065 Making Accounting Sexy (feat. Lindsay Stevenson, CPA)

Episode 65 | Recorded March 14, 2022 (π day)

Guest: Lindsay Stevenson, CPA, CGMA

Hosts: Jason Ackerman and Scott Scarano

Join Jason and Scott in getting to know more about Lindsay, BPM LLP’s Chief Transformation Officer. What does that role do? We weren’t too sure ourselves until Lindsay gave us a glimpse of what she does. Listen to how she started out as a staff accountant until becoming an integral part of a large firm and how she was able to go through a midlife crisis in identifying what she really wanted to do with her career. Lindsay also shares her experience on how these big innovative changes happen at a large firm and how being a CPA makes you a “hot thang” that most businesses all over the country would want to work with.

0 Accounting can be sexy to young people

3 Chief Transformation Officer - the strategy behind being innovative, forward-thinking, and actually moving the needle so that we can get traction on all the cool ideas that our team has

4 Lindsays journey from a public accountant to Chief Transformation Officer

Shoutout to Sarah Elliot, CPA, PCC, Brian Kush, PCC, CPA

8 What would a job look like for you?... And he said, let’s do it! Let’s do it at BPM

Shoutout to Dan Griffiths

10 I was overwhelmed to think that there was just sort of this written rule about CPAs. You come into the profession, you put your head down, and you do your work. Then you keep doing that until you make partner. It just felt I wasn’t that

14 If your foundation is built on time and that billing structure, you can't just build something else on top of that. It's a shaky foundation

16 The real magic in my role is it’s really fun to think about the big things

Shoutout to Apple

19 What you should care about the most is every client interaction and how to make that better

23 Lindsay’s and Jason’s POV on how small and large firms adapt and innovate their processes

Shoutout to Thompson Reuters, CCH, Workday

27 When you become the big fish in the pond, there is less motivation to innovate

30 Is this due to the general mindset shift of the digital age or people being more open to sharing?

Shoutout to Squadcast

34 Niche Accounting, the next big shift for the accounting space. Or have we already shifted into it?

Shoutout to Tate Henshaw, CFP

39 What are some of the things that Lindsay’s looking forward to changing with her new role?

40 Accounting can be sexy

42 If you were to sell the CPA firm or the CPA profession to your kids, how would you do it?

Shoutout to Dave Emmerman

43 You come out of school and you say, I'm a CPA. Near every business in this country would be like, come work for me because I need somebody that understands finances

47 Be brave and be bold. There are ways to take risks and be bold and be brave in very small ways that carry very little risk