CPAWSB recently presented the Exemplary New Professional award to a recent graduate who demonstrated the qualities of a Chartered Professional Accountant during their time as a candidate, and during the year following successful completion of the Common Final Exam. The award is made possible through the generosity of Kouri Berezan Heinrichs of Edmonton in their gift to the CPA Education Foundation of Alberta.
This year’s recipient, Krystal Huebl, CPA, started thinking about a career in accounting while enrolled in a business course at the University of Calgary. “I enjoyed the balancing and problem solving,” she explains. She switched from majoring in marketing to majoring in accounting, and eventually found herself among the first candidates enrolled in the CPA Professional Education Program. She started Core 1 in May 2013, and wrote the first-ever offering of the Common Final Examination (CFE) in September 2015 before qualifying as a CPA in 2016.
In her first year as a CPA, Krystal took on the challenge of acting as MNP’s CPA and CFE coordinator for Central Alberta, working closely with approximately 20 candidates at different stages of their CPA education. “I help them register with the School, prepare for their first module, and support them through the remaining modules and the final exam.” She is also active in the firm’s campus recruiting activities, attending networking sessions, interviewing potential hires, and presenting to them about the support program that she coordinates. She does all of this in addition to her regular responsibilities as a manager at the firm.
After her own experience as a candidate and helping support her firm’s candidates, the advice that Krystal offers anyone entering the CPA program is to absorb it all. “See if you can apply the technical knowledge you gain to real-life situations. You will need it in your career to grow, and just learning what you need to pass won’t help with that.”
Krystal is an active member of her community, volunteering with multiple organizations, including as a coach with the skating club and organizing its year-end production; serving as treasurer for a local charitable foundation and helping with its annual fundraiser; volunteering with the local chamber of commerce; co-founding, with two others, a local networking group; volunteering as bookkeeper of a local charity that collects utility funds and contributes the profits to community organizations; and spending time volunteering as a Big Sister for a local teen—something she started doing while a CPA candidate.
Congratulations, Krystal!
