Ben Blackler
CA (PP) BCom BA
PARTNER
Ben is a chartered accountant with over 20 years’ experience helping small to medium sized businesses. Ben helps tease out your goals, be them personal or business related. He is results and strategy focused and is a true business adviser. You’ll often find Ben negotiating on his clients’ behalf for a better deal.
Ben helps set the direction of Blackler Smith & Co as a highly effective advisory firm to a wide range of businesses.
Blair Smith
CA(PP) BCA
PARTNER
Blair has over 20 years’ chartered accounting experience in helping business owners become more successful and more efficient. His affable nature and ability to speak ‘Plain English’ accounting makes him approachable and well respected by all ranges of clients.
Kelly
CA BCA DipProfAcc
SENIOR CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT
Kelly Sinclair came to Blackler Smith & Co as an experienced, fully qualified chartered accountant in 2015.
Kelly has excellent problem solving and advisory skills and can work through a lot of detail when needed.
Kelly has significant experience with business purchases, assisting people with ‘due diligence’ (business assessments), training clients on Xero, forecasting and loan applications for businesses including franchises.
Clients tell us that Kelly has an easy manner, explains things well and can help you if you are new in business, or need help with something more complicated.
Donald
CA BCom
SENIOR ADVISER – CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT
Donald Bennett was previously a partner at a mid-sized chartered accounting firm in Queenstown so brings a significant 35 years’ experience to clients at Blackler Smith & Co.
Donald has worked with a wide range of clients over a number of different industries and has assisted in their growth by fully understanding their business and offering well-considered advice. Donald is very approachable.
Donald’s experience includes the areas of retail, accommodation, real estate agencies, tourism operators, trades, medical, property development, property investors – both commercial and residential as well as non-residents.
He is comfortable with business and tax structures, trusts, financial proposals, and succession planning.
Donald is married to Roena and they have three grown-up children. They enjoy catching up with them as well as their grandchildren. Occasionally Donald can be seen out on the golf course or pounding the streets or tracks in his neighbourhood. Donald likes to be actively involved in the community.
Jean
Dip Bus
SENIOR ACCOUNTANT
Jean Millar assists clients in a wide range of industries including painting and decorating, real estate as well as commercial and residential property investors.
Feedback from clients is that Jean is very conscientious and reliable.
Jean enjoys providing financial statements and tax return work for her clients while finding solutions for them.
Jean enjoys property renovations and she finds it rewarding to watch an idea morph into a renovated bathroom or bedroom. In her typically honest manner, she admits most of the hard work is outsourced.
Steve Dawson
CA BCom
SENIOR CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT
Steve Dawson joined Blackler Smith & Co as an experienced, fully qualified chartered accountant.
In addition to his experience in taxation and accounting for small businesses, Steve has a background and keen interest in technology. He completed a minor in Information Systems as part of his BCom degree at university and worked in systems architecture at IBM before deciding to become a chartered accountant.
Steve is an expert in many systems from Xero and payroll to job management and niche industry accounting systems, combining them all together to help your business gain efficiency. If he doesn’t know it, he’ll learn it quickly!
In his spare time, you’ll often find Steve out and about in the region with one of his motorcycles or cars – except when he’s buying parts to fix them.
Our chartered accounting team
Why do we always let our community know we are chartered accountants? Because we like to educate people who may have no idea that a person straight out of school can call themselves an ‘accountant’. Being a chartered accountant means that we are University qualified, belong to a professional body, have many hours’ worth of compulsory professional training each year and get audited on a regular basis. Our ‘kaitzen’ (continuous improvement) approach means in reality we are constantly upskilling and training ourselves in all areas of business.
Photo: Brady Dyer
Award winners
Winners at the Wellington Region Business Excellence Awards – Small Business and Professional Services 2015
