Principal

James (Jim) Scott is the Principal and founder of Ascot Solutions.

After completing his Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Toronto, Jim interned with Price Waterhouse to obtain his Canadian Chartered Accountant designation. He started in audit, moving to the tax department where he worked on the International Transfer Pricing, Mining, and IT teams. Some of his favourite PW projects included a three-month tour in the PW World Office in New York; negotiating a mining tax on behalf of the United Nations in Bujumbura, Burundi; and co-chairing the United Nations International Conference on Mining Taxation in Montreal.

Jim moved to Inco Limited in 1995, starting as their Director of International Tax and moving to the Director of Financial Planning and Analysis and then to become the VP, Chief Audit Executive. Some of his favourite Inco projects include developing the econometric models for the multi-billion-dollar Voisey’s Bay and Goro projects (and then auditing those projects as CAE); leading the finance negotiations for the Innu and Inuit Impact and Benefits Agreement (IBA) for the Voisey’s Bay Project and the mining tax negotiations with the New Caledonian government for Goro; and developing Inco’s first formal risk universe.

Jim left Inco in 2009. Since then, he has worked as CFO of PRISED Solar Inc., a nanotech solar R&D company he co-founded; taught at Schulich SEEC (and led the Schulich Centre for Excellence in Mining and Metallurgy); and founded and ran Ascot Solutions.

In addition to being a Canadian CA (now CPA-CA), Jim is a US CPA (under the IQEX reciprocity system), a Certified Internal Auditor (H.S. Smith award winner), and holds a Certification in Risk Management Assurance.

When not wearing his finance hat, Jim enjoys hiking, travel, and scuba diving. He has tried stand-up comedy to enhance his pitching skills, studied sign language to enhance his understanding of communication, and taken Segway lessons for no good reason whatever.