How far can valuation expertise take your career?
From valuation advisory to corporate development and transaction diligence, Halina Hussainzada, CPA, CBV has built a career that reflects the diverse opportunities available to business valuation professionals. Driven by a desire to look beyond the numbers and understand what drives a company’s value and the story behind its performance, Halina pursued the CBV designation to deepen her valuation expertise and expand her career opportunities.
Having recently completed the CBV Program of Studies and successfully passed the Membership Qualification Examination (MQE), Halina reflects on how applying concepts from the program directly to her work helped reinforce her learning and strengthen her understanding of business valuation.
In our latest spotlight feature, she shares how the designation has shaped her career, her experience navigating the program alongside a full-time job, and valuable advice for aspiring CBVs.
Thinking about where the CBV designation could take your career? Halina’s story is a great place to start.
- You began your career in audit and accounting before moving into valuations, corporate development, and now transaction diligence advisory at Kalos LLP. What drew you toward valuation-focused work, and how did that shape your decision to pursue the CBV designation?
I began my career in audit and accounting, which gave me a strong foundation in understanding financial statements and how businesses operate. As I gained more experience, I found myself increasingly drawn to the analytical side of finance which includes looking beyond the numbers to understand what drives a company’s value and the story behind its performance. That interest led me into valuation work.
Pursuing the CBV designation felt like a natural progression of my career. It builds on the work I do every day and allows me to deepen my valuation expertise, strengthen my technical foundation, and develop a more well-rounded perspective when analyzing businesses and transactions. - You had already earned your CPA designation when you decided to pursue the CBV designation. What additional value were you looking to gain from the designation, and what impact has adding this had on your career trajectory?
The CPA program gave me a strong foundation in accounting and financial reporting, but as my career shifted toward valuation and transaction advisory, I wanted to further develop the skills needed to understand what drives value in a business and how to apply that thinking in different transaction settings. The CBV designation gave me that additional valuation perspective and complemented the technical foundation I had developed through my CPA.
It has also opened up opportunities for me to work across different areas of deals throughout my career. In corporate development, I applied that knowledge to building financial models and evaluating greenfield renewable energy projects, and now in transaction advisory, I use it to advise clients on acquisitions. Having both the CPA and CBV designations has given me a broader perspective and the ability to look at a business through both an accounting and valuation lens. - Having recently completed the CBV Program of Studies and successfully passed the MQE, how did you balance the coursework and exam preparation alongside a full-time career? What should current CBV students know about the level of commitment involved, and are there any study or preparation tips that worked particularly well for you?
I was fortunate that while completing the CBV Program, I was working first in valuation advisory and later in corporate development, so a lot of what I was learning was directly relevant to the work I was doing. Being able to apply the concepts in a practical setting helped reinforce the material and kept me engaged throughout the program. My advice to current students would be to stay engaged with the material throughout the program, find a good group of people to study with, and have a realistic study plan that you can stick to. It is definitely a time commitment but having that structure made it much more manageable. - For students and young professionals considering the CBV designation, what advice would you give them about getting started and making the most of the program as they build their careers?
My advice would be to keep an open mind about where the CBV designation can take you. Valuation is incredibly broad and can be applied across so many different areas, from traditional valuation roles to transaction advisory, corporate development, investment banking and other areas of finance. It is a rewarding designation that provides a highly transferable skill set and can open the door to a wide range of career opportunities. - #FunFact.
Outside of work, my other passion is cats. I have two of my own and can name an embarrassingly large number of cat breeds and yes, Ragdolls and Birmans are very different.