Future-Proof

In this episode, we look at recent tax changes through a regulatory and compliance lens with Sona Akmakjian. Sona is Avalara’s Senior Director of Global Accounting Strategic Partnerships. She’s also a CPA with 29 years of transactional tax services and automation experience.  Sona talks about the impact the pandemic has had on business and taxes, including things like e-commerce, the supply c...

Mike Manspeaker is an Assurance Services Partner with Smith, Elliott, Kearns & Company in Maryland and has over 40 years of experience working with private companies and employee benefit plans. He is also very active in the peer review process, performing them as the CPA on Staff for Coastal Peer Review, an organization that administers reviews for North Carolina and Maryland firms. Mike is al...

What you’re about to hear is an incredible true story about resilience, perseverance, and strength while creating and growing a business from scratch – all while dealing with some of the most devastating news a person could face.  Kelly Mann is a CPA and the co-founder and CEO of AuditMiner, a tool that is used by CPAs to save time and increase quality in their 401(k) audits. There’s no bette...

The pipeline into the CPA profession is always an important topic for the future of our industry. How do we make the profession more appealing to young people deciding where to place their future? Jerry Maginnis recently released a new book titled "Advice for a Successful Career in the Accounting Profession: How to Make Your Assets Greatly Exceed Your Liabilities." He is a former managing partner...

Pascal Finette is co-founder and "chief heretic" with be radical, which researches, develops, and teaches tools and frameworks designed to transform their clients into practical futurists and successful disruptors. He recently gave a talk as the keynote speaker at the Digital CPA Conference, where he spoke about the correlation between disruption and "state changes" – moving from one state to anot...

It pays to be curious. The role that curiosity plays in wellness and well-being, emotional intelligence, and the benefits it offers to leaders are vastly underrated. Todd Kashdan literally wrote the book on curiosity. He is a professor of psychology at George Mason University and he founded George Mason’s Well-Being Lab. Winner of the 2013 Distinguished Early Career Researcher Award by the America...

As we’re wrapping up Black History Month and recognizing the contributions of Black Americans, we are closing down the month with a bit of a look ahead. We’re still taking stock of achievements from our past, but this time we’re doing it with an eye toward the future as well. Joining that conversation, today, is Dalton Tong. He’s a CPA and a CGMA with a career that’s steeped in health care and hea...

Cybersecurity is more important than ever before. This is not just something that business leaders have to worry about. Everyone, from the top to the bottom of your organization, is responsible for cybersecurity. Clar Rosso is the CEO of (ISC)^2, or ISC squared, as it’s written. They bill themselves as the world’s leading cybersecurity professional organization. They have more than 160,000 certifi...

In celebration of Black History Month, we’re giving flowers where they’re due, to Benjamin King Senior, Maryland's first black certified public accountant, the 47th in the country, who went on to become chairman of the Maryland state board. To best understand Mr. King and his impact, we’re joined by his children who’ve kept his minority firm and wide influence on the profession going strong: Pamel...

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues are all the rage in accounting and finance circles. ESG criteria are a set of non-financial factors that socially conscious investors can use to assess their potential investments, such as how the company manages relationships with employees, suppliers, customers, and the community, the company’s impact on nature, and executive pay, internal contr...

It’s legislative season here in Maryland, and getting involved in the process is more important than ever for the CPA profession. With more changes coming that promise to directly impact the accounting and financing profession than we’ve ever seen, our world is on high alert. We need to stay on top of those changes – which is why it’s nice to have a little help from CPA societies. We take a close...

It has been a stressful couple of years for everyone. People are working longer and harder with fewer breaks, fewer vacations, and fewer days off, which is bleeding into our personal lives, especially those of us still working from home. Dr. Britt Andreatta is an internationally recognized thought leader who uses her background in leadership, neuroscience, psychology, and education to create brain...

Today, we’re talking about jobs: Job hunting, searching for employees, filling the pipeline, The Great Resignation, and more. Our guest is Lauren Welkie. She manages strategic partnerships at ZipRecruiter, which is feeling the effects of The Great Resignation in a different way than most organizations. As Yahoo News said recently, “ZipRecruiter is finding itself in a sweet spot right now, as the d...

Usually, when we talk about AI in this profession, the conversation is all about automation, the things that artificial intelligence takes off our plate so we can create more value for our clients, face to face. But today, we look at AI’s potential for impact on big global issues like poverty, hunger, climate change, sustainability, and inequity. Of course, we bring the conversation back to what r...

As we round out the year, tax professionals have more than just the holidays to look forward to. Tax season is upon us and there’s a lot to talk about this year. Edward Karl is the Vice President of Taxation for the American Institute of CPAs. He’s also a member of the Maryland Association of CPAs. He has his finger on the pulse of our nation more than almost anyone in the field. He joins us today...

Barrett Young is a partner at Garbelman Winslow CPAs, a firm in Southern Maryland, and a Strongman competitor. You recognize the Strongman brand from those mind-blowing competitions on TV where people lift massive rocks and logs, or pull trucks, or flip huge tires. Those are the kinds of challenges that Barrett thrives on. We talk about how he got into such a heavy passion and how his work in the...

This week, we’re focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Crystal Cooke, Director of Diversity and Inclusion for the American Institute of CPAs, helps us shed light on these important topics. We talk about where our profession stands today, what changes are happening already, and what else needs to be done going forward. Crystal took her current role in February of 2020, just before the summe...

We are a remote work world now. Which means, for all of you leaders and managers out there, that we have to figure out how to best manage remote workers. That means finding new ways to manage technology, engagement, wellness, culture, and trust. Jennifer Wilson is co-founder and partner of ConvergenceCoaching, a national consulting firm dedicated to developing leaders and transforming teams. She i...

Let’s talk about comedy and how it relates to business. In this episode, Peter Margaritis joins the podcast to talk about just that, and his new book, “Off-Script: Mastering the Art of Business Improv.”  Improv, at its core, is about building a conversation out of what another person says instead of relying on our own agendas. In our business settings, most of us want to control the narrative...

We’re going to take a closer look at augmented reality (AR), also known as mixed reality. Augmented reality combines our real world with virtual information, images, sounds, or other media that augments our experiences in the real world. There are some really interesting case studies of how AR is being used in innovative and productive ways. Here to help us understand AR better are Dina Broydo and...

Dr. Freeman Hrabowski is the president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and he recently announced his retirement after three decades at the helm of UMBC. He will officially step down in June 2022. He's a leader in every sense of the word, particularly when it comes to educating and graduating an incredibly diverse and inclusive student body. Joining him is Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, a...

We are 20 years out from 9/11, the tragic event that changed everything in the US. We all have our 9/11 stories – the things we remember most when we think back to that fateful day. To mark the occasion, we’re going to hear from some of the leaders in the accounting and finance profession, their stories, where they were when it happened, and how the event has impacted the profession. Those leaders...

We’ve dissected this pandemic in every way possible so far – its impact on our world, our health, our businesses, our employees, and the future of work – as well as its impact on leadership, innovation, technology, and the pace of change in general. It’s all speeding up, right? But let’s take a closer look at how COVID-19 has impacted the world of financial planning – not only for clients and the...

Lee Frederiksen is a business strategist, a behavioral psychologist, and the managing partner of a marketing firm called Hinge which caters to the professional services industry. Lee makes the case that more professional service firms have been positively impacted by the pandemic than negatively impacted. This crisis has been difficult for people in many ways: jobs, businesses, and even lives lost...

Bill Pirolli is the new chair of the American Institute of CPAs and a partner with DiSanto Priest & Co., in Warwick, Rhode Island. He gives us his take on the future of the profession, some of the things he has his eye on, and his priorities for the coming year – all of which will impact everyone in the profession. Bill has been thinking about pipeline issues, engaging the next generation of C...