Future-Proof

Anirban Basu is chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group, an economic and policy consulting firm headquartered in the great city of Baltimore, Maryland. He is one of the most popular speakers on the MACPA educational circuit, chair of the Maryland Economic Development Commission, and of the Baltimore County Economic Advisory Committee. He was named one of Maryland’s 50 most influential people. When i...

We’ve discussed the .cpa domain before – a new domain that’s available exclusively to CPAs. There are many benefits involved with this domain (for both you and your clients). The domain has been out there since earlier this year, so we thought now would be a good time to take stock of where things are for people. How’s this domain working for everyone? How many people have used it? What about it h...

Lexy Kessler is the partner in charge of Aronson’s Government Contract Services Group and chair of the AICPA’s PCPS Executive Committee. As of July 1st, she is the new chair of the Maryland Association of CPAs Board of Directors. We’re going to look at her priorities this year and the trends impacting CPAs in Maryland and beyond. Of course, diversity and inclusion in the pipeline are always a focu...

You would be hard-pressed to think of an area that has a greater impact on the working world than where we work. The pandemic has taken the cat out of the bag – so to speak – and there’s no putting it back. Working from home is here to stay. Now it’s up to us to keep it productive. Kassi Rushing is a communication and people strategist who works with organizations to bring their cultural visions t...

It seems as if everyone wants to offer client accounting services, but not many know where to start. Hitendra Patil is the Head of Customer Success at AccountantsWorld. He is a fixture in Accounting Today’s list of The 100 Most Influential People in Accounting. And he’s one of the biggest fans – and, certainly, one of the most knowledgeable people on the subject – of client accounting services. He...

David Nour is CEO of The Nour Group, where they're all about building strategic relationships to help leaders reimagine the future. He's an advisor to Fortune 500 execs, a professor at Emory University, and the author of 11 books. His latest is “ Curve Benders: How Strategic Relationships Can Power Your Non-Linear Growth in the Future of Work .” What are curve benders? How do you define "strategic...

Donny Shimamoto is the founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies, an advisory-focused CPA firm in Honolulu. He’s also an incredibly active volunteer and thought leader for the American Institute of CPAs, doing work in information management, IT, and assurance services. His latest project is leading the launch of the new Center for Accounting Transformation. Its mission statement re...

Kelly Phillips Erb runs a very popular Twitter account under the handle, TaxGirl. She has written a regular Forbes column for years under the moniker, and now she’s doing the same for Bloomberg. She’s been interviewed by every big-name media company in the business about all things tax: CNN, Reuters, Time, NPR, ABC, CBS, MarketWatch, and more. She is also a managing attorney with ErbLaw, based in...

Andrew Codd is the host of Strength in the Numbers Show , a top-rated podcast aiming to help solve significant problems in the finance industry. He’s also an author, speaker, coach, trainer, and a senior member of After-Sales Finance Operations for Dell. Based in Ireland, Andrew brings an international perspective to the profession's issues and offers a fresh opinion on potential solutions. Andrew...

Jacquelyn Tracy is chair of the AICPA's Women's Initiatives Executive Committee . Jessica McClain is a member of the board of directors of the MACPA Foundation , which works to build a diverse talent pipeline to ensure the strength of the CPA profession for years to come. We talk about the excellent work being done by both of these organizations, the role of women in the profession, and why it's c...

Dr. Amy Zalman is the former CEO and president of the World Future Society. While she was there, she repositioned the World Future Society for renewed future global impact — helping a transformational organization transform itself. She’s also the founder of Oryx Communications and chair of information integration at the National War College, where she’s introduced new ways of understanding informa...

Tom Peters is the co-author of “In Search Of Excellence” and author of seventeen other best-selling books. He’s a legend in the business and consulting world, devoted to studying what makes leaders great and how to achieve business excellence. Tom’s latest book, “Excellence Now: Extreme Humanism,” may also be his last. In the afterword to the book, he says, “This book, in effect, IS my memoir. It...

As we near the end of Women’s History Month, and with Black History Month still firmly in our memory, it’s essential to take a look at diversity and inclusion in the CPA profession — both how far we’ve come and how much further we have to go. Kimberly Ellison-Taylor is a former Maryland Association of CPAs chair, a former AICPA Chair, and the executive director of finance thought leadership for Or...

As the world evolves, the concept of leadership is evolving as well. And the leaders of today are finding they need new skills to succeed. Jennifer Elder is a thought leader, trainer, and business coach dedicated to the concept of business transformation. She offers programs through the Business Learning Institute about strategic leadership, and she’s going to share about it from a corporate finan...

If you’re feeling a serious lack of energy in your life right now, know that you’re not alone. People around the world are starting to face this as we move past year one of the pandemic. But there are strategies for moving past this energy drain, and Greg Conderacci is here to share some of them with us. Greg is a senior fellow with the Business Learning Institute, a consultant, and a faculty memb...

If there’s one word that describes the past year with a fair amount of accuracy, it would have to be “change.” It’s been a year of unprecedented change, in a lot of ways, and that change impacts each of us — often in ways that are very personal. Karl Ahlrichs is going to help us explore how change impacts us and what we can do to adapt. Karl is a bestselling author and an acclaimed national speake...

Personal finance isn’t always a fun topic to talk about. But the sooner you start to think about it, the less stress it’s going to cause down the line. Rachel Richards took this principle to heart when she paid her way through college by selling Cutco Knives, graduating with no debt. She took her love of helping people with their finances and her talent for sales and became a financial advisor, bu...

We have spent the past several years talking about the exponential advancement of technology and what it all means for our profession. Most of those conversations tend to gravitate toward the public practice side of the profession, but today we’re taking a closer look at how those advances in technology are impacting things like financial reporting, cybersecurity, auditing, assessments, and other...

There are some big changes taking place at the Business Learning Institute. Tom Hood, now the former president and CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute, is the new executive vice president of business growth and engagement for the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants — the global arm of the American Institute of CPAs. Before Tom clo...

George Willie is a managing partner with Bert Smith & Company, a CPA and management consulting firm with offices in D.C., Baltimore, and the Virgin Islands. He has served as chair of the AICPA’s Private Companies Practice Section and the Montgomery County Employee Retirement System Board of Investment Trustees, and is also an immigrant originally from Jamaica. He has some great stories to tell...

We’re approaching the third wave of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) relief, and while we’ve seen these before, there’s good reason to be prepared for what’s new this time around. Erik Asgeirsson is the president and CEO of CPA.com . Joining him is Lisa Simpson, who leads the American Institute of CPAs’ Private Companies Practice Section in the development of practice management tools that addres...

There are so many changes being made in the world of finance. Many of them could be seen coming, but due to the pandemic, those changes are being made much faster than anyone could have guessed. Wayne Slater is the director of product marketing for Prophix, which helps mid-market companies achieve their goals with innovative, cloud-based Corporate Performance Management software. He talks about th...

Allen DeLeon is a founding partner of DeLeon & Stang in Gaithersberg, MD, and is one of the most active volunteers in the Maryland Association of CPAs. He’s a member of the boards of directors for numerous community organizations and he has a solid pulse on what’s going on in the profession. Allen retired at the beginning of 2021, and as he steps away from his day-to-day duties, he talks about...

John O’Leary is a thought leader, a world-renowned speaker, and best-selling author of “On Fire” and “In Awe.” When he was a kid, he burned himself really badly—he suffered burns on 100 percent of his body. Doctors gave him a 1 percent chance of survival.  And yet he survived. Not without some issues. He spent months in the hospital, he had numerous surgeries, his fingers were amputated—all o...

What’s happening at the state level that might have an impact on the accounting and finance world? There’s a lot that’s going on in state capitals across the country that bears watching. Here to talk about all of this is Tom Hood, the president and CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. The issues we’re talking about today are things that Tom is watching in Ma...