CPA Saskatchewan Keynote and Workshop
I was honoured to have been in Regina with the CPA Saskatchewan community, delivering a keynote and an applied learning workshop on something that feels increasingly urgent: The Future of CPAs in the Age of AI.
What stood out most in the room wasn’t just curiosity about technology, it was a deeper question underneath it: how do we keep thinking well when the tools around us are thinking faster?
My focus was on shifting the conversation away from AI as a threat or a productivity hack, and toward AI as a thinking partner, one that challenges how we structure problems, test assumptions, and expand judgement.
I framed the session through three lenses that have shaped my own work:
1.The Greenhouse Approach
Innovation isn’t a moment, it is a system of cultivation. When we decompose complexity, ground ideas in real constraints, and grow them through iteration, we create clarity where there was noise.
For CPAs, this becomes a way to move from compliance thinking to design thinking without losing rigour.
2.Systems Thinking
Nothing in finance, audit, governance, or advisory exists in isolation anymore. Every decision sits inside a network of dependencies, data, behaviour, risk, trust. The opportunity is to see patterns earlier, not just explain outcomes after the fact.
3.The Intrapreneurial Lens
The future CPA is not just a steward of accuracy, but a builder inside systems, someone who can reimagine how work gets done from within the profession itself. That requires courage as much as capability.
Across both the keynote and workshop, we explored how AI can be used not to replace judgement, but to strengthen it by surfacing blind spots, testing scenarios faster, and freeing cognitive space for higher-order thinking.
What emerged clearly is this: the value of the CPA is moving further into interpretation, synthesis, and strategic insight.
The technical foundation remains essential but it is no longer sufficient on its own.
What often isn’t visible in moments like this is the preparation behind them.
These talks are not improvised, they are built over hours and hours of deep work, refining ideas, pressure-testing frameworks, and ensuring the content is both rigorous and relevant.
The mental preparation matters just as much as the intellectual architecture.
And physically, it’s equally intentional.
My workouts are non-negotiable, they are part of how I prepare to show up with clarity, energy, and focus.
They are not separate from the work; they are part of the system that makes the work possible.
I am grateful to the CPA community in Saskatchewan for the openness, depth, and willingness to engage not just with what is changing but with how we choose to think inside that change.
The future of the profession is not something we wait for.
It is something we actively shape, one decision, one system, one way of thinking at a time.
