Groupe Amyot Gélinas President and CEO Patrice Forget received a major award last night at the Soirée CPA in honor of the Greater Montreal CPA community.
“It’s a great honor and pride for me to receive such recognition from my peers. I’m proud of how far I’ve come and of having had the opportunity to grow as a leader at Amyot Gélinas. I can’t deny the positive influence of my two mentors, Michel Amyot and Christian Gélinas, in this career path. This award is also yours; I strive every day to pursue the path you have laid out for me since the firm was founded,” emphasizes Patrice Forget.
Excella Award – Experience Leader
The Excella Award – Leader d’expérience des CPA de Laval – Laurentides – Lanaudière – was presented at a Gala organized by the Ordre des CPA to celebrate the successful completion of the 2024 Common Final Examination (CFE) by future Honor Roll CPAs and Excella Award recipients.
“The Experienced Leader Award recognizes CPAs with established careers, who stand out on a daily basis through their inspiring leadership, their dynamism and their commitment to the community and the profession.”
Long-time firm member
Patrice Forget has been involved with Amyot Gélinas for over 40 years, rising through the ranks from trainee to CPA, then from partner to President and CEO. He joined the firm in 1984 as a trainee, before becoming a Chartered Accountant. In 1990, he took charge of the new Mont-Tremblant office, which he continued to grow and prosper. In 1994, he was named partner (the same year that Amyot Gélinas was officially founded). In 2020, he became President and CEO of the firm, instilling his leadership in all our members, some 140 professionals across our 7 offices.
Proud of his profession, he encourages the firm and its members to forge strong links with the Cégep de Saint-Jérôme and a number of universities, thus encouraging the next generation to pursue their career path towards the CPA designation.
Collaborative leader
Through innovative initiatives and people-centered management, Patrice Forget embodies collaborative leadership, mobilizing his teams and contributing significantly to the firm’s success and growth, while fostering an equitable, diverse and inclusive environment.
As Christian Gélinas points out, “Patrice is an experienced leader who is not afraid to challenge himself. He stands out from his peers for his heightened sense of fairness and his constant quest for team well-being. He has decided to make the ‘happiness index’ a priority for our firm, and this is paying off in a talent-shortage environment where competition for new professionals is fierce.”
Committed to his community
We can’t speak of his leadership without also mentioning his commitment to the community. An influential member of the Club Richelieu Mont-Tremblant since the early 1990s, he has been involved at local, regional, national and international levels, becoming its international president in 2002-2003. As President of the Fondation Richelieu International in 2014-2015, he created the Richelieu scholarships for high school, college and university students across Canada. He helped set up a college study center in Mont-Tremblant in 2008, and was also a member of the administration of the Club de Hockey Junior AA Mont-Tremblant for some fifteen years.
Over the years, Patrice Forget has put his reputation to good use in fund-raising activities in his region, supporting numerous organizations including the Club Richelieu, the Fondation médicale des Laurentides et des Pays-d’en-Haut and the Fondation du Cégep de Saint-Jérôme. His involvement has earned him a number of prestigious distinctions, including national and international recognition, as well as the CPA Bénévolat 2020 award from the Laval – Laurentides – Lanaudière CPAs.
