School of Accounting and Finance

School of Accounting and Finance Fellowship Honourees

Brenda Brazier, MAcc, CA

Brenda completed her Honours Bachelor of Arts degree (in Chartered Accountancy Studies with a math minor) in 1986 and her Masters of Accounting with tax specialization degree in 1987, both at the University of Waterloo. Upon graduation, Brenda successfully completed the Uniform Final Examination (UFE) and Brenda received the Management Accounting Student of Merit Award from the University. After graduation, Brenda returned to Deloitte & Touche, Toronto where she had been employed as a student. She worked in the tax area focusing on personal tax and ultimately on cross-border personal tax consulting and compliance. She completed the CICA Tax In-Depth program in 1989. Brenda also explored her love of teaching and taught management accounting courses at the University of Waterloo, tax courses at the University of Toronto Erindale campus, UFE prep courses, tax courses for the University of Toronto and tax courses at the ICAO summer school.

In 1992 Brenda enjoyed a three month assignment with Deloitte & Touche in Brussels, Belgium and then extended that to a three year assignment in that same office. During that time she and her husband, Don Brazier, also a 1987 U of W Masters of Accounting graduate, exploited their childless status and spent most of their weekends and vacations travelling and skiing throughout Europe and visited fascinating places beyond Europe such as Egypt and Turkey.

From 1999 to 2008 Brenda left public practice and enjoyed a series of roles at Nortel Networks corporate headquarters. Her roles included building on her experiences at Deloitte by co-leading Nortel’s Global Mobility department. In that role her responsibilities encompassed policy development, process management and vendor relationships as they related to Nortel’s globally mobile workforce. Her last role at Nortel was as Leader, Global Employee Tax Initiatives, back in a more traditional tax position. In this role her responsibilities included personal tax support for Nortel’s Global Mobility, Executive & Equity Compensation and Compensation and Benefits groups.

Brenda has recently ‘returned to the mother ship’ at Deloitte & Touche as an Associate Partner in their Global Wealth & Employer Services group where she has responsibility for assisting global clients with their cross border personal tax issues. She plans to be actively involved in recruiting even more University of Waterloo graduates to join Deloitte.

Brenda is a strong supporter of work life balance and maintains that living in Richmond Hill with her husband Don and her two brilliant and beautiful daughters, Jessie and Samantha.

2010 Fellow: Raymond Lu