News

Sheilaah Guthrie, associate director of advancement at the School of Accounting and Finance had the chance to sit down with alum Lana Paton (BMath ’93) whose generous donation established the Lana Paton Women in Finance Scholarship in 2020. Lana is vice-chair and managing partner of the Greater Toronto Area and South Western Ontario Region at PwC Canada and a member of their Extended Leadership Team. The Lana Paton Women in Finance Scholarship was created to encourage and support aspiring undergraduate women to strive for leadership roles. Historically, leadership roles in the finance industry have been dominated by men. The School hopes the scholarship will act as encouragement to bridge the gender gap in leadership roles within finance, accounting, and business in general. Amazingly, Lana’s scholarship has already inspired other alumni to establish similar undergraduate scholarships that will further break down gender disparity and inclusivity barriers. 

Seasoned entrepreneur Ian Weng (MAcc ’13) began his career at KPMG in audit and advisory services after graduating from the Master of Accounting program. While at KPMG he gained a breadth of knowledge and obtained his CPA, CA designation. Like many University of Waterloo alums, however, he caught the entrepreneurship bug and wanted to create something⁠—so he ended up leaving KPMG to start his first tech startup called ChopChop.

Welcome to Fall 2022 and with the beginning of the semester, SAF will be welcoming five new faculty members. We’re excited to have them with us and look forward to being inspired by their energy, research and expertise. Please join SAF in welcoming them to the School of Accounting and Finance.

Muhammad Azim, Assistant Professor

A medical technology company launched by two Waterloo Engineering graduates is making news this week with the announcement that a device it developed has been successfully used to treat stroke victims.

A recent trend in organizations is to motivate employees with goal-based prosocial rewards, whereby employees must donate their rewards to charities upon goal attainment. We examine the motivational effects of goal-based prosocial rewards versus cash rewards under different levels of goal difficulty. We develop our hypotheses based on affective valuation theory, which posits that when valuing uncertain outcomes by affect rather than calculation, individuals are largely insensitive to changes in probability of the outcomes, including probability of goal attainment.

In 2021, the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) presented the Young Alumni Award to Nilofer Ahmed, who completed her Master of Accounting degree in 2012. Ahmed’s career has merged a foundation in accounting and finance with an education in business and entrepreneurship, along with her passion for food in her current position as senior director of business and consumer strategy at Motif FoodWorks.

Using 9,801 director appointments during 2003-2014, we document the dramatic impact of connections - 69% of new directors have professional ties to incumbent boards, a group representing 13% of all potential candidates.

Each year, the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) recognizes and acknowledges our distinguished alumni for the positive impact they have made on the profession, the School and the community. The 2021 School of Accounting and Finance Alumni Achievement Award recipient is Benjie Thomas, who studied in the BA/Chartered Accountancy program and graduated in 1998.

As the world moves into a new norm, the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) is training future tax professionals who have competitive skillsets, impressive networks, and real-world knowledge of the field of taxation. In 2014, Professors Julie Robson and Jim Barnett founded the Young Tax Professionals (YTP), a for-credit program, that exposes students to the developments and career opportunities in tax. The program also acts as a network that connects students with tax faculty, alumni, and full-time tax professionals.

Ahead of Father’s Day on June 19, the School of Accounting and Finance (SAF) is telling the story of a family that shares a strong bond with UWaterloo. Ashi Mathur (MAcc ’93), now president of Marlin Spring began his career studying in the School of Accounting and Finance, and now, his sons Deven and Neel are enrolled in the AFM program and are expected to graduate in 2023 and 2025.