Fresh ideas for changing industries; women CMAs are taking their diverse knowledge sets and...

In each issue of CMA Management, we try to demonstrate the wide variety of fields in which management accountants play a critical strategic role. This month's series of four profiles of women in business is no exception. These leaders represent high achievement in the fields of human resources

Corinne Tessier, CMA, FCMA, MBA, spent the majority of her career as a teacher of one sort or another. "I moved from accounting to systems and processes--people and organizational design," she says from her office in Calgary, Alberta. "I realized at some stage that I could make the greatest impact through people."

She does make an impact through her working as a business consultant in her company, Kootenay International Associates, which she runs in a partnership with Bob Toews. Tessier concentrates on helping companies institute innovative management practices and workplace systems. She helps organizations create affirming, productive workplaces that attract great employees, keep them, and keep them on track.

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"A lot of the job is about helping leaders give clear directions to people," she says. "If you give employees power and hold people accountable for their results you will get a significant response. Creating this type of environment helps SMEs break boundaries to growth."

One of the primary concepts that Tessier encourages is what she calls corporate story forming. It's not a synonym for the standard "vision, mission, goals" that companies so often speak of.

"Using stories is a basic, intuitive way to align employees' values with organizational values," Tessier wrote in the March 2003 issue of CMA Management. "Leaders and employees who share stories about what brought them to the company ... feel more personally connected to a common future together."

Tessier insists that such a sharing process creates bonds more quickly, is faster and more fun than a more conventional approach, and creates the groundwork for future growth. "Once companies know what they want, they can work with employees and leaders and write out statements of accountability," she says. "These statements explain what results employees are going to achieve to help the company achieve the goals embedded in their story." It's not a job description. Instead, it puts the impetus for change and growth in the hands of individual employees.

Tessier learned the value of employee independence at her last job, as executive director of Alberta Women's Enterprise Initiative (AWEI), an organization she helped launch. The non-profit corporation provides a full range of programs to help women start businesses in Alberta. She managed five locations, 16 personnel and more than 100 volunteers.

"It was quite a change from what I'd done before--my first experience reporting to a board of directors, my first time with a non-profit," she explains. "I was trying out new management models with my staff, giving people more rope while also giving them a clear idea of where it was meant to go. The difference was amazing. The organization started taking off. For instance, my communications manager turned us into a PR machine and boosted our profile substantially. It was that success that convinced me to move on."

She's now working on new ideas about how men and women work together. "Women and men complement each other in the workplace, and we should encourage that," she says. "They each bring a different approach to business that strengthens the whole operation."

Although what she does appears far from the world of accounting, Tessier insists that the CMA designation has helped her substantially. "It totally grounds you in business," she notes. "It gives you practical skills you can bring to a variety of different fields."

Corinne Tessier's ability to share her wisdom has culminated in many plaudits: she was noted in Canadian Who's Who in the 2000; featured as one of the 50 Most Influential People in Alberta by Alberta Venture Magazine in 1999; nominated for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award twice in the Supporter of Entrepreneurship category. And this year she received the honorary designation of Fellow of the Society of Management Accountants of Canada (FCMA). But her most treasured recognition is actually a silver cup given to her from the first staff she ever managed, with "Boss of the Year" engraved on it.

And she's proud of the work she does and the results she sees. "It's very satisfying when a leader finally gets it and realizes that the good they do comes back to them and their company operates at a higher level."

Yvonne Pinder, CMA, FCMA, actually began her working career as a registered nurse.

"I decided to go back to school to get a business degree and found myself drawn into accounting, and management accounting in particular," she says. Despite the change in career scope that came with a B.Comm, an MBA and a CMA designation, Pinder was still interested in public service, and has spent most of her career in the field, in one way or another.

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She is currently project manager for responsibility center management at Okanagan University College (OUC) in Kelowna, B.C. "Responsibility Center Management (RCM) is a decentralized finance model based on profit responsibility centers," she explains. "Each faculty manages its own revenue and expenses, so if there is a profit for the year, they can carry that forward, and if there is a deficit, they have to somehow manage that shortfall.

"It encourages entrepreneurial behaviour," she continues. "Deans make more decisions at their level as well. It's a good motivating factor--not a 'use it or lose it' approach that can lead to less than optimum decisions."

Pinder is accountable to deliver a macro-financial model, to update costing studies, develop an accountability template to support the new business model, provide training and development support for faculties and business units, develop on-line documentation for RCM policy and operating procedures and test and implement a multi-year budget system to support the responsibility center management model.

Pinder has found a comfortable space in this university college. She works with a budget of $90 million and, though the university is small, it's set to double in size in 10 years. "Registration is already up 16% from last year," she notes.

She brings a lot of experience to her position, perhaps most notably as CFO of Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology (SIAST) in Saskatchewan. Her experience there was wide ranging. With a staff of 200, she directed the provincial educational organization's administrative functions including finance, purchasing materials management, information technology, printing services, bookstores, cafeterias, and facilities and transportation management processes.

"Working at SIAST involved a lot of HR management," Pinder says. "The more jobs I've had the more I understand the importance of communication. That was critical at SIAST. I would take my managers on retreats for team building exercises and strategic planning and did my best to keep staff informed of what was going on in the organization over all."

And her success in the job was felt throughout the organization. She moved SIAST from a 16-page provincial auditor's management letter to a clean management letter with no financial issues after two years in the position. The provincial auditor gave her and her finance team recognition for this in the legislature. She also restructured and centralized the finance function, eliminating 15 accounting positions and reducing administrative costs by $550,000.

When she and her husband started considering a future retirement location, they moved to Kelowna, at which point Pinder took on her first private sector job, in 1999, as CFO and vice-president of Achievers Technologies Group of Companies.

"It was interesting to go into the high tech sector and a private industry with an international focus," she says. "The CMA knowledge set was a great asset working there. My accounting theory was essential to deal with international consolidation issues, transfer pricing, and budgets in international currencies, to name a few things."

But family and the falling fortunes of high tech brought her back to Saskatchewan briefly, where she became director of integrated financial services at Saskatchewan Health in Regina. One of her greatest achievements there was to begin work on improvements to the financial reporting system for the health districts. Through the efforts of a CFO working committee, which she established, the health districts were able to provide improved financial reporting on which the government was able to base budget requests and increases for the 2003-2004 budget.

"That was one of the most enjoyable working experiences I've had," Pinder notes. "I enjoyed working with the CFOs and find that I do have a skill in pulling people together. You really do have to have a team effort to get this type of initiative done."

And Pinder has been a team player in the community as well, on the board of directors of a variety of non-profit organizations, and in a variety of positions in CMA Canada - Saskatchewan--as a director, a program facilitator, and a council member, to name but a few positions she has held. "The CMA designation has been very valuable and done a lot for me in my career. It has allowed me job opportunities I wouldn't otherwise have had." In recognition of all of her accomplishments, she received her FCMA in 2003.

Right now, of course, her thoughts are firmly on the job at hand, implementing the technology that will make OUC's new financial model run smoothly. "Part of the implementation is finished and the Web-based budget system is being worked out now. We are fine tuning it. With any system like this, before you start work on it, you've got to think about what you want the system to do. Once you know that, you create an action plan and follow it. It requires lots of perseverance--timelines, schedules, etc.--but when it works, it's very effective."

Often traditional industries shy away from significant strategic investments in IT until such a move becomes an imperative. The real estate industry has managed a dramatic shift from this reactionary stance by attracting talented strategists like Anne-Marie Gammon, CMA, FCMA, to help ensure that IT implementations are done right.

Gammon joined Summit Real Estate Investment Trust (Summit REIT) in February 2002 at a significant time in the organization's history. The industrial landlord was in the process of acquiring a $355-million real estate portfolio from Aquest, and as a result of that acquisition and the internalization of its property management function jumped in size from 20 employees to approximately 140. The company's total assets are now over $1.5 billion with annual sales of over $206 million. Summit REIT is currently the largest publicly traded industrial landlord in Canada.

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Along with this great growth came new IT needs, and Gammon initiated and guided that program. She led the development of the company's first long-term strategic plan for IT.

"One of the outcomes of the strategic planning process was an appropriately staffed IT department, led by a full time manager of IT. With full time IT leadership now in place, my current involvement in IT is to assist with the capital and operating budgeting process and to participate in new IT reporting initiatives," says Gammon. "Through our IT system, we've been able to increase optimization of the internal software used in our operations. I am also part of an operations team that recently developed a disaster recovery plan for our organization. An integral component of the recovery plan is the safeguarding and recovery of our IT system, which is considered mission critical to our operations."

Gammon has been using technology in innovative ways for many years now. One of her foremost projects professionally, and one that she admits thoroughly enjoying, was working with Dr. Gordon Pollock, CMA, former executive vice-president of CMA Canada--Nova Scotia to develop the curriculum for Redesigning the Finance Function, a post-designation virtual learning workshop for CMAs.

"This was back in 1997," explains Gammon. "At that time this type of program, e-learning, was leading edge, and we researched a significant portion of the materials for the course on the Internet. It was one of the first on-line learning initiatives for CMA Canada."

She enjoyed implementing the program for many of the same reasons her current job is a welcome challenge--it drew on her accounting knowledge and involved opening new doors with IT. CMA Canada launched Redesigning the Finance Function across Canada and Gammon facilitated the program over the Internet for the following three years.

In her work with CMA Canada, as in her professional career, she has tried to add value to programs wherever she can. Prior to joining Summit REIT, Gammon worked for three years for ITI Information Technology Institute (ITI), a leading provider of postgraduate IT education in North America. "During my experience with ITI, I really appreciated how competitive the education industry was," she says. "Opportunities for learning have grown, with many diverse programs now available. CMA Canada does not only compete with other accounting designation programs, it also competes for students against IT, MBA, CFA and other specialized programs of study."

As the President of CMA Canada--Nova Scotia in 1999-2000, Gammon stressed the need to attract students from all over the province, not just the population hub of Halifax-Dartmouth. "We have to keep our membership vital and robust as it can erode quickly without that growth," she says. "It's not just important to deliver services, but also to consider membership growth and retention strategies as well." CMA Canada's program shift to the electronic-based Strategic Leadership Program has helped attract candidates. "Now we can attract students from other communities across the province. And during my tenure we worked to develop that demographic."

Although IT has played an important role in many of Gammon's initiatives, her work has been and continues to be quite varied, taking in HR, developing accounting policies, enhancing business processes and other operational management responsibilities. For instance, on an interim basis last fall, she was involved with a team in setting up Summit REIT's new property management company in Mississauga, Ont.

Gammon is currently working extensively on accounting policy development with other members of Summit's accounting and finance team, and in enhancing internal controls and reporting at Summit REIT. "Over the last two years, a lot of challenges have arisen for publicly traded companies including new disclosure reporting requirements and governance rules," says Gammon. "This has affected us, so along with other members of Summit's accounting and finance team, I'm helping to ensure that all the mechanisms are in place for the organization to change with these new initiatives."

While busy in her career, Gammon continues to contribute to CMA Canada and other organizations like Junior Achievement of Nova Scotia, and Canadian Institute of Public and Private Real Estate Companies (CIPPREC).

And she takes great pride in her CMA designation. "The CMA program results in a well-rounded management professional" she says. "We understand accounting, HR, IT, tax, operations, management and leadership principles. I pull from a diverse body of knowledge in my day-to-day work, acquired through the CMA program and through years of practical and relevant work experience. Summit REIT has given me an excellent opportunity to apply all of those skills."

Anne-Marie Gammon received her FCMA designation in September 2003. Although she always knew that she wanted to be an accountant, Melanie Duquette, CMA, was also drawn to the communications industry from day one of her career. Even before she completed her bachelor's degree in administration at Montreal's HEC in 1994, she joined the Metromedia group--a firm involved in various communications ventures--for a summer job that never ended. She started out as assistant controller in a division responsible for advertising in Montreal's buses and subways, even though she was still attending her classes in business administration. Then, in 1998, she became controller for two radio stations, CIEL-FM and CIME-FM, also part of the Metromedia group.

When Duquette decided to study accounting, the business management side of the industry fascinated her. As a result of her job experience and the contacts that she made at university, Duquette realized that she wanted to become a CMA, and realized her goal while at Metromedia. Her CMA training combined with her experience at Metromedia helped her move rapidly up the corporate ladder.

Duquette has never lost her passion for the communications industry. After her stints in advertising and radio, she couldn't resist the appeal of television. "I thought that it would be interesting to see what television was all about, and I jumped right in when an opportunity to work at Tele-Quebec came up," she recalls. She has been chief financial officer for the government corporation for almost four years now.

With its mandate to broadcast programs focusing on knowledge, learning, creativity and the promotion of culture, Tele-Quebec has a major role to play in the television market. It is generally acknowledged as Quebec's educational and cultural television network. Since it was founded in 1968, Tele-Quebec has pioneered programming that reflects and values each and every form of expression, in addition to educating and informing a varied audience.

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Because Duquette works for a government corporation, her role as CFO is somewhat different from what she would be doing in the private sector. "I went from a small private business to a large public corporation," she notes. Her primary objective from the outset was to gather experience in every field of communications. When she landed at Tele-Quebec, Duquette was immediately aware that this was a far cry from radio stations: she was entering a much more diverse environment, culturally and artistically.

"Let's face it," she says, "the accounting world is a little more down-to-earth, and television brings out the creative side of people. My job allows me to work with personalities from both sides of the fence." But Duquette never really stops to think seriously about the differences between her current position and her former jobs; all she wants is to enjoy another fulfilling experience. She also realizes that she needs these two facets of her work, finance and TV, to gratify her all-consuming passion.

As CFO, Duquette works closely with many other people, including programming and production professionals. She develops budgets in close consultation with the people who create the program schedules. "In fact, one of my achievements here has been putting a program of monthly budgets and projections in place," Duquette says. Program scheduling is one of the network's major expenditures, and she was looking for a more rigorous follow-up and an easier way to track numbers.

Although her youth made her integration into the industry tough at first, she succeeded in asserting herself through her experience in management, her knowledge of media and her openness to her fellow managers at Tele-Quebec.

Duquette is currently working towards her MBA while continuing to appreciate the creativity at work in this sector of the communications industry.

Robert Colman is editor-in-chief of CMA Management. Melanie Duquette's profile by Julie Demers. Julie Demers is associate French editor of CMA Management magazine.