A veteran accountant who’s been advising clients for a quarter-century in the fields of IT and cybersecurity is the new managing partner at BDO Canada’s Ottawa office, continuing a series of shakeups in the upper echelons of some of the capital’s most prominent professional services firms.
BDO announced Tuesday that Mike Abbott has joined the company effective this week. He will oversee 270 employees at nine locations in Ottawa and the surrounding area.
“This is an exciting new chapter and opportunity for me,” he said in a Linkedin post on Tuesday. “This is a role where I will be able to leverage my experience in professional services, IT, cyber security, accounting and business transformation across the Ottawa marketplace and help shape something new.”
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Before taking on his new role, Abbott spent nearly 25 years at rival professional services firm Deloitte, where he was a partner. He replaces Stéphane Savage, who now leads BDO’s financial advisory services practice for the Ottawa region.
Abbott, who earned his Bachelor of Commerce degree from Carleton University in 1997, has worked with a wide range of clients, including Crown corporations and publicly traded companies, focusing on the technology, public-sector, oil and gas and transportation industries.
Changes at the top
In addition to being managing partner, Abbott will also serve as a risk advisory services partner. In that role, he’ll work with clients to establish cybersecurity programs and advise them on technology risks and opportunities.
Abbott’s hiring is just the latest change at the top of a major Ottawa accounting firm in the past few months.
Longtime Welch LLP executive Jim McConnery assumed the role of managing partner at the Ottawa-based firm at the beginning of January. McConnery, who’s been a partner at Welch since 2007, replaced Micheal Burch, who had held the position for nearly 13 years.
In December, EY announced that former Corel and IBM executive Warren Tomlin was taking over as managing partner of the firm’s National Capital Region office after three years as EY Canada’s digital and innovation partner.
Meanwhile, KPMG announced in November that longtime Ottawa partner Andrew Newman has been appointed managing partner for the firm’s Ottawa and Kanata offices. Newman succeeded Grant McDonald, who held the job for nearly a decade and is now focusing on his role as the global head of KPMG’s aerospace and defence practice.
