Accounting in the Caribbean with Erica Newman

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Hello and welcome to the Big Four Transparency podcast. I'm joined today by Erica Newman, a former colleague of mine back when I was at Deloitte in Ottawa and who is now a senior manager in recruitment for Deloitte, Cayman Islands and the Caribbean as a whole. Welcome to the pod, Erica. Hey, yeah. Thanks, Tom. Thanks for having me here today. Yeah. Yeah. My pleasure. So as I mentioned, we used to be colleagues and you actually left Deloitte before I, sorry, left Deloitte, Ottawa before I did and had kind of set off on this great adventure towards kind of the Caribbean and I've been following along ever since and yeah, it's really cool to see you there still today. So how many years have you been in the Caribbean for now? Good question. So I would have left to come down in 2019, June of 2019. So just about, what are we, five and a half years going on six years this June. Wow. That's, that's amazing. And what like inspired you to make that jump or like what connections did you have to kind of facilitate moving there? Yeah. Good question. So I guess I had always been interested in doing something internationally. That's probably similar for a lot of people and you know, they just don't know how to go about doing it. So I've been at the Canadian firm for about five years and I'd actually left the Canadian firm temporarily and I was, you know, quite happy working at another company based in Ottawa when a request for a recruiter came through the Deloitte network. So a previous colleague of ours had shared an email with me saying, you know, we're looking for somebody with your skillset, but down in the Cayman Islands, are you interested? So I kind of got back in the net in that recruitment process as a, I guess a rehire at that point. So yeah, essentially doing a referral network through our previous colleagues at Deloitte in Canada. Wow. That's really cool. And what was settling in like, like, are there a lot of resources to kind of help you, help you settle in and help you with the transition? Yeah. So, I think most people might kind of want you to say, you know, how do you go from living in Canada to a small, very tiny island in the Caribbean? Personally, I found, I guess, a lot of support and a lot of comfort in doing it through Deloitte. So moving from Ottawa to Cayman Islands with Deloitte, you know, it felt quite familiar. I was going to work for the same company and although we work a little bit differently in the Caribbean than we do in Ottawa, there's lots of similarities in terms of like our purpose at Deloitte, our brand, our methodology, our corporate culture. You know, we're Deloitte. Our brand's quite, quite similar regardless of where you're at in the world. So definitely some, you know, some comfort in that. And then in terms of relocation support, the firm did help with relocations. They provided paid flights. They organized a work permit for me. They organized initial housing and paid for initial housing. So there was some, you know, life admin up front for me. I had to run around and collect a number of different documents so that they could submit a request for a work permit for me to be able to, you know, legally come live and work in the Caribbean. But yeah, they helped with everything. So I didn't really have to worry much in terms of the work permit or the actual relocation aspects. That was all made quite easy. And then of course, you know, we've got a huge network. So they've, they mounted me up with somebody who had made the move over the prior year. So I could start asking questions like, you know, what should I pack? What's available there? Where do I look for housing? And they're able to send resources my way before actually coming down and then continue to support me in the first few weeks in terms of getting settled in once I actually arrive. Okay. Interesting. So culturally and all that, like what were some of the biggest differences when you got there? It's an interesting question. I think lifestyle, I mean, I think part of the perk, part of the benefit in moving to an island in the Caribbean is just sort of the change in lifestyle. So definitely a slower pace of life here. All of our grocery stores, for example, are closed on Sundays, just a day to relax, chill out, go to the beach. Whereas, you know, coming from a bigger metro city, you're used to things being open, what, 24 seven in most instances. So definitely a big change in lifestyle. It's a small tiny island. There's no shopping. You know, there's not some of the same amenities that you'd see in a big major city. But that's part of the appeal, right? We've got short commutes, easy to meet people because we do have a pretty diverse group of people here. You know, Cayman attracts people from all across the globe. And typically these are, you know, I don't want to say outgoing, that's probably the wrong word. But these are also individuals who've, you know, they've left their home. They're willing to meet new people. They're willing to come and live and work in a foreign country. So it tends to be quite easy to connect with other people. There's a whole mix of cultures here. We've got, I don't know, something like 40 different nationalities in our workplace. So yes, lots of different cultures that play in the workplace and socially as well. And then of course, you have the people, the local nationals who've always lived in a tiny island and, you know, this is home for them. So being able to learn a little bit more about the island, that's been quite special too in some of the local customs and culture here. We're next door to Jamaica, so we have a very large Jamaican population as well. So learning more about our Caribbean neighbors, that's been a lot of fun. But yeah, in terms of, you know, what's different from a cultural standpoint, I'd say just having like the sheer diversity, the lifestyle, and sort of the slower way of life, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's awesome. Like one of the big complaints people have about accounting is, you know, generally kind of the stress and the pace of life and things like that. So I can see that being a good match for someone who, you know, an option instead of changing professions can be changing your environment entirely and just maybe that'll be a better fit, right? Yeah. I like what you said there for sure. Yeah. Thank you. And so who's like the clientele normally? Like I know that a lot of, you know, it's a specific type of clientele who's there and there's often kind of tax purposes behind having, you know, certain headquarters or operations in certain Caribbean islands. So who's usually like the accounting firm client that you're working with? So from an audit perspective, our main clientele would be hedge funds, so hedge or private equity funds. We offer a similar suite of services that you'd see in some of the, you know, bigger cities, U.S. or Canada, but from an audit perspective, it would typically be funds. We work with some local companies as well in consulting and risk advisory. We might work with local government or maybe even some retailers, but our main industry here is financial services, specifically hedge funds. Okay, interesting. And then what service line is easiest to kind of transition towards the Caribbean? Like I heard you mention audit, is there a lot of kind of tax work there or like risk advisory and things like that? Yeah. Good question. So we do a ton of recruitment and we're always looking for people essentially from all across the globe. But, you know, relocating from Canada or the U.S. tends to be easy and we don't need any special visas. We're just a short direct flight away from most of the cities on sort of the eastern shoreboard. And we've got direct flights, of course, to Toronto and Canada. We tend to hire, I would say between 50 and 60, I guess upward of 60 audit seniors every year. So audit, just by sheer, I don't know, sheer numbers would be sort of the biggest group that we hire for. So you might say that would be the easiest place or opportunity to be able to get a job. We do hire into our other functions as well, a little less frequently and the skill sets are a little bit more specialized. So a lot of the tax work that we do is U.S. tax work. So if you're somebody who might be working on a U.S. tax team in the Canadian practice, of course, if you work in the U.S., you know, to be U.S. tax. I know there's some U.S. tax teams based out of the U.K. as well. So if you do have that experience, that would be sort of a very hot skill set for us, preferably corporate tax experience. And then in terms of consulting, risk advisory, we hire a couple people in those functions every year. So we've got a big actuarial business in Bermuda. We fire into like risk management, cyber risk, internal audit. So if you have any of those skill sets, I know in Ottawa, we had big cyber practice and we did a lot of internal audit work. And so those would be roles that we'd hire for a little less frequently, but typically one or two of those will come up every year. And then we offer financial advisory services as well. So our biggest sort of service offering there would be business restructuring. So insolvency and business turnaround. I know that that might be branded or called something different depending on the firm that you're working with, but that's sort of the bigger service offering that we have under that umbrella. OK, so there there is some opportunity for everyone, but audit being a little bit probably the biggest one. And then when you mentioned where you recruit from Canada and the US, like comp is quite different in different regions. And so is it is it kind of competitive with sort of like low cost of living US or Canadian salaries or like what are what are you kind of typically benchmarking against there? Yeah, good question. So I mean, we benchmark locally, of course, with other big four professional services providers in terms of how we would compare to the Canadian or US market. We would be quite competitive in terms of most most cities in most areas. We might have a harder time competing with people who reside in major metro cities in the US. So, you know, competing with the likes of New York City or San Francisco, some areas I think now and in Texas. But if you're in sort of a mid size city in the US and essentially anywhere across Canada, I mean, our salaries would still be competitive with like the likes of Toronto, especially considering that we're paying in US dollars or US dollar equivalency. And you don't have to pay any income tax to the government. So that's a huge incentive. You're taking home 90 to 95 percent of your income relative to I don't know why you'd be taking them into the US or Canada. So huge savings there. So yeah, like I say, we should be we should be fairly competitive. It's definitely worth the conversation, regardless of where you're at in either Canada or the US. Talking about salaries and where you're competitive is good. And you mentioned kind of something about the tax treatment and how your take home might actually be a little bit higher. Do you know off the top of your head kind of how that works? So like in Canada, my understanding is you would have to kind of cut ties and cease residency. Do you know how that works in the US to be able to benefit from that? Yeah. Good question. I guess I'll preface this by saying I'm by no means the tax expert, but just based on, you know, conversations I've had with colleagues and candidates who've asked similar questions in the US, of course, taxes look different. My understanding is that you'd still have to file a tax return. But there is a certain threshold. And if your earning is under the threshold, you won't have to pay any taxes on your income, your foreign income earned. Once you start getting up and above a certain salary threshold, then you might have some tax implications there. But then there's a few other things that you'd consider as part of your collective return that might make a difference in terms of how much you have to pay in terms of taxes. So if you're coming down, I guess maybe just to summarize, if you're coming down and you're joining in like a senior role, so if you're somebody who's like two, three, four, even five years into your career, you're probably sitting below that threshold. So just based on your earnings in the Cayman Islands alone, you likely won't have a tax consequence in the US. But yes, the tax considerations for an American citizen are slightly different than somebody who is a Canadian. Yeah. Yeah. And so does that have like a weighting on what the average tenure looks like for an employee working there? Because again, just from a Canadian perspective, like it is a little bit of a commitment. And so I would think that you would probably want to be there for a couple of years, most likely. Yep. And then a great question, you know, something that comes up quite a bit when people think about making the move. Initially most people will join on a two-year contract. So that's how long we can get you an initial work permit for from our immigration from our government. I came down on a two-year contract, fast forward six years later, and people have the opportunity, you know, depending on whether they're enjoying themselves and, you know, what the business needs look like, to obtain another two-year contract, another two-year contract. We always have to work on a contractual basis unless you're a local national. And that's the same regardless of whether you're somebody who's quite junior to the organization or if you're even a senior manager or director, for example. I guess, you know, when you're thinking about taxes, personal finances, tenure, how long you might want to stay, I don't think anybody really knows that answer when they first come down. You know, it takes a while to kind of adjust, figure out your budgeting, the cost of living looks slightly different. Everybody has a different financial situation. Everybody has a different investment strategy. Some people might still have, you know, property back in Canada, all sorts of things that might impact their financial situation. Most of the people that we are dealing with are, you know, between, I don't know, 23 and 33 would be sort of our common demographic. So if you're sort of on the younger end of that bracket there, typically you're able to come home without, you know, too much consideration to, you know, whether that be a mortgage or something else back home. But yeah, it could play a role, I guess, in how long you want to stay down here long term. But generally speaking, I find in my experience, financially, I'm better off living here, especially I guess with the Canadian dollar rate. But I'd say that's probably a fairly common sentiment. You know, most people come for two years and they end up staying much longer because they're able to save a little bit more. Their earnings are a little bit better and we're still just like, we're so close to home. So it's easy to pop back up a couple times a year. You could go for a long weekend, go for a week. It can be quite easy to get comfortable here, both from a lifestyle perspective and, you know, financially as well. Yeah, that's interesting. And then where you talked about the cost of living, what is that like comparatively? It's expensive. I think if you research the Cayman Islands, one of the things you'll find quite quickly is that we do come up as being one of the more expensive jurisdictions to live in. I don't know, I personally haven't lived in downtown Toronto, I haven't lived in New York City. I'd say it'd probably be comparable to your sort of major metro cities. There can be a little bit of a shock the first time, especially if you are Canadian and you're converting things back into your home currency. So you do have to remember that, you know, all the things are expensive here. You're not being paid in Canadian dollars, you're being paid in US dollars and you take home pay is going to be far more substantial than the one sitting in Canada and paying toothy and taxes. It's so expensive, but, you know, manageable considering the competitive group and the top structure. Still financially attractive. Yeah, yeah, I mean, for sure, by the sounds of it, it still seems like a great deal. And then I guess maybe like a last question I would have for you would be around like, you know, some of the like kind of comforts that you would have at home or like activities that you'd be into. Like, how does that compare in Cayman or maybe just in the Caribbean at large? Yeah, I actually find it's better here. I found, you know, as an adult, it can be tricky to make new friends or make new connections. But I found, you know, the community is quite warm here. It's really easy to connect with new people and form new friendships. Work is quite social. Like, we've got quite a few social events, well-being event. And then from a lifestyle perspective, there's a lot to do in terms of like well-being and in terms of sports. So we've got great gyms, we've got great yoga studios, we've got, you know, meditation studios, we've got pickleball, we've got every sport here essentially. So I started playing Gaelic football, which is an Irish sport. So that's been a lot of fun. I'm on the pickleball bandwagon, we've got old golf courses here, we've got tennis. And so it's been really easy to go out and, you know, kind of get active and meet people through sport. So I've found, I guess, you know, as an adult, it's actually been easier here than living in like a big city to kind of find a community, find people to hang with, find people to do sports with, especially because everybody's sort of on this, you know, similar foot to you in that they also live away from home and they're also quite keen to meet new people. And so, yeah, you know, it's not quite the same, I don't know, comfort of home because it's different than living at home. But like I said, the people tend to be quite warm and welcoming and I think the people that you surround yourself with is, you know, largely what matters at the end of the day. Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, that all sounds lovely. I've been following some other people who kind of made the move closely to and just being like, wow, that it does seem really cool and it does seem like an adventure that's kind of worthwhile at some point in your life. So for anyone who's listening, I guess, you know, first of all, who should be getting in touch with you? And second of all, maybe what's the best way for them to get in touch and to learn more about these opportunities? Yeah, for sure. So if you're at all interested or if you just want to have an exploratory chat conversation, find out more about my experience, please, please, please definitely reach out. We've got great opportunities here and I find, you know, most people just don't know how to go about finding them or finding more about the opportunities. I would say the sort of right audience or the people that we'd be interested in connecting with are largely those working at a professional services firm. So whether you're on it or taught or some sort of advisory function, we might have an opportunity for you. You don't have to have a big core background. You can be in a small CPA firm, a mid-tier CPA firm. If you have firm experience, that definitely is preferable. Getting in touch, I would say you're welcome to find me on LinkedIn, I check my LinkedIn quite frequently. Dom, I think that's how you and I have kept in touch over the past couple of years. You're also welcome to drop me an email, I'm free to buy email as well, so either really works. Yeah, and hopefully, if you are a little bit interested, we will reach out because we love connecting with interested people who might want to come down and join us. Perfect, well, I'm going to make sure that I link your information in the podcast description for anyone who's looking to get in touch with you. I think you also do the occasional webinars, so I'm going to try to include a link on that for people to get informed, who maybe want to learn kind of in more of a group setting and don't want to, maybe if they feel intimidated, have a one-on-one conversation because they're not that far along in their decision process yet. And yeah, hopefully some people do get in touch. I think these are really, really cool adventures and opportunities for people to try something new. And again, it's something I've always just looked at from afar and thought was super cool. So yeah, thank you so much for coming on, Erica, and for sharing more about this. Yeah, of course. Well, thanks for having me, and thanks for everyone who's tuned in today, and hopefully we'll connect with some of you soon.