Brian Mustard.

• Position: Bell Canada senior vice president of taxation

Brian Mustard was working in the audit group at KPMG in Montreal and knew that, in the end, he would not spend his career in audit or accounting.

His plan: to go to law school after obtaining his designation and completing his articles. But fate intervened. A position in the tax group at KPMG opened up, which allowed him the opportunity to get out of audits, and at the time he thought it was a good place to finish his articles before law school. As it turns out, he really liked tax and never went to law school.

All's well that ends well in Mustard's case. Now he's the senior vice president, taxation, at Bell Canada, where he leads a group of more than thirty tax professionals.

Prior to joining Bell Canada, Mustard was senior vice president, taxation, at SNC-Lavalin, and before that he was a partner for over ten years in the international corporate tax practice of KPMG. While at KPMG, he was on secondment to the Tax Policy Branch of Canada's Department of Finance from 2001 to 2003 and served as the executive director of the Advisory Panel on Canada's System of International Taxation in 2008.

A Busy Man

Mustard is the course coordinator and lead lecturer for CPA Canada's advanced international tax course and has spoken on tax issues at conferences of the International Fiscal Association, Canadian Tax Foundation, and similar organizations. He is also the course coordinator and lead lecturer for CPA Canada's tax director's course.

Wait, there's more. He also is the current president of the Canadian branch of the International Fiscal Association and a former governor of the Canadian Tax Foundation. Finally, Mustard is a member of the Tax Executives Institute's Canadian national income tax committee.

What part of tax law does Mustard find most interesting? "I really like the breadth of tax--it can be incredibly academic, but at the same time it is practical, in the sense that it affects everyone, as just about everybody needs to file a tax return," he says. "There are also so many different angles from which it is practiced--in-house corporate tax, consultant, enforcement, policy development, litigator, judge, etc.

"Ultimately," Mustard adds, "the most interesting part of tax law is finding solutions. This can be as practical as finding a solution to a corporate tax issue or developing tax policy, both of which involve analysis of numerous possibilities, weighing the advantages and disadvantages, understanding the practical effects of...