Vancouver: The New Tech Hub

Vancouver's long list of awards and accolades seems interminable. It is consistently named as one of the top five worldwide cities for livability and quality of life, and the Economist Intelligence Unit acknowledged it as the first city to rank among the top-ten of the world's most liveable cities for five consecutive years. It was the host of Expo 86, the 2010 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup and after 30 years in California, it is the new home of the annual TED conference. Vancouver is also home to one of Crowe MacKay's eight locations and was where firm founder Iain MacKay developed his vision to create a Northern and Western Canadian regional firm.

Vancouver has been called a "city of neighbourhoods", each with a distinct character and ethnic mix. Since the 1980s, immigration has drastically increased, making the city more ethnically and linguistically diverse; for 52% English is not their first language and almost 30% of the city's inhabitants are of Chinese heritage. Celebrating the benefits of multiculturalism and ethnic diversity, Crowe MacKay Vancouver offers services in English, French, Mandarin, Cantonese and Punjabi.

The city of Vancouver has taken a number of steps to become a sustainable city. Ninety-three percent of the electricity used in Vancouver is generated using sustainable resources such as hydroelectric power. The city is also actively working towards its goal of being the greenest city in the world by 2020. Consistent with the city's green image, Crowe MacKay has embraced a paperless future. The IT team has equipped the firm with cloud computing allowing a quicker and most efficient servicing of clients whether local or global, all  while maintaining high security of financial information.

Recently, Vancouver has become a centre of excellence for Service as a Software (SaaS), social media, business intelligence, security and financial tech, e-commerce, and web technologies. Bloomberg Businessweek has called it "the new tech hub," a place offering "world-class talent and few immigration headaches" as well as "great views in a convenient time zone." Vancouver's startups received a record $583m of investment in 2014 and the industry is growing by 6% per year. Crowe MacKay's Technology team can attest to explosion of this dynamic sector.

Along with their wealth of experience, the Vancouver team brings a variety of expert skill sets that allow the office to serve a greater range of client needs. As expected by a Crowe MacKay office, they deliver excellent services in assurance, taxation, and advisory. Specifically Crowe MacKay Vancouver specializes in servicing private enterprise, not-for-profit, and public companies and offers additional services in tax consulting and succession planning, business valuations, and insolvency. Crowe MacKay's Vancouver office has an open-door policy – stop by at any time to meet the professional staff and any of their 13 partners.

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