by Dave Tulloch
Monday 17 July 2023
The evidence is mounting that the children of Black immigrants in the City of Ottawa are making their own positive impact on our Canadian society. They are making phenomenal progress through the ranks of their chosen professions and are arriving at the top echelons with government and private sector organizations. Recent profiles of two Federal Government Deputy Ministers, children of Jamaican and Haitian immigrants respectively, are evidence of this trend and this profile of Tene Knibbs continues to support this phenomenon.
Tene Knibbs is the daughter of immigrant parents, Dave, and Yvonne Knibbs, who immigrated to Canada from Jamaica during the early 1970s. She was born in Ottawa and completed her primary education at Henry Larsen Elementary and Colonel By Secondary schools. After graduating from the University of Ottawa, with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and International Business, Tene continued her education in the finance discipline and earned a CPA (Chartered Professional Accountant) designation. Tene entered the Federal Government to launch her career. “I started my career as a Financial Analyst in the Federal government, where I quickly got to better appreciate how organizations operate. As I took on more responsibility, I sought out roles where I could help to improve processes, and this led me into consulting.”
In 2008, Tene joined Deloitte as a Senior Consultant within the Strategy & Operations consulting practice – Deloitte ranks at number 8 in the 2023 ranking of top consulting firms worldwide (ref: caseinterview.com). And as with most of the major corporations in Canada, senior leadership continues to remain predominantly white. However, in several of the big consulting firms including Deloitte, the partnership ranks are slowly beginning to reflect the Canadian mosaic. And although this corporate leadership diversity transformation is lethargic, it is becoming obvious that this is an emerging trend.
Tene is one of the few Black partners at the leading edge of this corporate leadership transformation. “I spent a few years learning about the private sector and honing my consulting skills and was ready for yet another challenge. Deloitte presented me with the opportunity to help grow its consulting business at our office in Santiago, Chile in 2013 and I seized this opportunity. While working with Deloitte in South America, I managed several strategic projects for external clients as well as several internal projects with Deloitte as my client. Then, with a fresh perspective and renewed enthusiasm, I returned to Canada in 2016 as a Senior Manager, coaching and leading teams in our Finance & Performance practice. In this role, I continued to build a network of relationships with senior executives, while supporting our employees to excel at their respective jobs. I was then presented with the exciting challenge of being admitted to Deloitte’s partnership in 2021.
As a Partner with Deloitte’s Consulting practice, I provide advice to senior executives and their teams, and I facilitate the processes that help them to solve complex business problems. My primary area of focus is financial management. This involves working with Corporate Financial Officers (CFOs) and finance organizations to transform their operations by implementing digital technologies, using data more effectively to make informed business decisions, optimizing financial processes, exploring alternative operating models, and expanding their teams’ capabilities to execute more efficiently. I continue to advance my knowledge in a range of technical areas such as cloud infrastructure and generative Artificial Intelligence (AI), as well as in areas that affect how we relate to each other on a human level such as Indigenous Reconciliation, mental health in the workplace.”
Deloitte is committed to becoming an inclusive work environment. “They instituted a specific structure to meet this objective and established a leadership team for its Black Action Council along with co-leads for its Canadian Black Professional Network, to ensure that its inclusive goals are met. I was appointed as one of the leaders in this structure.”
“My parents are my biggest inspiration and role models. Hard-working, compassionate, kind, and generous. They encouraged me to reach and dream without limitations while keeping love, family, and gratitude at the center of all that I do. In my formative years, I realized that I enjoy being curious about how things work, what motivates people, working in teams, and solving tough challenges – all aspects that I bring to my work as a consultant every day.”
Tene is also passionate about improving the lives of others within the Ottawa community. “I’m on the Board of Directors for Immigrant Women Services Ottawa – a nonprofit dedicated to empowering immigrant and racialized women in the City of Ottawa to participate in the elimination of all forms of abuse against women, that provides culturally responsive crisis counseling, language interpretation, and other settlement services. This has really enlightened me to some of the acute needs in our community and I am inspired by those who dedicate themselves to addressing these critical issues.”