Accounting
Allyn has over 17 years of experience in public practice and became a partner of Galloway Botteselle & Company in early 2017. As a partner, he is passionate about helping professionals and small business owners with accounting needs and advises clients in a variety of professions including medical/dental, real estate, manufacturing and hospitality.
Prior to his current role, Allyn spent 5 years in Toronto in the private enterprise group of a Global firm providing financial statement consolidation and corporate taxation services for medium to large private companies.
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Allyn Fong
Adrian Law
After a key decision to change careers, Adrian left the world of cooking and pursued accounting via the DAP program at UBC. Shortly after completing his diploma, he began his public accounting career as an audit associate at PwC, went on to complete the CPA designation, and is now a Corporate Controller at Diversified Royalty Corp.
He is a CPABC PEP mentor and enjoys helping students develop their interpersonal and professional skills, and explore their accounting goals. He likes to help future CPAs by sharing his Big 4 experiences.
Tanya Rossa is currently a Controller at Aquatic Informatics, a Vancouver-based software company with a mission to protect life with open and timely water information. Since graduating in 2015, Tanya has garnered experience working in public practice and in industry. She began her career at KPMG working in the Enterprise Audit group, where she completed her CPA designation, before transitioning to work in the Vancouver tech space.
Tanya is committed to supporting others on their CPA journey. She currently mentors and coaches CPA students as they progress through the program and prepare for examinations.
Tanya Rossa
Freda Cheung
Freda Cheung is the current Executive Vice President of Duty Free, She is currently the chairperson of Hudson’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Prior to joining Hudson in 2017, Freda was with World Duty Free Canada as Chief
Executive Officer from 2010 to 2016 and as a Vice President, Corporate Services from 2006 to 2009.
She received her Executive Education Program from the Harvard Business School in Boston. She is also a Chartered Professional Accountant.
Bronche is a Tax Partner at KPMG in Canada. She has over 20 years of experience providing tax services to real estate funds, developers and investors. Bronche is passionate about coaching, mentoring and team building. She had been a mentor with EMP for over 10 years.
She has also served as the HR Partner for KPMG's tax practice in the Greater Vancouver Area and a People Leader in KPMG’s Financial Institution and Real Estate tax team. She is currently undertaking organizational coaching training at UBC.
Bronche Cheng
Jesse Xin
Jesse is a senior manager in KPMG's management consulting group. He and his team specializes in helping companies make better capital investment decisions, strengthening supply chain capabilities, and enabling more effective use of technology.
He specializes in working with organizations in power & utilities, energy and natural resources, and transportation. Outside of work, Jesse serves as a member of the board of directors for Ronald McDonald House of BC and Yukon.
Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA) with 7+ years of public practice experience with high net worth individuals and private companies in multiple industries (i.e., audits, reviews, tax compliance and tax planning in a medium-sized firm setting).
Presently, working in mergers & acquisitions with a focus on tax. BCom graduate of the Sauder School of Business and completed all three levels of the CPA Canada In-Depth Tax program.
Steven Tanaka
Tracey Zheng
Tracey joined Amazon in 2011 as part of the Tax Controversy team. Over time, her role as Amazon’s in-house tax counsel has expanded, and she now oversees Global Tax Controversies, handling tax disputes around the world for Amazon, as well as leads the team that supports the global Advertising business. Tracey currently leads a team of over 30 people, based in APAC (Singapore, India, and Australia), Europe (London, Spain) and the Americas (US, Canada and Colombia). Tracey is also a Global Executive Sponsor of the Women In Tax (WIT) program, founded to create an inclusive community and stronger network at Amazon. Prior to starting at Amazon, she worked at Mayer Brown in New York City, representing clients in all stages of tax controversies from pre-audit to litigation. Tracey holds a Master’s Degree in Tax Law from New York University, a JD degree from Tulane University, and B Comm. degree from University of British Columbia.
Finance
As an Investment Counsellor with RBC PH&N Investment Counsel, Bowei brings over 10 years of experience providing discretionary investment management services to high-net-worth individuals and families, businesses, trusts and foundations in Vancouver and the surrounding area. To help ensure that all of his clients’ wealth management needs are met, Bowei draws upon the support of in-house tax, estate and financial planning specialists from across the RBC enterprise. Prior to joining the firm, Bowei held various roles specializing in credit analysis, real estate investment and portfolio management at several large multi-national corporations. Bowei graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst designation.
Bowei Yang
Eric Floe
Eric is a branch director at RBC Dominion Securities. In his role, he aids families navigate the complexities of wealth management by helping them understand various financial issues, concerns and opportunities they face at every life stage. He is also a UBC alumni and enjoys mentoring students with ambitions within the realm of Finance.
Nelson Ng
Nelson is a UBC Sauder alumni who has worked at Macquarie Capital for 6 years within its Investment Banking division. The first three years in Vancouver was focused on infrastructure, and the following three years in the UK was focused on the utilities and renewable energy sectors.
Following this, Nelson has spent the past 13 years in Equity Research (sell-side) at RBC Capital Markets covering renewable energy and chemicals.
Yan Wang
Yan has over 10 years of experience working in both finance and corporate world. She is passionate about her wealth management career and her expertise lies in investment portfolio management and comprehensive wealth planning. Yan and her team work closely with high net worth and ultra-high net worth families, as well as institutions. Her breadth of experience, expertise and credentials help ensure sound advice, expert execution and peace of mind for clients who need solutions for broad and complex investment and wealth management needs. Yan earned her MBA in Finance at UBC in 2013. She holds the Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CMA) designation and the Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) designation.
Damian is a Finance and Strategy manager at Robinhood supporting the People, Legal and Finance functions and is currently based in New York. He has over seven years of finance and accounting experience, specifically in M&A, corporate strategy and financial planning.
He previously worked at Ideanomics in Corporate Development and prior to that, MediPharm Labs, EY, and Deloitte.
Damien Yeung
Ben Gardiner
Ben is a current Commercial Finance Manager at Labatt. He is a CPA with 6 years of work experience. Ben started his career at EY working mainly with public companies across several industries. After which, he worked with 3 different companies doing financial planning and analysis (FP&A) work.
Ben's goal is to become a trusted advisor on finance and strategy to executive management. In his spare time, he plays basketball and loves watching and reviewing movies. Ben has a Bachelor of Commerce degree focused in Accounting from The University of British Columbia.
Henry is an Investment Banking Associate based in BMO Capital Markets’ Vancouver office. Since joining the firm, Henry has been involved in a variety of M&A and equity financings across a broad range of sectors, with a primary focus in technology and metals and mining.
Henry also has past experiences in corporate development and equity research.
Henry Zhang
David Ma
David currently pursues a Credit Structuring role, supporting several lines of business nationally while based here in Vancouver. After graduating in 2006, he started at Scotiabank in 2007 in the Commercial banking group working his way through successively senior roles including portfolio management and relationship sales.
He moved to BMO’s Corporate Finance group in 2013 with their Asset Based Lending team and subsequently took on the business development role for Western Canada. After that, he had the opportunity to join the Private Equity / Sponsor Finance team as they were expanding nationally and spent 5 years with that group, ultimately leading the BC book of business and coverage of private equity Sponsors.
Gilbert is currently an executive for several stealth crypto and trading start-ups. He spent 8 years working in Chicago at Optiver US LLC, a quantitative high frequency options trading firm, where he was head of a commodities trading desk.
He graduated from UBC in 2011 studying Finance and Statistics.
Gilbert Yang
Grace Jang
Grace is a results-driven finance professional with analytical rigor. Currently, she is a Finance Manager at TikTok for North East Asia. She has led projects directing high-performance cross-functional teams across Marketing, Content, Operations, and Sales in FMCG, digital technologies, automotive, consulting, and entertainment industries.
In addition to driving business growth as a finance lead, Grace is also a self-made entrepreneur and coder with a passion for technologies.
Jonathan Li
Jonathan is currently a Financial Analyst at Amazon, supporting the vendor funding space. He graduated from Sauder in 2017 and has since obtained his CPA with PwC and MBA at Queen's. Being a tri-linguist, he has worked in Vancouver and Hong Kong with first-hand experience in the hotel, F&B, PE, real estate, forestry, retail, and tech sectors.
Outside of work, he loves playing golf and badminton, watching hockey, and is a total coffee geek."
Peter Fitzpatrick
As the VP of Payments at Thinkific, Peter helps digital creators scale their impact on the world with innovative commerce products and education. He leads teams focused on helping creators sell more and spend less time on administration.
Peter works to create an environment of high achievement and low stress, in which teams pursue 'impossible' outcomes in high-energy, candid, and safe environments.
Marketing
Dustin Tysick
Dustin received his MBA from Sauder in 2015 and since then has been working at tech startups in marketing and sales. His current role is at VP of Revenue at Testimonial where he oversees the Sales, Marketing, and Customer Success teams.
Dustin is also the current Growth Marketing Advisor at Jostle. He has a broad range of experience in multiple industries including healthcare, edtech, HR tech, ecommerce, governance, and now B2B video.
Tarun Varma
Tarun is a Marketing Leader & Entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience in growth marketing and digital consulting. He has experience growing brands & e-commerce companies with over $50 million in managed spend and $215 million+ in revenue.
Tarun received his MBA from the UBC Sauder School of Business
Kirill Kudymov
Kirill is a Senior Technical Product Manager at Telus. His professional experience includes over ten years of working as a product manager building various products in an agile high-tech environment, creating a business case for the next generation of an IoT product, and developing a marketing strategy for international markets with leading global technology corporations. He mastered his leadership skills working with diverse engineering and sales teams around the globe. Kirill is a Sauder Alumni, completed his Master of Business Administration Program in 2015.
Nicole-Ann Poitras
Nicole-Ann is Principal and Creative Director of Purple Chili Consulting, a company she created, where she consults for companies, government organizations, and foundations on Strategic Marketing, Strategic Communications, and Event projects and production, alongside her non-profit commitments. Her clients have included the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Heart & Stroke Foundation, the Port of Vancouver, FarmFolk CityFolk, and Marketplace Events. Nicole-Ann, who is of Cree-Métis and English descent, was born and raised in Burnaby, BC, Canada and attended the University of British Columbia where she obtained her Bachelor of Commerce degree with a specialization in Marketing.
Awaneesh Shatmanyu
Awan currently works for Safe Fleet as a Senior Product Manager, and is pursing product development and launch of a beta version for a new solution that helps law enforcement agencies to collect, manage and retain digital evidence. One of his recent key accomplishments has been to grow and scale REW.ca, to be the market leader in British Columbia. Awan specializes in product development and product management. Over the last 15 years, Awan has developed new products for industries including e-commerce, real estate, gift cards, compliance, government and law enforcement. Awan is a Sauder MBA alumnus, and has an academic background in computer engineering.
Michael Tran
Michael is the Director of Marketing at Vitasave where the manages the Ecommerce, Marketing, and Customer Service teams. He loves live music, cycling, and photography. Prior to joining Vitasave, Michael spent five and a half years working at agencies in Vancouver building brands and leading digital marketing campaigns.
Michael graduated from UBC in 2017 with a BCOM in Marketing and has focused his career on e-commerce/small business.
BTM
Vaclav Vincalek
Vaclav is a technology entrepreneur and CTO at MeetAmi Innovations Inc. and has an extensive background in custom software development, information technology and cybersecurity.
He helps start up companies align strategy and technology to enable an overall vision for fast growth. His current focus is on discovering how to best deploy machine learning to support business objectives.
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Armando Elias
Armando is a High Tech executive with 20 years of international sales, pre-sales and consulting experience in the technology industry. He combines proven success in building and selling corporate and global software solutions for Fortune 100, Canadian and Government organizations. Currently, he is a Partner for IBM Consulting leading the SAP Practice for Western Canada. Prior to this, he was VP of Consulting Services at SAP and held various sales and consulting roles at SAP, Microstrategy, Citrix & Microsoft. Fully bilingual, Armando can help navigate students who are interested in a career in technology, consulting, sales and also interested in pursuing an international career.
Colette Cheung
Colette is the client focal and leads account strategy and pursuits at IBM. She is responsible for the IBM Consulting portfolio within her accounts, which includes: digital transformation, application modernization and migration, IT outsourcing and consulting/advisory services.
Colette is a Sauder Alumni, having completed her BComm in Marketing & International Business, with a minor in French.
Ryan Li
Ryan Li is the current Data Science lead at Trainline in London, UK. He is experienced in quantitative finance research in academia and in leading and building data science teams and strategy for Shopify.
Human Resources
Jody Sawchuk
Jody is a seasoned Human Resources professional with over 20 years experience across industries including mining, food and beverage and industrial laundry. Growing up in Winnipeg, Jody received his BComm from the University of Manitoba in 1997. He joined Mosaic Corp. shortly after graduation, and relocated to Saskatchewan. Jody Sawchuk He later joined the MolsonCoors organization and relocated to Toronto and then eventually Vancouver. In 2007, Jody completed his MBA from the Sauder School of business. To further his education, Jody obtained his CMA (CPA) in 2009. Most recently, Jody is working for Aramark in the Learning & Development department of HR and is often found working remotely on Gambier Island, BC.
Kai Rong Gan
Kai is the current Director of Human Resources & Administration at Warrington PCI Management, She manages the human resources, property administration and office administration departments. In Kai's previous role, She has worked as an HR Generalist assisting managers in BC, ON and MB. Her experience has been focused in the property management industry in various capacities including lease administration.
Lisa Cunliffe
Lisa was born and raised in Vancouver and is a proud alumnae of the University of British Columbia. She has been with Odlum Brown for over two decades and currently manages their Sales Support team. Lisa is also involved in Human Resources programming and strategy. She is passionate about developing her team members and helping them reach their potential. Lisa is involved in several of the firm’s fundraising initiatives, specifically those relating to children’s and women’s health. She believes that the price of living well is giving back.
Outside of work, Lisa enjoys spending time with her family of four and taking advantage of all that living on the beautiful West Coast has to offer.
Real Estate
Rebecca Nguyen
Director of Development, Citimark Group With over 20 years of project management experience in real estate development, Rebecca is a highly experienced with municipalities, consultants, and community consultation. She is well-versed in multi-family and commercial developments from municipal approvals to postoccupancy and has a keen interest in sustainable building practices and trends. As one of the student organizers who first started EMP over 20 years ago, Rebecca has seen many of the challenges and triumphs for mentorship at UBC Sauder. The passion of individuals wanting to give back to students to broaden their experience and to gain access to different perspectives and share real life experience is important to the diversity of community at UBC and beyond and resonates greatly with Rebecca.
Ryan Wong
Ryan Wong is the current Director, Valuation at Ryan's Vancouver office. He specializes in providing appraisal and consulting services for multifamily, retail, office and industrial properties, is responsible for originating business, managing client relations and mentoring and training junior staff. Previous to Valuation, Ryan was a principal at BCS Real Estate
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Austin Yu
Austin is a Realtor providing commercial and residential trading services. He has dealt with $500,000 condos to $6,000,000+ singlefamily homes, and income-producing assets and development projects over $70,000,000+. His prior experience in door-to-door sales and cold-calling has set a strong foundation. He started out his official real estate journey managing and negotiating civil infrastructure projects in China, and returned back to Vancouver after a couple years to become licensed as a Realtor. His constant dedication to improve his sales and marketing skills has proved beneficial when dealing with a wide variety of different products and clientele.
Operations & Logistics
Ron Boaz
Ron Boaz is a business leader with over 10 years of management, project and business analysis experience. Ron is a true generalist: He managed large international medical conferences overseas, helped redesign park maintenance scheduling regionally within BC, and taught dozens of people the values of Lean process improvement. He aspires to continue learning, writing and mentoring on the topics of business transformation, digital innovation, and providing strategic direction for organizations dedicated to improving the lives of their customers and constituents. Ron currently manages a team of digital professionals, from UX designers to infrastructure specialists, to administer and enhance the City of Vancouver's digital service channels.
Oscar Lai
Oscar Lai is a 2017 Sauder Graduate with a specialization in Finance. He currently works at DoorDash in their Enterprise vertical (top 200 brands) doing product go-to-market and sales planning. He started his career in San Francisco as a Financial Analyst for Electronic Arts. After about 2 years in Finance, he moved to a Strategy and Operations function first at EA then to DoorDash. In his spare time he loves playing video games, playing sports (Frisbee/Tennis) and reading/writing and (somewhat) maintaining a blog at www.oscarlai.com.
Ryan Uy
Ryan Uy is CFO of DP World Canada and was a recent recipient of Business in Vancouver’s prestigious Forty under 40 award in 2019. Ryan attended UBC where he studied commerce. Soon after obtaining his Chartered Accountant designation, he relocated to Singapore in 2006, and shifted his to advising multi-national companies on merger and acquisition deals throughout Southeast Asia. While in Singapore, he joined a private equity fund that specialized with investments in intermodal assets, primarily shipping container fleets.In 2010, Ryan returned to Vancouver and spent five years advising on merger and acquisition deals, including the acquisition of the Prince Rupert Fairview terminal by DP World. Soon after the acquisition was completed, Ryan joined DP World Canada’s leadership team as CFO.
Alfonso Cuyegkeng
Alfonso is a healthcare senior leader with 8.5 years of experience. His work entails clinical planning, project management, analytics, and strategy. He is part of the leadership team in charge of planning and project managing the development of the new Richmond Hospital. Before starting a career in healthcare, He did his MBA in Finance at the University of British Columbia, with the hope of continuing his career in investment banking or venture capital. His previous work experience, before his MBA, was in investment banking with Citibank, where he specialized in foreign exchange derivative pricing.
Politics
Yonah Martin
The Honourable Yonah Martin is a Canadian politician (since 2009), and is the first Korean-Canadian parliamentarian in Canadian history. Born in Seoul, South Korea, Yonah Martin immigrated to Canada in 1972, and has resided in Metro-Vancouver ever since. After graduating from UBC in 1987, she enjoyed a 21-year teaching career until her entry into politics. She earned a Master of Education in Curriculum and Instruction in 1996. Yonah Martin established a Parliamentary Internship program in 2011; and is involved in various initiatives and annual programs that aim to promote and empower student leaders. She has served on the EMP Advisory Board since 2009.
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