Featured Member

Dr. PASCAL B. BALATA, 

PhD., CICA, CPA, CMA, CFF, CGAP

Our FEATURED MEMBER is Dr. PASCAL BALATA, Ph.D. Dr. Balata presently holds the CICA certification and is the interim Director of Ministerial Accounting, Collections, and Internal Control for the Canada Economic Development (CED) for the Quebec Regions.

Pascal has 27 years of experience in the public and private sectors including university level education. He started his career as an accounting and controls Lecturer at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM) and moved into international projects management and business teaching by cofounding a consultancy firm that targeted the African services market for controls, audits, and financials management. Having completed his doctorate (PhD.) in accounting and strategic financial communication, he shifted to the public sector as an advisor to the Office of the Comptroller General of Canada, where as a member of the professional practices task force, he contributed to developing the new set of policies, directives, and standards that strengthened continuous monitoring and auditing functions while laying the groundwork for the reinforcement of internal controls over federal finances, including grants and contributions.

Throughout his career as a senior public servant, he performed policies and professional practices forums available to all federal comptrollers and auditors at the central level, followed by their implementation and controls at the field operational departments.

As informed by the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada, Pascal concurrently improved his consultant advisory abilities in his key areas of expertise while piloting many stewardship engagements on controls for financial reporting, on operational forensic and audits issues. In that senior advisor and professional practices manager capacity he served many field departments including Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Department of Finances Canada, several departments in the security portfolio, and currently at CED, the Quebec regional agency whose key mandate is the provision of grants and contributions to local small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Recently Pascal served as Chief for Internal Controls at CED for the last 5 years conducting the annual reviews and leading the design of a new departmental internal controls framework in collaboration with an external independent reviewer in order to increase the objectivity and rigor of the diagnosis of the maturity of the controls after the change of the financial system and costumer relation’s management system.

Pascal has extended his experience and knowledge as a volunteer for several organizations. Most recently Dr. Balata was appointed by the Canadian Government as an External Member of the advisory group of the Black Canadian Communities Initiative, and in January 2023 he was elected the new Chair of the African Diaspora’s International Fund (ADIF).

His education includes a Master In Science (M.SC.), in Management Control and Finances from the  University of Montreal, and a Doctorate (Ph.D.) in Accounting Sciences from the University of Quebec at Montreal.