Unlocking New Opportunities in the Innovation Economy: Shruti Agnihotri, CPA on her ILA Experience

^{The CFO Centre Canada’s President & COO and ILA Executive Program Director Paul Nagpal (left) and CPA Ontario President & CEO Carol Wilding, FCPA, FCA (right) congratulate Shruti Agnihotri, CPA (centre) on completing the Innovation Leadership Accelerator (ILA) Program for CPAs.}

CPAs have many of the tools needed to help Canadian firms scale successfully and play a leading role in fuelling a critical sector for Canada’s economic productivity and growth.

But some founders have struggled to find CPAs who understand how to apply those skills to the rapidly-evolving innovation economy.

But for Shruti Agnihotri, CPA, who has completed CPA’s inaugural Innovation Leadership Accelerator (ILA) Program for CPAs, the road to leadership in Canada’s innovation economy is now a lot more open.

In 2018, Shruti graduated from Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Accounting & Finance program and joined Sun Life through their Rotational CPA Leadership Program. Following her rotations and successful writing of the CFE in 2021, Shruti transferred to a new team that oversaw the digital transformation of Sun Life’s finance function, which involved moving to a new ledger system and accounting standard for insurance companies.

“Sun Life is a big proponent of learning on the go and innovating as much as possible, so this new role definitely sparked my interest in the innovation sector, but I had almost no experience in tech,” says Shruti. “I wanted to have a unique experience where I could develop new skills and keep pace with the digital economy, because that’s the future of the profession.”

Lighting the Spark of Innovation

When Shruti first learned about ILA, her interest was immediately piqued by the diverse roster of impressive speakers, each one a leading expert in Canada’s innovation economy.

“I had never seen anything like ILA before,” Shruti says. “This was an exclusive opportunity for CPAs like me to learn as much as possible from a different innovation leader every week,” says Shruti.

Seeking to enhance her CPA skillset to take advantage of the innovation economy’s potential opportunities, Shruti enrolled in the inaugural 15-week program.

“In listening to the speakers’ stories and insights on how CPAs can contribute to the sector, I began to understand why CPAs have the best skills to bring start-ups to scale and drive economic growth” she says.

Leading by Example

“I left every class feeling motivated and with my mind blown,”  Shruti says. “Every speaker provided a wealth of experience, and they all come from such diverse backgrounds and environments.”

Speakers like Ralf Riekers, a seasoned CFO with an engineering background who likened effective and innovative leaders to gardeners who nurture their team’s growth and lead from the heart.

"To develop your team and have them contribute to your organization’s success in meaningful ways, you must tend to them like flowers—you can’t force them to grow, you must provide the right environment for them to flourish,” Shruti recalls Ralf telling the class.

Ralf’s session resonated deeply with Shruti, who was in the process of evaluating her professional strengths and weaknesses and identifying the skills she would need to lead her own team.

Accelerating Career Pathways

Since successfully completing ILA, Shruti has started a new position at Sun Life as Finance Manager, Digital Business Technology Solutions.

It’s a role that empowers her to be a “mini-CFO” to the data and analytics team and requires an FP&A focus, both of which were running themes during her ILA experience.

“This role allows me to put those key learnings into practice,” Shruti says. “I truly believe I could only have reached this point in my career with the knowledge and capabilities I developed through ILA.” 

The program’s intensive networking aspect was key to Shruti’s successful experience, whether through regular interactions with her peers, whose backgrounds represent an array of industries and accounting areas, or engaging with her new mentor, StoreForce CFO and ILA speaker Curtis Barclay.

“Opportunities arise through interpersonal relationships more so than with more formal channels alone, and the program helped us build those meaningful connections for the future,” she says.

Shruti sees ILA as a one-of-a-kind platform for CPAs from all backgrounds to come together and enhance their already essential role in fuelling the growth of Canada’s innovation economy through relationship-building and knowledge sharing. The program has been her key to unlocking new opportunities to lead her firm’s innovative initiatives and fostering her own professional development as a future-ready CPA.

“Through the CPA designation, professionals can bring valuable expertise to the innovation economy,” Shruti says. “’ILA has served as a catalyst for my personal and professional growth, empowering me to take a seat at the table and contribute meaningfully.”