Join us at the signature event of CBV Institute dedicated to leadership in business valuation. Get the latest thinking and insights to advance valuation expertise and confront an ever-changing business environment. Global registration is open to CBVs and Students, other valuation professionals, business leaders and interested professional associations and organizations.
The cost of livestreaming will also get you access to the recorded Litigation and Deals sessions (post-congress), which all count as verifiable CPD.
Connect 2024 will feature:
- Diverse topics, technical business valuation content and cutting-edge thinking on trends impacting business and the valuation profession
- Expert speakers, stimulating keynotes, engaging panel discussions and Q&As
- Networking with peers to make new professional connections
- Upskill opportunities to learn and ignite professional development, while earning CPD hours
June 20
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM
The pace of change driven by artificial intelligence in recent years is astounding, and it has the potential to continue disrupting businesses in the future. Mitch Joel explores how it’s driving better ideation, creativity, and storytelling.
AI is already revolutionizing idea generation by analyzing massive amounts of data and providing insights that were previously unattainable to anyone. While there are undoubtedly concerns about the impact of AI on society, it’s critical to know and use the current platforms for positive business change. Joel will dive into the challenges and opportunities that come with incorporating AI into an organization’s content and storytelling. He will look at real-world examples of companies that are successfully (and subtly) integrating tools like ChatGPT and Descript into every level of how their teams work, and share practical strategies for how your team can do the same.
The future is AI-ncredible, and this presentation will provide a roadmap for how businesses can harness the power of AI to drive innovation, creativity, and storytelling.
When brands like Google, Walmart, TikTok, Deloitte, and Shopify want to know what’s next for them (and their customers), they call Mitch Joel. Called “one of North America’s leading visionaries” by Strategy magazine, Joel fills in the gaps to help leaders build their business today to meet the demands of tomorrow. Joel’s big, engaging, entertaining, and educating style leaves audiences informed and ready to tackle the future today.
Mitch Joel, Business Transformation and Digital Marketing Expert
When brands like Google, Walmart, TikTok, Deloitte, and Shopify want to know what’s next for them (and their customers), they call Mitch Joel. Called “one of North America’s leading visionaries” by Strategy magazine, Joel fills in the gaps to help leaders build their business today to meet the demands of tomorrow. Creating customized presentations to ensure the maximum impact, Joel’s big, engaging, entertaining, and educating style leaves audiences informed and ready to tackle the future today.
Joel is co-founder of ThinkersOne, which empowers companies with personalized thought leadership video content from the best thinkers in the world. Prior to this latest venture, he spent close to three decades in the technology and media industry as both an executive and entrepreneur. This included publishing music magazines, launching a record label, building out media sales at one of the first search engines, marketing one of the first mobile content publishing platforms, and eventually building, running, and selling his own agency to WPP — one of the world’s most valuable marketing and communications holding companies. In that role, he was president of a global marketing agency operating in 25 countries with close to 3000 employees.
A bestselling author, Joel has written two books: Six Pixels of Separation, named after his successful blog and podcast, and CTRL ALT Delete, which was named one of the best business books of 2013 by Amazon. Joel is also a columnist and journalist for iHeartRadio, the Harvard Business Review, and Inc. Magazine, and is often called on as a subject-matter expert for top media outlets including Fast Company, Strategy, Forbes, and many others.
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
All around us, we see a world cracking, polarizing, and ripped apart by violent conflict. How did we get here and how can we contain the damage? And how does Canada – and Canadians — find a voice in a world that is reorganizing into unfamiliar patterns?
Janice Gross Stein, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy – University of Toronto
Janice Gross Stein is the Belzberg Professor of Conflict Management and the Founding Director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. She is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Ontario and a frequent guest on the CBC and the BBC. She has a widely listened to podcast, Friday Focus, that appears every Friday and is a regular contributor to The Bridge, hosted by Peter Mansbridge. Most recently, she co-Chaired the National Advisory Committee on Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy for Canada’s Foreign Minister.
11:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Keith will dig into various valuation issues that arise during actual transactions and notional valuations – with a focus on areas where valuators and M&A professionals often inadvertently bark up the wrong tree. Topics include “price versus value”, EBITDA normalizations, NWC and other balance sheet considerations, WACC, and we’ll also throw a bone to everyone’s favourite topic – tax!
Keith Jensen, Partner – BDO Canada
Keith Jensen is a partner at BDO in Vancouver where he advises public and private clients in a diverse range of industries on business valuations and transactions.
1:30 PM – 2:45 PM
The terminal value normally accounts for a significant portion of DCF value. Yet, in many cases, we simply determine the terminal value using a Gordon Growth approach and a growth rate in the range of 2% to 3%. In this session, we will explore how we can improve terminal value analyses, by considering such issues as terminal value timing, cash flows, approaches, and multiples. We will also address value-added growth and perpetual returns, issues that are sometimes overlooked. Finally, we will consider ways to assess the reasonableness of your terminal value conclusion.
Susan Glass, Partner (Retired) – KPMG
Susan Glass is the former National Leader of KPMG’s Valuation Practice in Canada, and a former Chair of the Board of KPMG Canada. She has 47 years of professional experience in both business and academia and, for the past 33 years, she has specialized in valuations, damage quantifications, and financial modelling. Most recently, she has acted as a valuation expert in large international shareholder dissent action.
3:15 PM – 4:15 PM
When a spouse is a beneficiary of a discretionary trust, they do not have legal ownership of the underlying trust property, which can often include the shares of a corporation. If the spouse has no control or influence over how and when trust assets and/or income are distributed, how does one go about valuing their beneficial interests for matrimonial purposes? What standard(s) of value should be considered? Although “fair market value” would likely suggest that no value accrues to the beneficial interest, why then do settlements in many of these cases wind up being in the millions of dollars? This presentation, which includes two prominent and experienced lawyers in the areas of family and estate law, will discuss what factors ultimately lead to these cases settling outside of trial and what valuators can (and cannot) do to assist legal counsel in these types of engagements.
Kiu Ghanavizchian, Partner – Blair Mackay Mynett Valuations Inc.
Kiu is a partner at Blair Mackay Mynett Valuations Inc. who specializes in business valuations and has prepared reports in the context of Family Law matters, shareholder disputes, corporate reorganizations, acquisitions and divestitures and estate planning. He is a regular speaker on the topic of business valuations and the use of financial statements for both legal and non-legal audiences and, prior to joining Blair Mackay Mynett, was a lecturer at the University of British Columbia where he taught courses dealing with financial accounting, financial statement analysis and the use of financial information in business valuations.
Karon Bales, Founding Partner – Bales Beall LLP
Karon Bales is a founding partner of Bales Beall LLP. Her practice is centred on family law, wills and estate issues. Her experience in trial and appellate advocacy in family law and estate matters is extensive, particularly with those involving partnerships, business corporations and commercial issues. Karon also provides sound guidance with estate administration and planning, domestic and off-shore trusts, and succession planning for owners of family businesses. Her expertise also extends to mediation, as she’s been conducting private mediations for over 10 years in the areas of family law and estate litigation – most often for cases where those two areas of the law intersect.
Ed Esposto, Partner – Aird Berlis LLP
As an estate planning lawyer, Ed Esposto develops personal relationships with his clients and helps them to understand and manage their wealth. Ed is a member of the firm’s Tax Group and Estates & Trusts Group. He has practised exclusively in the area of wealth management for over 25 years and has extensive expertise in estate and trust planning, wills and powers of attorney and related tax planning.
4:15 PM – 5:15 PM
Join David Larsen, Managing Director, Portfolio Valuation at Kroll (Settle) as he takes attendees through a thought provoking look at:
- What and Why “Fair Value”?
- What valuation information do investors in alternative investments want vs need?
- Is sufficient rigor applied to valuing fund interests and underlying investments?
David Larsen, Managing Director (Alternative Asset Advisory) – Kroll Seattle
David Larsen is a managing director in the Alternative Asset Advisory practice, based in Seattle, Washington. He has more than 37 years of transaction and accounting experience. He specializes in fair value accounting, specifically for valuation, accounting and regulatory issues faced by alternative asset managers and investors.
June 21
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM
Using interactive polling, the presenters are going to cover a wide variety of topics with a focus on whether or how valuation inputs and methodologies should be tailored for small companies, ie: the selection of Kroll data into a WACC or discount rate build-up.
Moderator: Paul Mandel, Partner – MNP
Paul Mandel is a partner with MNP’s Valuations and Litigation Support Services team in Toronto. Paul helps clients with corporate valuations, including valuations for income tax, disputes, planning and regulatory purposes. Paul has frequently been accredited as an expert witness in court. He recently presented at national business valuation conferences on such topics as brand valuation and the valuation of capital-intensive businesses. Paul sits on the board of the Professional Engineers of Ontario as the only non-engineer and on several charity boards in an accounting and finance capacity.
Michael Daniels, Senior Manager, Valuations & Litigation Support – Grant Thornton LLP
Michael specializes in valuations and litigation support in Grant Thornton’s Transactions Group. He has prepared valuations in a variety of contexts as well as valuation reviews conducted on behalf of Grant Thornton’s audit teams.
Renata Milczarek, Partner – Mareval S.E.N.C.R.L.
Renata is a co-founding partner of Mareval SENCRL, a boutique firm based in Montréal offering services related to business and asset valuation, damage quantification and forensic accounting. Her 30-year career has encompassed working with professional service firms and asset management companies.
10:00 AM – 11:00 AM
Join Ivy Hou as she discusses the topics related to the valuation of the contingent consideration agreement for financial reporting purposes. Ivy brings a wealth of expertise in this area and will provide insights based on the guidance provided by the Appraisal Foundation in their Valuation Advisory 4: Valuation of Contingent Consideration. Throughout the presentation, Ivy will focus on the Option Pricing Method (OPM) and the implementation of the Monte Carlo simulation method, as well as delve into the input and assumptions for the financial metrics, such as EBITDA, Sale or Equity price, that drive the fair value.
Ivy Hou, Partner – Deloitte
Ivy Hou is a Partner at Deloitte, leading the Financial Derivatives and Instruments Valuation Team in the Financial Advisory practice. With expertise in auditing and advising valuation models for complex financial instruments, Ivy has worked with top financial institutions and corporations in the US and Canada. She had 10+ years of experiences of providing independent valuation and risk modeling advisory services for the Canadian regulators, banks, asset management companies, and pension funds. Ivy’s qualifications include a Master of Finance in Financial Engineering, FRM certification, and she serves as the Vice-President of the Canadian Chinese Finance Association (CCFA).
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM
TBD
Alexandre Baril, Partner, Canadian Leader M&A Transaction Services & Corporate Development Officer – Deloitte
Alexandre Baril is a partner in Deloitte Montréal office and the Canadian Leader of the M&A Transaction Services practice. He has 30 years of experience, including 26 years in financial and operational studies prior to acquisitions (due diligence), strategic development, business valuation and financial advisory services in mergers and acquisitions for privately-held and publicly-traded corporations for strategic buyers and private equity funds.
Jonathan Wolkin, Managing Director & VC – Deloitte Ventures
Jon Wolkin is a Managing Director at Deloitte Ventures where he is responsible for scaling the DV platform across direct and fund investments through deal sourcing, execution, and portfolio company monitoring. Jon brings over 12 years of investment banking, private equity and venture capital experience as an investor, advisor and board member in a variety of industries.
1:00 PM – 2:00 PM
This session will focus on the subtle but critical differences in approach taken by real estate appraisers to arrive at value in contrast to methodologies adopted by business valuation professionals. We will start by providing a road map to professionals navigating real estate appraisal reports, including standards, different report types and general structure thereof. We will then discuss an array of nuances, including but not limited to income capitalization, stabilizing vs normalising adjustments, capitalization rates, as well as other similarities and divergences with business valuation. By focusing on the differences and highlighting the impact those differences have on final value, this session’s aim is to emphasize how each professional arrives at real estate asset or business value.
Alisa Zorina, Founder & Principal – Zorina Consulting Ltd.
Alisa is a founder and principal at Zorina Consulting Ltd and is an experienced accountant, business valuation specialist and real estate professional. She has over 10 years of experience in business valuation, forensic accounting, and the valuation of commercial and residential real estate in the Greater Toronto Area. A frequent speaker, lecturer at University of Toronto, course content developer at University of British Columbia and contributor to professional publications, Alisa enjoys sharing her wealth of knowledge and experience.
2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
In this session, you will learn about some of the latest technological tools available to valuation professionals, such as automation and AI, and how to leverage them to enhance the quality and efficiency of our valuation work. You will also discover the potential risks of using these tools and how to mitigate them, as well as the best practices for the responsible use of technology in valuation. Finally, you will gain insight into the skills needed to successfully adopt and adapt to technology in today’s rapidly changing world. This session will help you to stay ahead of the curve and embrace the opportunities and challenges that technology brings to the valuation profession.
Barbora Gaziova, Partner, Deals – PwC Vancouver
Barbora Gaziova is a Valuations Partner at PwC Canada with focus on valuation of businesses and intangible assets. She is passionate about new technologies. In 2019, she participated in a specialized digital upskilling program offered by PwC Canada under the name Your Tomorrow, where she learned to work with data transformation and visualization tools, as well as about machine learning. She leads the technology transformation initiatives for the Valuations practice at PwC Canada. Barbora spent over 10 years with the Valuations team of PwC Europe in Vienna, Austria prior to joining the team in Vancouver in 2018.
Time Zone: Eastern Standard
The information, analysis and opinions expressed in the webinars, podcasts and/or congress presentations are solely those of the presenter/author, are not reviewed by the Institute as to content or accuracy, and are not endorsed by CBV Institute or any of its Members.