Get to Know Tom Katsafanas, CPA, CA

Meet Tom Katsafanas, a Partner in MNP's Montreal office. With more than a decade of experience at the firm, Tom is passionate about helping his clients reach their goals and achieve sustainable success. Get to know him better with our Q&A.

Q: Did you always want to become an accountant?

Definitely not! In high school, I was always interested in science and learning about a wide range of topics. Then when I went to CEGEP, I took an interest in economics and slowly gravitated towards accounting. I liked the theory and investigating how the systems are put together.

I got a bit of a taste of accounting and I learned that this career path would take me anywhere. If I wanted to stay in Montreal, or work in the States, or move abroad to Europe -- all of those options were on the table with accounting. The flexibility was really attractive.

Q: What is your role with MNP?

First and foremost, I am an advisor to my clients. I help business leaders find solutions to their challenges and support them in achieving their goals. I don't tell people my job title -- I talk to them about how I work with clients and the types of problems we solve together, because that's what is really important to me.

If a client is thinking of doing something, I want to be their first call for advice. For me, nothing is more satisfying than seeing a client achieve success and that is why I do what I do.

Q: What did the COVID-19 crisis teach you and your clients?

The critical lesson is every business needs to be capable of adapting to change. It caused a major shake-up for a lot of my clients, and we had to adapt and make changes as necessary. For some businesses, that meant working remotely. For others, COVID-19 caused them to reimagine their sales tactics and shift to an entirely different model. The key is that businesses need to understand what they excel at and how they can transfer those skills into new areas as demands change.

COVID-19 is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and it really shook how we function normally in a short period of time. But it's important to remember that change is constant and how we can adapt to change will help determine the long-term success of a business.

Q: What is the most important trait for a successful entrepreneur?

Vision. Any successful business person that I work with always has a solid vision. During COVID-19, it was the business leaders with vision and insight who knew how to adjust their business to recover revenue and also how to put those plans into action.

One business I work with is a great example of vision. They sell products to medical clinics and with clinics closing for the shut down, the company needed to innovate. They used clinic mailing lists to contact consumers and facilitate sales, giving a portion of the sale back to the clinic in exchange for the list.

Starting a business and selling product online is easy. But this client had the vision to contact the consumers directly by leveraging their existing network. That is vision and that is what makes someone successful.

Ready to work with an advisor who is as invested in your success as you are? Contact Tom Katsafanas, CPA, CA, at 514.315.3671 or [email protected]