James (Jim) Millar is President of The Millar Corporation, a firm he founded in 1977, to deliver a “top of the food chain” estate/succession planning service specifically designed to meet the needs of business owners and high net worth individuals. The motivation to establish this entity was provided by the experience gained during a nine-year period when he held senior management positions in the Canadian Headquarters of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company – the great majority of which was as Claims Director. This clearly confirmed that most estate/succession plans did not accomplish the intended objectives and – more importantly – that considerably better outcomes were possible through creative strategies developed through a unique holistic approach to achieving the goals of the business owner and his/her family members. This belief has now been confirmed by the positive results experienced over a quarter century of providing this planning service for a significant and diversified clientele that includes many prominent members of the Ottawa Business Community.
Jim is a member of several professional associations, including the Institute of Chartered Life Underwriters, the Canadian Tax Foundation, and the International Society for Trust and Estate Practitioners. He has authored articles for various publications on specific issues in tax, estate and succession planning, and has been a speaker at a number of family business and professional association conferences. Jim is also Past Chair of the National Advocacy Committee for the Canadian Association of Family Enterprise (CAFE). In this capacity, he made presentations to Senior Officials of the Department of Finance and Members of Parliament on issues important to family business.
