EW 078 – How To Triple The Size Of An Accounting Firm With Authentic Leadership – Winning with Krista Rabidoux, Managing Director at Andersen

Gordon Sheppard (00:01.006)
Krista, welcome to the show.

Krista Rabidoux (00:03.967)
Thank you. Good morning.

Gordon Sheppard (00:05.93)
It is just so lucky to have you here. I've seen you in action in your cross border expertise, being aware of kind of what that part is. There's also your pedigree historically with multi careers coming together at this moment in time to be a strong leader in a growing organization. And I know a lot of people are going to want to know about that as well. But you know, there's a bunch of people here that haven't met you just yet. so if you had to introduce yourself, what would you say?

Krista Rabidoux (00:32.671)
Well, I I would introduce myself first as I am Krista and nice to meet you. you know, I am an accountant by trade. I am a coach by trade. I'm a family enterprise advisor by trade. So what I would say is I'm a barrel of monkeys and I love to bring everything together to help people be successful in the way that they authentically can be successful.

Gordon Sheppard (00:54.178)
What brought you to the accounting in in your world? Why why how what made you arrive at that place as a place to deliver your stuff?

Krista Rabidoux (01:00.813)
yeah, that's that's an interesting story because I did not come to accounting in the traditional way. And if you had asked me as a child if I was going to be an accountant, it was a big heck no. There's it was so far outside of the realm of my world. I grew up in the arts world and started my career in concert production as stage manager behind the scenes and I was actually in university for that. So that's where I I started my world and where I wanted to be, you know, a rode on tour with concerts and

Part of that you had to take one accounting class. And there was a prof at the university, Grant McEwen, that I was going to, and he said, You know, Krista, you're really good at this accounting, and it's a lot more stable of a career than the arts world. you may want to actually think about becoming an accountant, because it's it I think you would do very well at it. And that is literally how I got into the accounting world. Was one prof who took an interest in me and said,

I think you should look at this, Krista, because you'd probably be really good at it.

Gordon Sheppard (02:02.231)
Boy, that's a great story for Grant McEwan. One to, you know, be that guide at a moment in time and have that insight to set you on a path that kind of makes sense. The the the mind of a stage manager. I don't know if a lot of people know I I have some theater background in there as well, sort of leading up to what I did and is MBA that flipped me over to this world in terms of what I'm doing now. But the interesting thing in that stage manager mind is that ability to s you know, manage in your case, like you said, if you were to gonna do concerts or whatever, it takes a lot to get rush.

Krista Rabidoux (02:20.297)
Gotcha.

Gordon Sheppard (02:30.739)
Or the who on the stage. And if you would have had that mindset, do you know what I mean? To be able to do that. So the how lucky then to then combine in the numbers and accounting side, which then I heard leads into not only are you on the accounting side, but you've got that coaching ability and family enterprise ability, and I'm sure so much more. So when you're coming to how do you what do you think then your bundle brings to your ability in the moment as an advisor? How what sort of how does that distinguish you?

Krista Rabidoux (02:56.671)
Well, you know, it's interesting because I actually say a lot of times my background in arts made me be the exceptional professional I am today because you know as you would know, the show always goes on. No matter what hiccups happen, no matter what goes sideways, and the other side of it is nobody sees what happens backstage. And so it's how you show up, it's how you at quote unquote perform, if you will, no matter if a chord's off or if a

Plug is unplugged, you the show must go on. And where where that's really brought me in my professional world is I think in our industry we're very historically we've been very rigid in, you know, if things mess up and things go sideways, not a good thing. And you're frozen, Gord. I don't know if it's me.

Gordon Sheppard (03:50.635)
Okay. I don't know if you can hear me now.

Krista Rabidoux (03:51.855)
sorry. I lost there. Yeah, I lost you there. I don't know what you heard or what recorded there, but you were frozen for a minute, so I lost

Gordon Sheppard (03:57.186)
That's okay. Yeah, that's okay. There it could be just spotty internet or whatever that kind of thing is. I think w I think there's a pickup point in there. I'm just gonna see if I can pick that up in terms of

Krista Rabidoux (04:02.803)
Okay.

Gordon Sheppard (04:10.187)
I'm just going to come in with another question and kind of pick up a thought line there and sort of see if I can edit that together. Here we go. So

Gordon Sheppard (04:22.571)
And when okay, okay, here we go. And if you think about it, that really goes together well with the, you know, the other aspects of coaching and the family business that you're putting together and what a unique bundle. And I if you had to comment on sort of your unique bundle and how that comes together, what is that how does that make you distinct in terms of the advisory work that you do these days?

Krista Rabidoux (04:45.311)
Yeah, I think it's you know, so when I came to Andersen as as a managing director, I I came to it because it was a world of boutique and I could actually be a a real advisor. I I grew grew up, if you will, in my career in the big four practice where it it it was that rigid world. And it was hard for me to be provide customization in what I was doing and it was more about getting returns out and making sure things were right.

That was a very big focus. And for me now in the world where I get to kind of bring my wholesome, authentic self is I can you know, if someone wants to phone me about their mortgage, yeah, I'm a tax accountant, but I can help I'm not gonna advise them on pick this or that or whatnot. I I'll work with their financial advisors on that, but I can look at things holistically to help support them with my accounting brain and that math brain, but

using my arts brain to say, well, have you thought about this? Have you looked at this approach? And it really allows me to kinda view things how to run even our business, how to run it differently, because I don't kinda my brain doesn't fit in that box, if you will, of the the typical accountant upbringing and you know, where there is a stereotype of, you know, the very process oriented, detail oriented, which is

very far outside the realm of who I am. But and thankfully I surround myself with great people who are detail oriented, right? Because I am this strategic, overarching, customized type of thinker, right? So

Gordon Sheppard (06:19.95)
That's wonderful. And how nice to have that whole bundle together for your company, for your clients at at this moment in time. And there's something else that's really interesting in spending a bit of time with you is I I don't sense you to hold back when you're speaking almost with anybody. So where does that sort of, I'm gonna say confidence come from to and it's not, it's not I mean, it's not offensive. Do know what I mean? Like you just sort of say what needs to be said is what strikes me. Where does that come from?

Krista Rabidoux (06:44.729)
therapy and coaching. I I have a coach myself as well. I think it's very important to have someone to have that bouncing of ideas and stuff off of each other. But I think, you know, in Aitley when you are and I've always said I'm the square peg in the round box of the accounting world, I you know, I'm I I'm very different, I think different. So sometimes it's difficult for me to get buy in because

People are like, well, she's a little crazy. Like, are you sure? Are you sure? Right. And I'm very much a forward thinker. Like, I'm not, I'm not a today thinker. so for me, it's really I've tried, I I've had to kind of learn how to step back and put myself into the shoes of those that are detail-oriented to try to force myself to provide enough details that you know people around me can understand and accept. But the other side is, you know, I think, and I always tell my team this: show up authentically.

Be yourself. Don't try to be anybody else. And the minute you do that, there's an inherent trust that starts to be built. Because whenever you try to be somebody else that's not who you are at your core, there's always going to be that, are they telling me the truth? Because the the energy doesn't flow properly, right? And so I think when you show up to the door authentically, you innately get a little bit of that trust. And then you have to learn how to adapt into your situation.

Gordon Sheppard (08:09.966)
Well, that is super lucky. Again, for again yourself, get to sleep well at night because you get to be yourself, you know, and you're in this world where you can influence this world in the right way by bringing your whole self to that situation and give some thinking outside of the box that they could put into action. That's just terrific. Well it leads me to my first question in this interview, which is to say, you know, if you had your, you know, describe your biggest win, what would that win be and and how would you describe it?

Krista Rabidoux (08:15.593)
Right.

Krista Rabidoux (08:32.979)
Yeah, I think, you know, I would say the biggest win of my career so far is saying yes to Andersen. well first seeking them out and figuring out what I wanted and then saying yes because when I joined this organization as a boot it's a boutique firm, so we do not do audits, so we have that independence free world is I was able to go into an organization that was ripe for

for rebuilding, I guess if you will. it was historically run as a, you know, the sole not the solepreneur, because it had twenty four people or something like that. twenty-three. And it it was but it was still run very much like an owner-managed business. And anybody in the entrepreneurial world knows that when you're moving from an entrepreneur run business to without the entrepreneur, how you have to change systems. And so for me saying yes and coming in and

And having the trust of of the founder and his then partner, who's still a partner with us, to trust me to say, Okay, she's a little bit crazy, but let's see what happens. And you know, it's been a a great journey. I've been here seven years now and we've tripled the organization in the seven years and we just continue to to blossom and grow and it's you know, through through many things, people, revenue streams

various alternatives into doing it, but we really had to spend a lot of time building our foundation. And so y you can't grow without a foundation and you know, it's we grew and then we went, okay, we need to stop growing f as aggressively for a little bit to create the foundation for the next organization we're gonna be, because it's not the same, right? So

Gordon Sheppard (10:21.997)
Well, and you know, you know, with all your insights into all the businesses that you deal with, those hockey sticks that, you know, as we kind of like we're gonna level up, it's one thing to be a leader at a million, it's another thing to be a leadership team at ten million, at f fifty million, a hundred million. And we're not cracking open the books here, but we are hearing these necessary moments to level up as you're going along the way. So the win was finding the right place to go and be, and then getting the trust in a sense of the leaders to be able to do your thing. And then

Krista Rabidoux (10:32.55)
That's right.

Krista Rabidoux (10:46.261)
That's right.

Gordon Sheppard (10:47.137)
be participating in this tripling of the organization, which sounds like tripling may not be the end of the road depending on where you're going in terms of those next seven years, if we talk to you at that point. That's great. Well if we look at that so we know kind of what the win is and I always like to bring in what I call the anatomy of a win, where we talk about the strategy, work plan, people, operations, and results. Strategically, I mean you arrived there early. What was the strategy in these early days highlights, you know, vision, mission, values, goals, this kind of thing that sort of got you to this win.

Krista Rabidoux (11:17.203)
Yeah, so when I first joined, one of the first orders of business was what's our vision? Well, who do we want to be when we grow up? And that core, right? And you it it sticks with us today, the building trusted relationships and custom solutions and it and it hasn't changed. Like that at the core remains of who who we want to be. But then when you allow that to drive it, you can ensure you're bringing in the right leaders. No.

Don't always win at that, as any leader will know. You think you got it and then you're like, nope, that didn't work. But it's it's it's being able to recognize and take defeat with grace because I think similar to the arts world, with the show must go on, you're not everything's gonna go great, but the show goes on and you you continue down that path. And you know, inner hiring of people I think were very purposeful.

we actually have every high new hire at every level. So from our junior administration to the senior people do strengths deployment inventory test, which is a personality type of test. not that that makes or breaks a hire, but it is it is good information for a particular role that we're hiring if they're going to be able to fit into the needs of of what we're bringing in. And so, you know, if someone's

in the strengths deployment, a high red, which is you know, not much details, vision, and you're trying to hire them to be a data entry. Well, maybe not an exact match, right? And so you have to really think about that. So when you look at it, I'd say being purposeful with action is is important. but you can't be so purposeful that you're slow. So there is a point where you're trying to

grow an organization and you know but being afraid of making a mistake if you will that you then hinder that action. So for me, the big win and coming in with, you know, like you said, that mission, that purpose, that strategy, the people, it was coming in and just going, okay, what do we have? Where where's our foundation today? Because that's an important thing. You really have to understand what's the foundation today? Where, where can we and and I also think it's very important too, where's the quick wins?

Krista Rabidoux (13:33.886)
Right? Because quick wins are good to get buy-in from the other leaders and the team. That if we can get some quick wins with some small things and they say, I can see some action here, and then you slowly start to build that Lego set into the to the mountain, if you will, then you can kind of get a little bit more trust, a little bit more trust, and and it takes time. It does take time. You can't go, I'm coming in and I'm gonna be the tornado, and then everybody leaves because the tornadoes wiped out the organization. You have to

It's that fine balance of being purposeful and being a bit of a tornado, right? Cause any disruptor has the tornado in them. And I'm I'm a true disruptor at heart. So I I know I have a tornado in me and I ha I really have to be mindful to be purposeful as well. Cause when I get excited, I know I can I can go.

Gordon Sheppard (14:21.291)
You can whirl and you're in that world where whirling wouldn't be the norm, right? In terms of of what the what those folks are used to. And yet here you are showing up because they what would be the norm for them is growth. And they would, you know, you've you've demonstrated the ability to grow. And how neat that you just gave sort of a mini master class. I think if people just listened to that last two minutes and went, wait a second, people are really important. You're building trusted relationships. When you say trusted relationships, the accountants know more about people than anybody.

Then they're spouses and therapists often in terms of knowing that numbers game. So that's a really critical foundational piece. And yet you said the people part was strong. You're doing it kind of in that right methodical way in terms of getting those people in. So the strategy is super clear in terms of, you know, again, foundational things. And then you're setting up as you level up for those next moments along the way. The next step in there is this work plan idea. And you sort of alluded to it that it does take time. So there's sort of a moment before you join the company.

Krista Rabidoux (15:05.429)
That's right.

Gordon Sheppard (15:11.211)
And then there's these seven years that have gone along the way. So if we laid out that timeline, what are the some of the highlights in that sort of work plan in a sense along the way that you think have helped you to level up to get this win?

Krista Rabidoux (15:22.089)
Yeah, I think some of the things that within the work the one thing like I said already is those is those steps. You you can't kinda do everything. You have to definitely prioritize what's what's most important today. again, in the world that we live in now things evolve and change so fast that you have to be adaptable because you never know what's gonna be around the corner. And if COVID taught us anything, it's you need to be ready to adapt on a dime, right? 'Cause you never know what's gonna happen and

And in particular the past two years, that's that's what we've had to do, adapt constantly. What's what's gonna happen today, what's gonna happen tomorrow. and I think you know, whenever you're coming in and building those building blocks, as I said, for the Lego to Blue Mountain, having a plan is is extremely important. however, having a plan that can pivot. And so you don't just want this is my plan, and here's my roadmap.

Because what happens if something comes in and says, that doesn't work, you don't want it to be a roadblock, you need it to be a speed bump, right? And so when you're do dealing with your plan, it needs to be, I guess the word I would choose is vague enough. Like you want to have purpose and where you're trying to aim, but vague enough that if you have to veer right a little bit, the plan allows you to veer right because if it becomes too rigid.

And and a lot of us Canadians are in essence risk adverse. So it's hard for us, right? It's hard for us to say, no, it's not working. Which way do I go now? but having that in your adaptable plan and going, okay, if the road goes right and this happens, like you you know the SWOT analysis, right? If if any of the threats happen, where are we gonna go based on that? Right? And I think

When you're creating that plan, it's important to say, okay, it could go sideways. But if it goes sideways, is that the worst thing in the world? Probably not. Like we just we just need to veer off a little bit. And I think that's important for us in our sometimes our egos get caught up in our plans. And if it doesn't work, we go, meh, then everything's done, right? So we can't. We have to, we have to silence that and say, okay, no, it's okay to go this way.

Gordon Sheppard (17:43.307)
And I think funny enough, ability to pivot could almost be in the value statement. You know what I mean? There's something that's woven in there. And if you can bring that to sort of flexibility, because nobody had COVID in their risk register. Do you know what I mean? They didn't they nobody had that understanding of of how that was going to go in terms of how that went. So I hear, you know, it's one thing to have a work plan in a sense and say, well, we think this is where we're going to go. But the reality in our rapid times, and it's funny, my wife's grandmother lived to a hundred and

Krista Rabidoux (17:55.644)
Nobody.

Gordon Sheppard (18:09.792)
And and you born 1906, and we she saw a lot in the 20th century or whatever. And I'm thinking, no, since 2000 and now, especially post-2020, this this sort of the the craziness, especially AI in your industry alone, we could have another five-hour conversation about the implications of that. And again, what does that look like? And how do you kind of get into it? So I hear the you know, there's the strategy of building these trusted relationships.

Having the ability to pivot, getting those right people in place in a sense. We've got this work plan along the way that's sort of adaptable. I think that's really interesting that you didn't glob onto one moment, but you said, no, we adapt it as needed. And the ability to pivot, the muscle to pivot is in there too. Like actually having that strength and and going maybe against the grain of risk aversion and getting into you know and sort of get that to go forward. The third step in

Krista Rabidoux (18:52.315)
Is it normal in the accounting world? We're very or you say Canadians are risk averse. Accountants are another step of risk averse. Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (18:59.99)
But but I think it's interesting if we were at a conference right now on a panel, we would say, Well, is risk aversion even allowable for accountants in in this year that we're in and going forward? It may not that way that we did it before is getting so disrupted that what is accounting gonna look like in in not in five years, ten years, let in one year. It's just going the met, right? One year. Madness in terms of that's going. So strategy, work plan, people, really, really important, you know, as sort of a fundamental thing. How would you describe you and your attitude?

Krista Rabidoux (19:13.151)
That's right.

One year, exactly. Yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (19:25.846)
Through this sort of six, seven year timeline. ups and downs, nice, easy sailing. Like what would how would you describe it?

Krista Rabidoux (19:31.742)
no, life of an entrepreneur is never easy sailing. It's exciting, but not easy sailing. You know, I think we all have we all and you you talked about the confidence. We all have our own self doubt. We all have our own limiting beliefs. We all face that in our journey of am I doing the right thing and am I am I gonna am I gonna make it and am I gonna be successful? Am I gonna let anybody down?

you know, we all we c all have that in us inherently. we wouldn't be human if we didn't, because our brains love to play games on us. but I think, you know, at the end of the day, balance is important. I actually I don't like balance. I don't like the term balance, integration, work-life integration. and and ensuring

We don't let our brains get the better of us. And so, you know, in a world of where there's a a large focus on mental health and taking care of oneself, brain, one, their body, their spirit, etc. we can go a little too far sometimes in saying what we need to do to take care of ourselves and and our brain is very programmable. It's very programmable to believe what we want it to believe. And

For me, it's just constantly giving myself that affirmation of everything's okay and it's going to be okay. And even if it doesn't work, it's still gonna be okay. Like it's, you know, I I spend a lot of time with an organization called Feed the Hungry that always just reminds me of they come in with the biggest smiles on their faces and you know, I I I don't want to cry. one of our guests once brought me a gift, and she had made me some homemade cards out of cardboard.

And that was the most precious gift. And it was just to say thank you for the smile I give her every day. And you know, when you when you live your life with that level of humility, no matter how successful or unsuccessful you are in business, everything feels successful when when you let your mind feel that it's successful. Because because it's it's it's all built in here, right? Like there's no external thing that that

Krista Rabidoux (21:46.89)
That has power over this. And no external person can do that. And so really the way that we program our brains and allow our ourselves to think will drive our success 100%. And the the phrase I always say, and I talked about it earlier with the authentic authenticity, I always tell my team, you can receive success, but you will never feel successful until you're actually yourself. And I think

until you actually can show up every day and just be yourself, successfulness and feeling successful will be hard. You can you can achieve success, but to be successful, you have you have to be true to you. And you know, it's working with my people on that, it's it's it's been a really fun journey because it's a different way of thinking, obviously, than a lot of businesses where it's everybody should fit in boxes and do your job and this is how I want you to do your job. And

This is how I want you to show up and the world is changing in that and and I'm a little bit grateful for the next generation and saying, No, that's not how I want to do it, and challenging that a little bit, right? And it's forcing all of us to go, okay, well, actually, maybe they got a point. And so to me, that was a bit of a rambling, but I think just that showing up and and being humble and being yourself, I I I think

In my opinion, nothing else will really matter because it'll all work out in the end somehow. The way it was supposed to.

Gordon Sheppard (23:22.24)
You have put in some work.

Krista Rabidoux (23:24.437)
Yeah. Yes.

Gordon Sheppard (23:27.988)
Right? I mean, come on. I mean you're so eloquent around something that takes decades to get into place, right? In terms of that thing and how lucky for yourself that you put in the work and how lucky for your team. when we talk about contributing factors to tripling, that's a major one. I don't know if it goes if it gets recognized i in the right language in a sense, but that's a huge factor that you put in the reps to get to this level of

Krista Rabidoux (23:40.596)
Thank you.

Gordon Sheppard (23:53.91)
leadership EQ if you want to call it that way, but that's remarkable to hear you say it. Any other kind of key people that you like to mention for the success along the way? And I I know we can't list whatever the dozens that are involved, but any sort of key folks and y by name not necessarily by name or whatever, but what's who are some of the other key folks that that are involved?

Krista Rabidoux (24:10.741)
Well, I think, you know, at the end of the day, obviously my family, they believed in me. And so even when I was feeling challenged, they supported me along the way, my kids. My kids are my biggest cheerleaders, which is really fun to be really close with your kids. I moved to Calgary about five years ago, restarted my whole network. I'd been in Edmonton for my entire career, so I had to restart it. You know, Catherine Brownley was really a force.

and a believer in me and who I was. And I'm also grateful to her for for the belief that she had in me and the the friendship that I grew with her and her supporting me in the Calgary Network to kind of introduce me to the world, if you will. and then and really my business partner, like Warren the founder, Warren DeWick and Steflyn who were the leaders at the time when I joined, just their trust in me. Like they

I was doing things very differently and and when I joined I said, I wanna disrupt the accounting industry. I wanna make so much noise that other people have no choice but to change. And that's that's you know, and I still believe that to my day because I'm not the stereotypical like I have piercings, I have tattoos all over, I'm like an arts background. I am not anywhere near the typical accountant and and I never felt successful until I joined here and had them believe in me and my

I guess he would whackadoodle ways, right? Like I just I thought differently and believing in me and saying, Okay, let's let's see what you can do, girl. And and and allowing me to. And I think without that, it wouldn't have gone any way. And you know, I I see that a lot in my family enterpriser work that I do with the Family Enterprise Advisor, where the founders, it's very hard for them to let go of the systems that they've built because it's got them to this point. But

those systems may not work for the next generation. And how do you help them to get to that point to trust that, you know, another system might work just as well. And so I I would say, you know, those my family, Katherine is huge, huge, huge. I I'm eternally grateful to that woman and and Stephen Warren, the belief in them. And, you know, there's been mentors through my whole career.

Krista Rabidoux (26:26.749)
I remember when I was a senior associate very young at one of the firms and there was a partner there now retired and he said to me, and it's a phrase that will has forever stayed with me throughout my career as a leader, and he said, There is no such thing as bad employees. It is how you lead them that dictates what the employees' behavior will be. And that actually stayed with me my entire career. and and

It really allowed me to learn how to be an adaptable leader to my to my team because it goes back to that I can't expect everybody to operate the same way as me. Right. That's that is not possible and it's not fair either. Right. And so I that phrase very early in my career. And then I would say the prof who led me in this direction who said, You know what? Maybe you shouldn't be on the road. I think you're gonna be suited here because I didn't realize how much of a disruptor I would be to this industry. So

Gordon Sheppard (27:22.933)
Well, and how nice to put together leading yourself and allowing yourself to be led in a sense to get to this impact level. So you can see now when you would be in advisory moments with that family business owner, you're loaded for bear. You can see that when you're with your mentor, you'd be working hard as a mentee in a sense. You can see how you're working for your partners. And we could go on and on and on. Thank you for describing all those different influences that kind of

build this up to get to where you are, they can all contribute to this win that we're talking about. The fourth step in the anatomy of the win is to operationalize. So operationally, what does it take to operationally kind of triple the business in a sense? And I don't need the whole maybe set of things, but what are some of the operational highlights that you could point out to say, yeah, you know, those are major things that made this occur.

Krista Rabidoux (28:01.845)
Yeah.

Krista Rabidoux (28:08.969)
Yeah, I would say for for our growth, I would say one is the right infrastructure, technology, internal leaders that you trust to run your business while you do other stuff. I would say the vision. You need to know who you want to be when you grow up. And growing up never happens in my opinion. You're a forever a child growing up. So I would say the people like

you gotta have the right people in place. And you know, w once we started to kind of change the infrastructure of our organization, we actually had a massive repatriation of employees who had previously left our organization that said, Okay, I wanna come back. Like it was I see what you guys are doing. Can I can I come back? And I think that's testament to to a lot of what was happening in in our organization and the adaptate adaptation to what people need.

and so infrastructure and time. Time you you need to give it time, right? And I time time doesn't always mean a long time, but because you can get stuck in the we can we need time to think about this. Like you don't want to get stuck in that trap, but the time to purposely put aside to make sure you're having those strategic conversations because business owners, we love to talk operations, like it's easy for us.

It's so easy just to talk operations and we should do this over here and that over there, but the fluffy strategic stuff isn't as comfortable, but it's just as important. And I know like in our organization, we have a meeting every two weeks for an hour and a half that is the only discussion allowed is strategy. And and it's fluffy and it's to some people very difficult, but it's important because if you're not continually talking strategy.

your operations will fall off quickly and you you'll lose momentum. So yeah, I think, you know, constant focus on strategy, infrastructure, the right people, and the time available to put to it. Cause we don't we can get busy running our business that we don't put time to it. So

Gordon Sheppard (30:22.515)
Interesting. The ninety minutes every two weeks, I'm so glad to hear that. And I hope so many people that listen to this grab onto that and set aside that time and are disciplined in that meeting. A lot of those meetings fall back into operational discussions, right? You get into that ninety, you're like, well, we're together or Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and and s but but to be intentional to set aside that time, often leaders have a hard time doing it annually, let alone every two weeks. So whatever cadence that gets on, I can hear this is part of, hey, want to triple your business? Guess what?

Krista Rabidoux (30:36.851)
And we have yeah.

Gordon Sheppard (30:51.633)
Every 90 minutes, every two weeks is a good investment of the senior leadership time to be able to, you know, get the important things considered along the way and keep that going forward. Great. We've talked about strategy, work plan, people, operations. Finally, there's results, quantitative and qualitative results. Quantitatively, I heard triple. You know, that's a quantitative something. You know what I mean? I don't mean to crack out the numbers necessarily, but what are some of the quantitative things that you like to point out about maybe people and numbers or whatever it is like to?

Krista Rabidoux (31:05.865)
Yeah.

Krista Rabidoux (31:13.397)
Yeah, yeah.

Krista Rabidoux (31:19.027)
Yeah, I mean, since I've when I joined, we had offices Emmonton, Calgary, Vancouver. We now have Emonton Calgary Vancouver, Burnaby, Ottawa, and soon to be on more of Ontario, the GTA area. So geographically we've expanded quite a bit. our people numbers have also tripled. So it's you know, more people, more infrastructure is required and different things that comes to that adaptability. and our c you know, our our client,

Typical client has also changed, right? So we're it's it's not saying yes to every client. It's are you a fit for the type of strategic and and visionary organization that we are? Because that's the type of work we like to provide. We don't want to just prepare a tax return for you. And so type of client has really been an important aspect of our growth as well to ensure that we're doing that. Now

To be clear, we do some of that because we have junior team. We have to train how to be future leaders as well. But it's really hyper analyzing that that type of client that you want to support and be with is important as well.

Gordon Sheppard (32:28.154)
So good. So more people, more cities, right? In terms of what that is, more infrastructure or whatever it is. Yeah, absolutely. As you're kind of going forward. And and then there's something in there, again, we we didn't get into the innovation discussion, but your eye on innovation would be critical, obviously, at this time, in terms of how are you when's the implementation? What does that look like? What's that trigger in in AI that's gonna move that forward? So again, that'd be for another discussion. finally, qualitatively, how does it feel to get this win?

Krista Rabidoux (32:31.013)
Yeah. And and more service lines. Yeah.

Krista Rabidoux (32:43.293)
Absolutely.

Krista Rabidoux (32:54.653)
Yeah. You know, I think being the visionary arts person I am, it is extremely fulfilling and gives me a lot of gratitude to be able to wake up and do this every day. And you know, it's interesting because some people around me think I work a lot. I don't feel like I work a lot. because I absolutely love what I do every day. I love

helping organizations transform and then grow. And it is it is a passion of mine. I I truly and I and people, not just organizations, but people as well, right? And and so for me I'm so grateful that today I get to put the show on every day of helping people, right? And I think that that is

If I were to look at myself 20 over 25 years ago when I joined this career and I was just preparing tax returns, I really struggled to go, this isn't I can't do this for the rest of my life. This is not who I am to sit behind a computer and prepare a tax return. To see how when I allowed myself to say, no, I'm I'm actually a coach and an artist and and an accountant, and bringing those together and saying I can actually offer it all together at the same time.

And then being able to say to my people, you can too, right? fulfilling. Fulfilling, I guess would be the word to say that this is w how I am going to go out now and be able to be present and shine my light and help others shine their lights.

Gordon Sheppard (34:34.388)
Shining the light, having a major, major impact. And how lucky to be living that whole life. And now this capacity building as you move forward for these next 50 years of your career, because I can hear it's never going to stop. It'll be just impact. It's going to be impacted every moment along the way, whether you're dealing with the nonprofits that you're dealing with or the clients that you're dealing with or supporting your people at a neat moment in time when, again, the accounting disruption, you're going to be on the cutting edge of what that is because you've got this foundational piece that's really ready for it.

Krista Rabidoux (34:46.237)
Never.

Gordon Sheppard (35:02.396)
And especially with that pivot piece that you mentioned earlier on in the interview. Well, whenever I get wonderful leaders like yourself here on the show, you always ask for a couple sentences on the way out. You know, if you had that other young leader maybe entering your organization or a young leader that you would want to encourage, what are some maybe a few sentences about leadership in a sense that you like to leave behind?

Krista Rabidoux (35:21.205)
Sure. when I think about the leadership, I would say, you know, understand what makes you feel whole as a leader. You need to understand that and do the work to understand what makes you feel whole as an individual. Because once you start to understand that, then you can move on and say, How can I help others feel whole? And when all of that happens, the organization will blossom.

And people will blossom.

Gordon Sheppard (35:53.962)
Krista couldn't be better said. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Krista Rabidoux (35:59.071)
Thank you very much for having me, Gord. It was a great time talking with you.

Gordon Sheppard (36:06.443)
That was awesome.