facing financial stress, language barrier, ageism and other hurdles, it was impossible to think about going back to school and start over with family obligations.  

Both my mother and my father are very supportive of my pursuing the CPA designation.  To some, this is such a small accomplishment. A lot of  my colleagues and friends have their MBA, CPA, CFA, and numerous other recognizable credentials years before.  But for my parents and myself, it is a major accomplishment that will make them proud.

For the love of my parents, I have made a decision to pursue my CPA designation before my father turned 80. 

Transfer from Consulting to Accounting

Due to my KPMG experience, my self-employment as a data management consultant had quickly turned into a bookkeeping and accounting venture.  Friends and colleagues from my consulting contract began to ask me for their accounting and taxation matters.  Luckily my experience was able to carry me through most of their inquiries and allowed me to help them.  By word-of-mouth, I began to obtain real clients. 

Quickly I found myself require extra help and begin hiring bookkeepers and accountants to help.  We help small business file their taxes, bookkeeping, processing payrolls, general administration as well as business consulting. 

I was able to sign partnership contracts with Intuit for their Quickbooks and Profile for better support to my clients, and partner with ADP for payroll services.

Self-employed Role

Independent Consulting

I did continue to take independent consulting contracts in data management when opportunities arose.

• Business Analyst - Bell Canada, Shaw Calgary 
• Data Analyst – Teradata, CIBC
• Data Migration Expert – TTC

Election Canada - Deputy Returning Agent

While taking a break from my studying, I was looking for voting information for myself on the last election day in 2019.  I came across the hirings from the Election Canada website. They were recruiting polling clerks.  Originally I was interested in applying for a polling clerk position since I have not done this before, it looks interesting and it is only for one day. Upon interview, the interviewer suggested putting me on the deputy returning agent position instead, due to my accounting experience!  The position is similar to a polling clerk, but I was tasked to supervise the polling clerk, greet and direct the voters, ensure all procedures are followed, and I was responsible for tallying the votes at the end of the election night. It also paid more.  

I attended all the training classes.  It was a wonderful experience.  I learned a lot about the Canada Election Act.  The process of the election system of Canada and how it upholds democracy. 

Although it was a one-day work. We did not get out until 12am, and my legs were sore with all the standing up, directing voters and walking around the whole day from 8am to 12am.

I loved the experience, the people I met and I was planning to take the position again for the next coming election. 

Official Agent for MP Candidate

This is a great opportunity for me to learn and get some experience in polical campaign financing. We are just starting at the time of this writing. I am excited to the upcoming election.

How I got in KPMG without being and Accountant

I was recruited into KPMG early on in my career. I wasn't planning to leave the current job, in fact, I enjoyed the start-up atmosphere to consider taking a job in a large corporate with old-school cubicles. An extremely persistent recruiter had contacted me numerous times, enticed me with amazing offers and career growth opportunities at that time for KPMG.  I still remember the first question of the managing director who interviewed me.  He asked, "Why are you considering another opportunity? What is it that you are unhappy about your current job?".  I answered, "I was happy with my job, but this recruiter kept calling me and told me how much better your opportunity is, and that I have to come and see. So I am here to see what is the opportunity you can offer me that is so great!".  They gave me an offer I could not refuse the same day. 

Perhaps it was dumb luck, or my young and aggregate attitude has gotten me this position. Nevertheless, I was glad I did take the position. I embarked on my new journey with an accounting firm as a management consultant specialized in data management.  The opportunity to travel overseas and meeting different people was a blessing.  The company provided a lot of challenging opportunities and every project are different. I am grateful I have met and work with a lot of amazing people during my time at KPMG. 

Here are some of the highlights of my roles and accomplishments with major clients while working there: 

Campbell Soup Company  New Jersey, USA
Data Architect

• Design new Oracle database with ERWin ERD
• Perform data analysis on client’s databases of size 200GB and over 400 tables and over 100 master files from Legacy system.
• Implement ETL store procedures for data transfer from/to Oracle.
• Design a new sales database to support sales, accounting, and reporting functionalities.
• Consolidate 2 oracle and 1 mainframe database.

OMERS  Toronto, Ontario
Tech Lead

• Lead a team of 7 Java developers to implement the web application. Project valued at 2 million upon delivery. 
• Managed team on application architect and infrastructure design on a Unix web application with WebSphere, VAJ, IBM Secureway (LDAP), and Oracle.
• Defined scope of work and project planning with the project manager.
• Ensure team is on schedule and deliver quality products on time.

Labatt  London, Ontario
Data Modeler

• Performed data quality assessment in one of the biggest beer manufacturers in Canada.
• Performed a throughout data analysis on 3 Oracle databases under UNIX platform
• Gathered information of different EBI measures by initiating client interviews
• Developed a data cleansing and data mapping strategy for further phase implementation.  
• Engaged in data modeling with a senior data modeler to design a data warehousing solution for Labatt using snowflake schema.

Data Analyst

• Data consolidation on accounting data from 3 data sources including SQL Server and Mainframe AS400.
• Performed data analysis on accounting reports with clients’ auditors.

Chubb Insurance  Toronto, Ontario
ETL Developer / Data Analyst

• Engaged in major database work to launch an Insurance brokerage website. 
• Performed data analysis on the client’s database model.
• Optimization tuning on the client database.
• Developed and implemented store procedures using MS SQL Server.

SunTrust Atlanta, Georgia
Data Architect / Team Lead

• Team leader for ETL on five data sources into a DB2 data warehouse for Basel standard.
• Architect ETL process with Ab Initio.
• Gather requirements for Data Quality assessments.
• Design, architect, and implement data quality reports and scorecards for monthly process.

CIBC  Toronto, Ontario
Business Process Lead

• Work closely with the client to identify and analyzed the current application development process and identified the risks and problems involved with the current process.
• Produced a process chart and templates with CMM standard with Agile lightweight methodology and Rational Unified Process with Rational Rose.

Rogers Communication  Toronto, Ontario
Data Analyst

• Proposed enterprise data warehouse strategy by examining existing data marts.
• Cost assessment on the proposed strategy

Magna Entertainment Co.  Aurora, Ontario
Data Architect

• Performed data analysis on multiple database systems, designed and built the “Common Customer Database” operational database with SQL Server.  
• Used Biztalk and Biztalk SQL Server Adaptor for integration and for data consolidation.  
• Designed and built a star schema for the “Customer Relationship” data mart.  
• Used DTS to perform data transformation and aggregation for the star schema. 
• Involved in a project management role in this engagement.

Algorithmics Inc. is a risk management software company, which was bought by IBM in early 2000. The software is being used in major financial institutions across the world, providing financial analysts and traders a platform to analyze and manage clients' portfolios in real-time.

It was my first job out of the University of Waterloo. I worked as a software engineer in the Risk Warehouse department, which is a Datawarehouse.  While working there I learned a lot of financial analysis methodology.  Also on option, future, and derivative tradings. 

In terms of IT, my job was heavily involved in the implementation of large data warehouses and data management.  Here are the brief details of my contribution to the company, which will later be known as big data management. 

• Implemented Monte Carlos simulation.  Build a hierarchy tree to organize scenario sets hierarchy, curve data, relationships between portfolios, instruments, and positions. 
• Responsibilities include data modeling, software design, development, and system configuration of a financial software product in a Data Warehouse.
• Developed in C/C++ infrastructure for overnight batch and reconciliation to support the main analytic engine.  Update reporting tables for daily trades, and data loading process with Oracle and Sybase. 
• Developed a Make System with GNU Make for managing structural, compilation, configuration, and version control problems.
• Implemented installation process with PERL, borne shell, and c shell. 

This post is updated in 2024, the year I reitred from being a wedding officiant. 

I have been a wedding officiant since 2014 when I was younger than the couples I married. It was by accident that a pastor in need of an officiant who can help couples in both fluent Cantonese and English, and also understand the mixed culture. He quickly trained me and ordinated me into his church.  We started with a very small group, conducting civil weddings and funerals in Ontario.  Slowly our pastor decided to make it a wedding business. 

In 2024 I have decided it is time to retire as I am pursuing my CPA. I belonged to a group of fabulous wedding officiants from diverse backgrounds all across the country and I will miss them deeply.  It is a mixed feeling to see my profile page is no longer there. I treasured so many warm feedback, well wishes from couples and their family, and all the beautiful photos they have sent me, it was truly a privilege.   

Feedbacks

Here are just a few feedbacks: 

Yinfei & Jie

Cecilia Leung exceeded our expectations. She is a warm and kind person. She made us feel so comfortable, explained everything, and decreased our anxiety. She was very accommodating to all our requests and helped us along the way when preparing for the ceremony. She was just wonderful. I wish we had another reason to see her again. She was a perfect choice, we are so pleased we chose her as our officiant. Yinfei & Jie May 2021

Aaron & Ashley

Cecilia Leung was wonderful to work with, she was so warm and friendly. We found her to be very helpful in explaining the process to us and we felt like she cared about us. Cecilia was also flexible when we had some last-minute changes. My family really appreciated having a bilingual ceremony, and it was something our guests also found special. Thank you so much, Cecilia! Aaron & Ashley August 2020.

Thuan & May

Cecilia Leung was super friendly and answered all our questions. We would recommend her 100%! Thank you! A++++ Thuan & May September 2