Women in Finance - Meet Amanda Wong, CPA, CA, MPAcc

Happy Women in Finance Friday! Today I introduce you to my friend Amanda Wong, CPA, CA. Amanda is the Director of Finance at Daily Hive, a Canadian online news source committed to local, genuine content in communities across the country.

I first met Amanda in 2006 when we were both going through the student recruitment process at KPMG Vancouver. We articled together and both completed our Master of Professional Accounting program at the University of Saskatchewan. Through this, Amanda became a great friend. She is fun and hella smart. Over the past few months we've had the opportunity to work together on a couple accounting projects and it's been so cool to get a glimpse into Amanda's job!

Amanda is one of the coolest and most compassionate people I know. She makes me laugh and she keeps things real. Amanda is the best.

Thank you for sharing Amanda! We are all interested to hear what it's like to work in the heart of this rad communications company!

1.Tell me about you and the work that you do!?

I am the Director of Finance at Daily Hive where I manage all things from finance operations to reporting and forecasting and everything in between (treasury management, acquisitions, contract review, etc.).

2.???Tell me about what it's been like to run a finance department for a growing company during covid!?

It's been such a learning curve! After coming from 10+ years of large company experience, being in a smaller organization where many of our customers were directly impacted by COVID, we felt the impacts right away. And as a growing company, having that growth trajectory come to a halt quite suddenly required quick pivoting in strategy. I was constantly coming up with various scenarios for our business but as the over-araching environment was changing (provincially, federally and internationally in response to COVID-19), we too, also had to factor those in as well. The first few months were quite hectic as everyone didn't know the extent of COVID impacts nor how long it would last, but I think after the first 3 months or so, most businesses adapted to a new normal, as did we.

3.???If you could do it all over again, would you choose this same career path??If yes, why??If no, let's frame the question like "in a choose your own adventure type story, what type of career path would you have pursued?"?

If we are talking childhood dreams here, I always wanted to be a singer/dancer but have no talent for either, so that dream didn't go very far! I sort of fell into accounting because I didn't know what I wanted to do in university (who does?!) and this felt like a good option to give me a useful background in business that would give me room to move around if I wanted to, and I feel like it's done just that. Being an accountant might seem like a very specific job, but having a background in accounting is actually a really great way to set you up for any role in business. I've gone from auditing to working in telecom and then media/advertising and in all my experiences I've seen so many facets of business and been able to build different skill sets and work with different people as a result. I still think there is room for me to explore different areas if I so choose, so I think choosing this career did give me flexibility in what I want to do!

4.???Who have been some of your role models throughout your career?

I know when I was younger and trying to figure out what I wanted to do there was a big fixation on finding a mentor, that one person who could guide you through your career. But in my experience,?I think you can encounter many people in your life who have such a profound impact on shaping your career and sometimes it's even just based on a single interaction.???I've met so many great people over the course of my career, and there are different snippets of conversations from different people that have mentally compiled as words to live by, and not all of them have come from people in my field or people that were more senior than me.

6.??What do you like best about the work you do??

I love getting to work with different types of people and our team operates so closely I get the experience of seeing all facets of running a business as well as having the autonomy to create and refine new processes from scratch!

7.??How do we learn more about Daily Hive?

Check out?@dailyhivevancouver or any of the other cities we are in!

Thank you for sharing Amanda! Such a pleasure to have the opportunity to work with and learn from you! I love where the profession has lead you! Inspirational!