Please share with us briefly about your career journey in Canada.
As a Chartered Accountant, I have had a decade of dedicated service in financial leadership roles. My career spanned diverse sectors, both publicly traded and privately held multinational corporations. My career journey in Canada was both humbling and rewarding; having exited my home country as a CFO for a company listed on the stock exchange, my first job was as an accounting clerk. I remained resilient and focused on the task of rebuilding my career and was able to move up to a finance manager role and ultimately to a corporate controller.
Despite my success over the years, I had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and a desire to create an environment that was conducive for myself and other immigrant women to thrive. With that mindset, I founded Karen Johnson CPA Professional Corporation, a boutique CPA accounting firm specializing in providing comprehensive accounting and tax services tailored to the needs of small to medium-sized businesses. Success for me today is providing big firm experience with a small-town feel.
2. What inspired you to join Black Female Accountants Network (BFAN) and how has this shaped your career?
The Black Female Accountants Network (BFAN) is a faith-based network founded on Christian values with a focus on its members empowering each other to make a difference within the profession, workplace, and community.
As a new immigrant to Canada, I felt lost, I no longer had the support of my family and business community as I did back home. Additionally, prior to coming to Canada I never had to contend with the fact that I am black, immigrant and female and I the support and the lived experience of women like myself to help me to navigate these intersectionality’s.
I can say unreservedly that BFAN provided me with the community I was lacking, a sisterhood indeed. I was able to meet many professional accountants and business professionals who had successfully navigated these barriers. This community of Black professionals were my mentors, my allies, my sponsors and most importantly my sisters.
BFAN has been instrumental in shaping my career. BFAN is more than just an opportunity to volunteer, the network is structured as an extension of the workplace, providing an avenue for black female immigrants to operate at the C-suite or managerial level—opportunities they might not have otherwise had. Jenny Okonkwo and the steering committee gave me the opportunity to be Co-Chair of Partnership and Finance for the network. As the network’s leader, I got the opportunity to build and executive strategic initiatives, build confidence, gain visibility while helping other women. I grew personally and professional; I built public speaking skills, sat at tables, entered rooms I otherwise would not have been qualified for.
3. How does BFAN as a community support its members in becoming influential leaders and changemakers?
At BFAN we focus on creating opportunities for our members to share knowledge and experiences through a process of engagement and professional reflection.
We provide a forum to showcase and celebrate professional accomplishments and to utilize tools and resources for professional advancement. We are guided by three foundational pillars:
Leadership and professional development
Building a legacy
Economic empowerment
We support our membership becoming influential leaders and change makers through:
Mentorship and Coaching: Our program allows our members to mentor younger or less experienced professionals and provide guidance to helps others navigate their careers, particularly in spaces where they may face underrepresentation.
Networking and Community Building: Our members have an opportunity to collaborate and foster a sense of community that encourages leadership development, a professional sisterhood.
Advocacy and Representation: Our members have opportunities to take on visible leadership roles, such as serving on boards or becoming corporate executives. In these roles they are able to advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace, inspiring others to push for changes that benefit everyone.
Sharing Stories and Experiences: One key aspect of our annual Women in Leadership Summit is that it offers a platform to share personal success stories of overcoming adversity. These stories both motivate and show our members the possibility to rise to leadership positions despite challenges.
Through these actions, Black female accountants not only support their community but also cultivate a legacy of leadership and empowerment that extends far beyond the workplace.
4. Can you share a story or highlight from your time leading BFAN that demonstrates the impact of the association on its members?
Almost daily I have women reaching out about the impact we have made on their lives. We have seen international accountants, who have gone through the mentorship program and sponsored by our membership, being able to gain employment in the Canadian workforce, settle their families and open the door to help other women. Through our Women in Leadership Summit (BFANWILS), we received such positive feedback and connected numerous women with job opportunities, provided many hours of professional development and watched our women grow, each story more impactful than the last.
5. Why do you believe Black professionals’ leadership is vital for creating more inclusive and equitable organizations?
I believe Black professional leadership fosters inclusive and equitable organization because they challenge the systemic biases, are instrumental in creating culture that prioritizes fairness, representation and opportunity not just for themselves but for all. Most importantly through their unique perspectives and experiences they add value to growth of their organization and validate the quote that “Diversity in all its forms is the path to greatness.” — James D. Wilson
6. What tangible actions can employers take to uplift and empower Black professionals?
There are several tangible actions employers and organizations can take to uplift and empower Black professionals. For them to be effective they must first go beyond symbolic gestures but address recruitment process, the tone or culture of the organization, developmental opportunities and mechanisms to measure success and ensure accountability.
Recruitment
Equitable Recruitment Practices: Inclusive job postings that remove the bias from hiring practices and prioritizes diversity of the talent pool
Tone and culture
Diversity and Inclusion Training to helps raise awareness about unconscious biases, microaggressions, and systemic barriers, creating a more supportive and understanding environment for Black professionals.
Fair Pay and Career Development: address any disparities between Black employees and their colleagues and provide access to career development opportunities to help Black professionals grow within the company.
Create a supportive Work environment: where Black professionals can bring their full selves to work, feel respected, and see their experiences and contributions acknowledged. Policies and initiatives such as employee resource groups go well to accomplish this.
Development opportunities
Establish formal genuine mentorship, sponsorship and allyship programs which facilitates guidance, advocacy, and opportunities for career advancement.
Promote Black Talent to Leadership Roles by eliminating barriers to advancement.
Measurement and accountability
Accountability and Transparency, a key component to the success of these initiatives are mechanisms that reports on there success and hold people accountable to adhering to them.
7. What changes or actions do you think would have the most immediate impact in your own environment?
I believe that creating a supportive work environment is most impactful followed by accountability and transparency.In a recent article by KPMG Canada titles “Racism remains an ugly reality for many in Canada”, it spoke about how racism intersects with gender and mentions the concept of “emotional tax” was referenced. Emotional tax is said to be the experience of being “on guard against bias” related to race or ethnicity. I felt exhausted from just writing that. We need environments that are fair and that facilitates our authentic self.
8. What message of encouragement or guidance would you offer to Black professionals navigating their career paths in Canada?
I would say first and foremost find your tribe, your community, it is a key to building racial wellness, fostering resilience and supporting professional emotional and professional wellbeing.
Secondly get involved, give back, helping others is a great way to helping yourself, in the process you evolve and grow beyond your expectations. BFAN has a number of volunteering opportunities, contact us to find out more.
And finally, a mindset shift is critical, let me pull again from the KPMG article ‘If you see it, you can be it.’ Despite the challenges be optimistic, refuse to be silent, hindered and deterred.
Canadian workplaces are diverse, reflecting our diverse population.
This is a good thing! Diverse organizations are more innovative and productive – but to be productive, workplaces also need to be inclusive. Diverse teams need environments where everyone feels that they belong and that they can contribute.
How exactly do you create an inclusive workplace? The TRIEC Inclusive Workplace Competencies can answer this question. They provide a framework to help you and your colleagues build organization that works for everyone.
The competencies are based on research and consultations with a range of experts. But what do we mean by competencies, and why should your organization use them?
Competencies describe the knowledge, skills, and behavior that you need to perform effectively at work. Nowadays, being great at your job is about more than just getting through a list of tasks – it’s about being able to demonstrate key behaviors in different situations. Creating an inclusive organization is everyone’s job and goes way beyond what an individual employee does. So competencies are also about how teams work together and the organization’s culture.
There are 15 competencies, divided into three areas: myself, my team and my organization. You can add them to your existing competencies and customize and adapt them to meet the needs of your workplace. For example, if innovation is a priority for your organization, you can set the competency “collaborate in diverse teams to foster productive outcomes” at a high level for all of its employees.
One of the great things about these competencies is that you can use them in many different ways. You can use them to write job descriptions, in recruitment, to design training, to review organizational policies and processes, and much more. To find out more about how the competencies work and try them out for yourself, visit triec.ca/competencies.
As a Chartered Accountant, I have had a decade of dedicated service in financial leadership roles. My career spanned diverse sectors, both publicly traded and privately held multinational corporations. My career journey in Canada was both humbling and rewarding; having exited my home country as a CFO for a company listed on the stock exchange, my first job was as an accounting clerk. I remained resilient and focused on the task of rebuilding my career and was able to move up to a finance manager role and ultimately to a corporate controller. 