Marta Brisco, Class of 1999
“Forensic accounting not just a numbers game – through the MMPA management courses, I learned how business operates from all perspectives, including marketing and organizational behaviour. This broader perspective is key to my professional success.”
Marta Brisco is a Senior Manager in KPMG LLP’s forensic accounting practice in Vancouver. Lawyers, senior management, and board members all rely on her expertise in financial investigation and loss quantification.
Starting with First Class Standing earned at Queen’s University in an Honours Bachelor of Arts Economics degree, Marta was anxious to add a level of practicality to her business education. She chose the University of Toronto’s Master of Management and Professional Accounting program (MMPA) primarily for the accounting aspect, but she also found the management courses and the co-op component added value to the degree that she did not see in other programs.
Marta’s work terms were spent at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP in their Assurance and Business Advisory Services department in Toronto working in audit and tax while working to her earn her CA designation. Concurrent with completing the MMPA in 1999, she wrote the CA exams, achieving results in the top 20 percent of writers in each of the exam’s four days.
After becoming a CA, Marta became an Associate at the boutique forensic accounting firm of Kroll Lindquist Avey (now Navigant) in Toronto, where she spent four years working on a variety of financial investigation and loss quantification assignments. During her tenure at Kroll, she testified as accounting expert before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. In 2004, Marta completed the University of Toronto’s Diploma in Investigative and Forensic Accounting.
For Marta, the management elements of the MMPA combined with the solid accounting education really helped her career in forensic accounting. “Forensic accounting not just a numbers game – through the MMPA management courses, I learned how business operates from all perspectives, including marketing and organizational behaviour. This broader perspective is key to my professional success,” says Marta.
Marta met her future husband in the MMPA program, and together they relocated to Vancouver in 2004, where Marta now works at KPMG. She enjoys making presentations to industry groups on fraud awareness and is currently a co-instructor of a Asset Recovery course in the BCIT forensic accounting program. In her personal time she loves to ski and began competing in triathlons in 2006.