Phil Clarke
Partner, Senior VP, CPA, CA, CIRP, LIT
Phil Clarke is a Partner and Senior Vice President in BDO’s Halifax office, with over 19 years of professional experience providing financial restructuring, strategy and operation consulting, and aboriginal consulting services to a diverse range of corporate and high net worth clientele.
Phil has been a trusted advisor to clients in a wide range of industries, including but not limited to
- Industrial Manufacturing
- Business to Consumer Retail
- Business to Business Retail
- Real Estate (Commercial, Consumer, Multi-Unit Residential)
- Agriculture
- Consumer Products
- Fishing/Aquaculture
- Construction/Contracting
- Shipping
- Fabrication
- Motor Vehicle and Heavy Equipment
Phil assists a variety of stakeholders by helping underperforming businesses plan and implement recovery strategies quickly and efficiently across all areas of an organization. This may involve moving forward on several fronts including:
- Intervention, stabilization and stakeholder communication
- Generating quick wins and reducing working capital requirements
- Designing and implementing rapid performance improvement and value recovery plans
- Identifying surplus entities, release capital, reduce operating costs, and achieve a leaner, more transparent corporate structure
- Optimizing value by designing and executing a controlled exit plan (sell, fix and sell, wind-down) that maximizes returns, mitigate delays and obstacles, and diminishes disposal/ divestment costs — irrespective of the number, location and complexity of facilities affected
- Assessing all revitalization options, develop a plan of action in partnership with management, creditors, and other stakeholders, and mobilize the resources required for effective implementation, whether through formal or informal proceedings
- Providing insolvency services through court and private receiverships, agency appointments, bankruptcy proceedings, proposals, and court directed proceedings on behalf of debtors and lenders
Phil helps clients improve and deploy their finance functions to better contribute to the overall goals of the organization. This includes helping clients establish the right balance between transaction processing, decision support and internal controls. He works with clients to help them restructure their finance departments, improve their financial reporting processes, strengthen and reduce the amount of time required for preparation of financial statements, budgets and forecasts, adopt process and policy changes that will contribute to improvements in working capital and increase the level of decision support that is provided by the finance function to senior management.
Phil assists clients connect strategies with execution. Starting with the premise that operations can and should be a strategic asset, he connects industry, functional and technology lenses to identify and rapidly close the gap between ideas and results – whether it’s innovating to drive growth, strategically reducing costs, improving operational flexibility, managing risk, improving capital efficiency, and/or complying with complex regulatory requirements or realizing deal value.
Phil is joining after 9 years as a partner at PwC in Halifax where he played a lead relationship partner role on certain of the firm’s biggest clients in addition to being on the PwC Foundation and Corporate Social Responsibility Advisory Board.
A strong believer in community involvement, Phil volunteers extensively currently the Chair, St. John Ambulance Canada; Chair, St. John Ambulance Foundation of Quebec; Executive Committee and Board Member, Order of St. John International. He is a Knight of the Order of St. John and currently serves as the Order’s Chancellor.
He is an East Coaster through and through, growing up in Newfoundland and Labrador, living in Nova Scotia, and spending as much time as possible at his family’s summer home in PEI.
Education
- License Insolvency Trustee (LIT) – 2005
- Certified Insolvency and Restructuring Professional (CIRP) – 2005,
- Member of the New Brunswick Association of Insolvency Professionals
- Past Member of the Nova Scotia Association of Insolvency Professionals
- Chartered Professional Accountant (CPA, CA) – 2001, member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick
- Bachelor of Commerce (Honours), Dalhousie University – 1998
- Recipient of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nova Scotia 2006 Ross Towler CA of the Year
- Knight of the Order of St John; Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Medal
Professional Affiliations
- Member, Presenter and Contributor, Atlantic Risk Management Association
- Member, Nova Scotia Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals
- Member, Institute of Corporate Directors (Atlantic)
- Member, Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants of Nova Scotia
- Member, Institute of Chartered Professional Accountants of New Brunswick