Executive Team

Russell Neilson, BA CGA – Russ is the President and C.E.O. of ABACA Solutions and the driving force behind the company. Before acquiring a Canmore, Alberta-based accounting practice, Russ spent 10 years primarily in central and eastern Africa managing a diverse portfolio of projects involving hundreds of employees and budgets of several million dollars. Russ is the past Chairman of the CGA Alberta Public Practice Review Committee.

Joe Samillano, CPA – Joe is Director of Philippine Operations and has been a CPA for over 25 years. His career included several years as a senior auditor with SGV & Co (a member practice of Ernst & Young Global) and senior accounting experience in food processing and construction both in the Philippines and in New York. The last ten years he has been actively involved in public practice in the Philippines.

Leora Vandenbrink, BAccS, CGA – Leora is Manager ABACA's Quality Control for all corporate year-end services. She also oversees ABACA's staff accountant training and the technical oversight for corporate year-end engagements. Prior to joining ABACA, Leora worked as a staff accountant with BDO Dunwoody.

Tom Mathers, BA – Tom is Vice President Marketing responsible for developing and communicating ABACA's vision and strategy through positioning, branding and related corporate growth initiatives. Tom has held a number of senior executive positions with over 25 years of business-building marketing and sales experience with large and mid-sized organizations such as IBM Corporation, Memorex Corp. and PURE International.

David Smylie, BSc – David is Vice President and is responsible for ABACA business development and customer account management. With a specialized computer science background, David brings over 15 years of account management and technology experience with tenures at Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems in the UK and Canada.

Lindsay Neilson, CA – Lindsay is a Principal with ABACA. He has been a Chartered Accountant for over 40 years and has held senior and executive management positions in banking, insurance and public utilities organizations. For several years he helped manage the eastern Caribbean practice of PKF International. The last 20 years Lindsay has been in public practice in Canada. Lindsay provides income tax training support to the company's team of accountants and Quality Control for ABACA's Personal Tax services group.

Essarah Rada, CPA – Essarah is responsible for Quality Control in our Philippine offices. She graduated Magna Cum Laude and in addition to her responsibilities within ABACA, she is an accounting professor at the University Negros Occidental - Recoletos in Bacolod. Her principal duties are ensuring the accuracy, timely processing and completion of customer files. Essarah also provides coaching to the accounting team members.

Senior International Staff:

ABACA's International offices are located in Bacolod City, Philippines. The organization structure is comprised of business management, Quality Control and systems personnel who oversee our professional team of accountants. Only top tier candidates that satisfy our stringent entrance exams and testing process are considered to join this elite group of accounting specialists. All of our CPAs have solid and extensive training on Canadian tax and participate in the continual upgrading of skills and knowledge through advanced courses delivered by Canadian Universities. With our relationship with top local Universities, ABACA has access to a large talent pool of accountants to complement our full-time workforce in particular for the peaks related to personal tax season. ABACA allocates specialized teams consistent with the focus of their work within Canadian corporate and personal tax disciplines.