Hi, I’m Melissa!
After spending 15 years in the the corporate world, I became so sick of the greed, injustice, discrimination and abuse that I had witnessed and experienced. In 2021, I said @#$&?! this, and started my own firm.
As a Chartered Professional Accountant in Southern Ontario, I help other socially-conscious business owners with their finances. I have always had a keen interest in social, political and environmental issues (I actually obtained a B.Sc in Biological Sciences before I decided to become a CPA) and this sense of justice has become a driving force in my work.
I recently learned that my inability to turn a blind eye to injustice can be partially attributed to having ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). Learning about neurodivergence has helped me understand a few things about myself, like…
Why I have always had such a strong sense of justice
Why corporate office culture was such a challenge for me
Why I often forget to eat and drink throughout the day
Why I’m so sensitive to certain smells, sounds and textures
Why it’s so hard to turn my brain off at the end of the day
Why I’m so good at what I do as an accountant
How does neurodivergence make me* a great accountant?
ASD has given me amazing pattern recognition skills, and accounting is all about patterns, trends and anomalies.
ASD has given me an exceptional eye for detail, which helps me ensure accuracy and identify discrepancies.
ASD has given me an excellent memory, which means that I can easily recall financial regulations, guidelines, etc.
ASD gives me the compulsion to make order out of chaos. (Yes, I would love to clean up your accounting mess!)
ASD and ADHD are both associated with analytical thinking, which helps with strategic financial planning.
ASD and ADHD are often associated with “numerical aptitude,” which makes it easy for me to process data quickly.
Neurodivergence has made me highly empathetic when explaining finance concepts to non-finance individuals.
* Autism is a spectrum. It is important to keep in mind that no two autistic people are exactly the same. While numbers are my thing, many autistic people struggle with numbers. To learn more about Autism and neurodiversity please click here.