Fatima Nanji

I grew up my entire life in a small town – Ladner, BC – where my father had a local hardware store selling tools and supplies for the community. I spent my days helping the family business out working as a cashier. During my free time, I took part playing in card games with my family and friends — this is where I began discovering my love for numbers.

Right after completing high school in Ladner, I decided to take the leap of faith and move to the big city – Vancouver, BC – in order to attend post secondary at UBC. Here, I was enrolled in the Bachelor of Arts program and majored in Psychology. But because of how competitive it was to find work in this field, I decided to transfer over to BCIT and do something more technical and in line with my passion for numbers. Naturally, this would mean doing my Certificate in Accounting.

While others in class struggled in Accounting, this was not the case for me… It came intuitively easy for me — every concept, formula, and core principals. And so I knew this was my calling. Finishing my certificate, I went on to work at Flight Centre. And because of the travel culture at this company, I caught the travel bug — which led me to take on smaller contracts and part time bookkeeping jobs so that I could always find time to travel. These contract and part time positions opened my eyes to the need for taxation help — individuals and businesses. And so in that first year in 2006, I did around 20 tax returns for family and friends. Through natural networking via word of mouth referrals, this number jumped to me now doing over 600 returns per year. And I’ve never looked back since…

When I’m not helping my clients with their taxation needs, I have a vacation home in Las Vegas where I spend a lot of time there playing poker. I do about 2 to 3 poker cruises a year. I also love to read – mostly popular fiction and biographies. And there’s always a puzzle on my coffee table that I’m working on. In addition, I’m always looking for the next place to travel and expand myself!

What makes me pumped in the morning is that every day is a new day.

I love going into the office not knowing who I will be able to see, meet, and help each day. Some people feel so daunted by CRA and taxes but I honestly love that I can utilize my expertise and help them figure it out. It’s the combination of crunching numbers and helping people that makes me love what I do every day!

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