By Stephen A. Jones, School of Accounting and Finance
What propels a School of Accounting and Finance graduate to support the Centre for Accounting Ethics at the University of Waterloo? Forensic accountant Brad Ebel (BMath 1983) will give you a ready answer.
“I’m excited to support the Centre because it raises awareness of the value of—and the absolute need for—integrity and ethics in business and in the accounting profession,” says Ebel, who recently made a significant contribution to the Centre.
Ebel is the Canadian president of Matson Driscoll & Damico (MDD) Forensic Accountants Ltd. The global firm boasts 43 offices on five continents. MDD Canada comprises 10 offices and 60 employees. Ebel is based in the Toronto office, which has a staff of 22.
“With the explosion in electronic information available to the public, there are far more challenges to professionals and businesses than ever before,” Ebel observes, explaining the dynamic context of accounting practices—and forensic accounting—today.
“Ethics are critical to maintaining independence and objectivity, and to ensure that we as professionals are not unduly influenced or biased,” adds the Owen Sound, Ontario native. “They are also vital to maintaining the public’s high opinion of our profession as a whole.”
The Centre for Accounting Ethics, headed by SAF professor Linda Robinson, supports projects to enhance teaching and research in ethics. Researchers, teachers, practitioners, and students come together at the Centre’s biennial conferences and annual workshops.
The Centre seeks not only to prepare future accountants and financial managers to exercise professional judgment within an ethical framework, but to promote high ethical standards across the profession.
Questioning Personality
While the term “forensic accounting” wasn’t commonly used when Ebel was at Waterloo in the 1980s, he had definite leanings in that direction. “Very early on, as a co-op student working in a public accounting firm, I had a forensic attitude and often questioned things,” he reports. “Needless to say, this wasn’t always well accepted.”
He credits his questioning personality as a key factor behind his long-standing commitment to the field. “I have a great interest in learning how things work—and in understanding the causality of things,” he explains. “Maybe I should have been an engineer!”
Ebel is one SAF grad whose career has taken a steady path pretty much from the start, although when he joined MDD in 1984 he wasn’t really sure it would be a good fit. “I told my newly-wed wife Lisa that I’d give it a year and then decide,” he recalls. “At some point I must have decided, as I’m still here 32 years later.”
“There was no laptop, no internet, no smart phone back then,” he observes. “The way to do research was to go to the library.”
More than three decades and much technological change later, the Waterloo alumnus maintains his enthusiasm for forensic accounting—and for MDD. “I’m proud of the firm that MDD Canada has become,” Ebel says. “That’s essentially because of my partners and staff. I enjoy working with and mentoring the team that I’ve helped build.”
And he still enjoys plunging into complex files himself, sifting through data and information in order to ferret out key issues. For him it’s “a great blend of using my years of experience and learning something new.”
Waterloo and Students Today
Today’s accounting and finance students need to balance the theoretical and the practical, Ebel suggests. “They spend hours in an academic setting, learning and exploring the full range of accounting, audit and finance topics. Seeing their application in real life reinforces what they learn in class.”
In the MDD leader’s view, the Waterloo co-op program was a pacesetter in developing exactly this balance. “I’m proud to say that a number of my Canadian partners and senior team have benefited from, and graduated from, the Waterloo program,” he reports.
About education, balance and career, Ebel offers these wise words to current SAF students: “Everything you experience and learn is like a set of bricks. You have a choice whether to build something beautiful or useful with them, or to simply keep throwing them on the brick pile.”
Challenge to Alumni
Ebel doesn’t hesitate to issue a challenge to fellow SAF alumni as well. He’d be delighted if they would join him in supporting the Centre for Accounting Ethics.
“It’s on us alumni to encourage and support the training of the next generation of accountants,” he contends, “and to ensure they embrace ethics in their professional life.”
“One of the differentiators that professional accountants have is our code of conduct centered on principles of ethics,” the long-time forensic expert points out. “While adhering to this code is a responsibility, it’s also a privilege that we should value and nurture. Cultivating and surpassing the code will further develop young practitioners’ professional and personal ethical standards.”
If you’d like to contribute to the Centre for Accounting Ethics, please contact Sheilaah Guthrie, Associate Director of Advancement at 519-888-4567 ext. 38917, sheilaah.guthrie@uwaterloo.ca.