Upskilling to remain competitive
Lifelong learning program equips CPAs for industry disruption and a technology-driven future
Susan Uthayakumar Joins Prologis as Chief Energy and Sustainability Officer
Waterloo co-op student builds web game to improve children's vaccine experience
From LtoR: Prof. James Thompson, Yuqian L, Mark G (standing behind Yuqian), Ethan M, Brian L, Vivan G, Timothy Z, Derek T
By: Janagan R.
Work-life balance is no easy feat. Throw a full course load and a thriving business into the mix, and the equation gets even more complicated.
Pamela Steer, (MAcc ’94, FCPA, FCA, CFA) is a bilingual transformative executive and experienced corporate director with more than 20 years of experience in the technology and financial services industries. Pamela was honoured in 2019 as Canada’s CFO of the Year and named the School of Accounting and Finance’s Alumni Achievement Award Recipient in 2020.
Su-Yin Tan is the first to acknowledge that the sudden shift to online learning during the pandemic was hard on teachers and students. So, when public health restrictions lift, Tan doesn’t want to lose all the valuable lessons learned.
Tan, a teaching fellow in the Faculty of Environment, is supporting a new Blended Learning Initiative at the University of Waterloo. “The pandemic forced me to try different things and to think differently about all of my assignments,” says Tan. “I do see advantages to offering some activities online and was surprised to get good feedback from students.”
‘Using a combination of speech recognition technologies and natural language processing technology, it’s able to communicate with the guests regardless of dialect, accent or what their order is.’
Globalization of businesses and increased public interest from consumers and investors have meant that organizations are demonstrating how their companies are governed responsibly and doing good for the environment and society. Additionally, employers today are expecting more from their employees than just technical skills. Business leaders are wanting professionals who have the judgement, collaborative, and team skills backed with ethics and integrity to navigate and harness the power of big data to drive business solutions and decisions.
With the start of the fall term, our community is getting ready to return to campus, and so it is a great time to be introduced (or re-introduced) to some of our faculty and staff. Candid, enlightening, serious, and not-so-serious, our Q&A series allows the personalities of the faculty and staff members who make up the School of Accounting and Finance community to shine.
This week, we interview David Ha (MAcc ’09), Professor and MAcc Co-Director, who has been with the School for ten years. Fun fact: At Grad Ball when Ha was a university student at Waterloo, he was voted by his class as most likely to become a professor one day—guess they were spot on in their assessment!