11/05/2025
More Than Numbers: A Mother’s Day Tribute to the Bond Behind BNC
At BNC Tax & Accounting, Mother’s Day isn’t just a holiday—it’s part of our origin story.
Long before Christie became CEO of BNC, she was a little girl sorting paper checks in her mom’s office, fascinated by the way the numbers fit together. “My mom used to lay out this giant paper general ledger across the desk,” she recalls. “I just thought it was the coolest thing in the world.”
Cindy, Christie’s mother and the founder of BNC, began her career in finance at a time when the industry was far from welcoming to women. She rose from bank work to CFO of a major construction company in the 1990s—a rare and remarkable achievement. But it was when she moved to California that her entrepreneurial spirit took root.
“She started a CFO-for-hire company and worked with a lot of startups in Silicon Valley,” Christie says. “Eventually those clients needed tax help too. What began as financial consulting evolved into something much bigger.”
In 2002, BNC was born. And in 2009, when Cindy retired to Mexico with her husband, she told her clients she was stepping away. “They said, ‘No, please don’t go!’ So she kept working remotely. We’ve been a virtual company ever since.”
Christie, meanwhile, never intended to follow directly in her mother’s footsteps. “I liked being a controller in construction,” she says. “Tax was never the plan.” But when Cindy asked her to come down to Puerto Vallarta to help during tax season, everything changed.
“I met all these expats with the most incredible stories. People living abroad, running businesses, navigating complicated systems—and they all needed help. I realized I could actually make a difference.”
What started as a seasonal visit turned into 18 months, and then years. Christie eventually met her husband and moved to the Netherlands, where she quietly began expanding BNC. “I joined the Americans in the Netherlands Facebook group and just started answering tax questions. People were desperate for support. Before I knew it, business was flying in.”
Even as BNC grew and flourished under Christie’s leadership, its foundation remained the same: a mother and daughter working in tandem, driven by a shared philosophy of trust, care, and integrity.
“My mom has always led by example,” Christie says. “She trained our nannies to become bookkeepers. She saw potential in everyone. That mindset shaped everything—how I run the company, how I treat people.”
Cindy also taught Christie the power of independence. “She never babied me. I was doing my own laundry at six years old because she believed I could. That kind of trust gave me real confidence later in life.”
That confidence carried Christie through challenges—like stepping into leadership when she never planned to. “I told her I would never be a manager,” she laughs. “I just wanted to sip coffee and do taxes on a balcony in Costa Rica. But the company kept growing. I couldn’t do it alone anymore.”
So she hired one employee. Then three. And slowly, the company took on new shape.
“Our management styles are very different,” Christie reflects. “My mom kept things close, and it worked. I’ve focused more on decentralizing, letting the team grow their own roots. But the core of it—the care, the personal connection—that’s all her.”
When asked what Cindy would say to her now, Christie pauses. “She’d say, ‘Trust your instincts.’ She’s always believed in me. Even when I doubted myself, she never did.”
Now a mother herself, Christie is already passing that same strength on to the next generation. “My daughter is only four, but when she makes her own bed—even if it’s a mess—she’s so proud. That’s what I want for her. To try. To believe in herself.”
As BNC continues to expand its reach from the Netherlands to Mexico and beyond, Christie carries her mother’s legacy with deep gratitude.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for showing me how to treat people, how to lead with empathy, how to be strong without needing to be loud. You didn’t just build a company—you built something worth inheriting.”
