Irene Wiecek receives George Baxter Award from CAAA

The Institute for Management and Innovation (IMI) is thrilled to celebrate Irene Wiecek, the 2022 recipient of the George Baxter Award for Outstanding Contributions to the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA). Irene is a Professor, Teaching Stream, IMI at the University of Toronto, where she is cross-appointed to the Rotman School of Management. She is the Director of the CPA-accredited MMPA Program, founder and Director of the BigDataAIHUB at IMI, and co-author of Intermediate Accounting 13th Canadian Edition, a two-volume text used in Universities and Colleges across Canada.

Irene has been an active member of the CAAA for over 20 years. The most meaningful part of participating in the CAAA, Irene says, is engaging with colleagues from different schools, places, and countries around the world. “You gain so many diverse perspectives” she says. “You go into conferences willing to share your perspectives and come out with so many innovative ideas. A significant benefit is that you can take those ideas and integrate them into your thinking, writing and other collaborations – whether they be with other faculty members, members of the accounting profession or students. It is great to have ideas – the challenging part is saying ‘what are we going to do with those ideas.....how do we implement and incorporate them?’”

Irene’s perspective on the field of accounting is forward-thinking, and innovative. “A major thrust of what’s happening in the accounting profession is re-imagining the role of accountants given the tremendous amount of change,” she says. She is focused on broad, systemic change - “accountants protect the public, and act in the public interest – so what does this look like in a sustainable world? We have a broader stakeholder focus that goes beyond shareholders and investors”.  Irene’s most recent work as a member of the CPA profession’s Competency Map Task Force involved research related to rethinking the competencies of pre-certification CPAs. The result was a new CPA Competency Map issued in March of 2022, which focuses heavily on sustainability as well as data and technology. She notes “But just what is a sustainability lens? It means being inclusive, and having diverse views, including embedding indigenous ways of knowledge and doing things… we are including healthy lives, sustainable futures, sustainability for all people and improving people’s lives. Sustainability is about ethical innovation – and CPAs play a leading role in this kind of systemic change."

Students considering a career in accounting, or new professionals to the field, Irene advises, are uniquely poised to make a tremendous difference in the world. She cites three main dimensions:

1. Driving change where organizations create value: “Accountants sit at the table, where companies are deciding how to change their business models, and how to think about sustainability – how they ship things, their supply chains, how they hire – there are so many areas.”
2. Reporting: Reporting is a critical piece for industry and stakeholders; she says, “we have moved very quickly beyond only reporting on financial information, to reporting on sustainability more broadly, because investors are demanding it”.
3. Assurance: “Accountants are professionals, who are trusted because of their expertise and ethics. Providing assurance, then, on reports – that they are transparent, and reliable – is a key area in which accountants contribute, and with a larger impact."

“There has never been a better time to come into the profession,” Irene shares. “We are coming together as a global community to say the time for talk about sustainability has passed: now it’s time for action. Who is going to lead this action?”

Irene is one such leader, and her impact in the field, and at the University, has been tremendous. IMI invites you to share in congratulating Irene on the receipt of this award.