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Contact Ginger White:Email: ginger.r.white@icloud.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/virginia-ginger-d-white-cma-csca-bb-mbb-mba-mssf-a7221b1/IMA Bio: https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/ima-leadership/virginia-ginger-whiteInstitute of Management Accountants: https://www.imanet.org/American Accounting Association: https://aaahq.org/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00)Adam Larson: (00:05) Hey everyone. Welcome back to "Count Me In", IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is Adam Larson and I'm joined by my cohost, Mitch Roshong. As you know, the purpose of "Count Me In" is to bring you the latest perspectives and learnings on everything management accountants need to know. We strive to consistently share valuable insights from industry experts and those who are shaping our profession, and today's episode is no exception. We were delighted to have the opportunity to sit down with one of the great leaders in our industry, ginger white. Ginger joined us in our office here in Montvale, New Jersey and talked about what it takes to be a valued leader of the finance team. Ginger is the global chair emeritus of IMA's global board of directors and has a wealth of knowledge and expertise that we were lucky she was willing to share with us. Mitch, what else can you tell us about Ginger and your conversation with her for this episode?Mitch Roshong: (00:56) Ginger is an executive level financial management professional with over 20 years of experience. She spent 22 years at Cummins, an American Fortune 500 company that designs, manufactures, and distributes engines, filtration and power generation products. There, she spanned roles from cost analyst through corporate purchasing finance director acquiring and developing valuable skills along the way. She is a CMA, CSCA, Six Sigma black belt and now serves as the chief operating officer for the American Accounting Association. In our conversation, we talked a lot about Ginger's tenure at Cummins, the skills she noticed to be most valuable and some of the best wins as a finance professional. This is a great episode for those interested in learning what it takes to create your own successful long lasting career. So let's go to the conversation.Music: (01:47)Mitch Roshong: (01:53) Take us back to when you first started in finance and business. Was it originally your intention to work at the same company for the majority of your career?Ginger White: (02:01) Actually, no, it was not. So when I actually joined Cummins in 97 I had been teaching Accounting I at a small college called Ivy Tech in Indiana and I was teaching Accounting I and absolutely loved it and they were changing the accreditation standards that required a master's degree or work experience equivalent. And I didn't have either. So I heard Cummins would pay for your master's degree. So my whole purpose to go there was to get my master's degree and quit and teach full time. So I spent 21 and a half years there before I left recently to go be the chief operating officer at the American accounting association.Mitch Roshong: (02:37) So was it always your longterm goal to achieve some kind of C-suite position or did you think you'd be teaching your whole career?Ginger White: (02:44) Early on? After I'd been teaching Accounting I, I really did think I would be teaching my entire career. However, when I got to Cummins and started really learning about cost accounting was introduced to IMA, my path changed. And I think it's really important to always flexible to what life might bring you. And I would have never guessed that I would be C-suite at some point and I'm really enjoying it and my new role.Mitch Roshong: (03:10) And as far as the progression that you did have through Cummins, how did you develop and acquire the skills needed to kind of progress through all these different positions? What were some of the skills that really proved to be most valuable in supporting your recent role that you, the most recent role you held there?Ginger White: (03:27) Actually always being willing to learn and pushing yourself above and beyond what you ever think you can. So I had initially started getting my MBA immediately as I joined Cummins. And so I finished that in 2002 and then later I ended up getting my Master of Science in Strategic Finance in 2006 and I had always had on my individual development plan, my CMA. And it wasn't until 2014 that I actually achieved that, which was very valuable because I had taken a role as a Six Sigma master black belt, which was in the quality function. And the skills I gained there actually is very relevant to today because we're really moving into a world of data analytics. And when I did my master black belt role, that's pretty much what we did. So then when I really wanted to move back into my corporate purchasing finance role at Cummins, I felt that I needed my CMA. So that was very valuable in 2014 when I achieved that. And then in June of '15 is when I moved back into the finance role in a corporate purchasing finance.Mitch Roshong: (04:28) How about the other side of things? What were some of the daily challenges of directing large growth plans and executing different strategic initiatives for Cummins?Ginger White: (04:37) That probably came mostly in the corporate purchasing finance role. There, when I joined the team, we had implemented, prior to me joining something called the strategic finance solution for payables. And when I got there, there were lots of issues that systems processes were failing daily, suppliers were not getting paid as we promised and so forth. So I went to work immediately to fix that. And when I left, the individuals were getting paid within five days. So we still were able to extend our payment terms, which actually helped Cummins with their cashflow, but our, our suppliers were getting paid within on average five days. So I felt really proud of that because it actually helps some of our suppliers become debt free and it was a win, win, win.Mitch Roshong: (05:24) And what do you attribute some of that success to? How were you able to overcome those challenges?Ginger White: (05:28) I really do attribute a lot of that to Six Sigma, my problem solving skills and then just getting everybody together and working collaboratively. It's, it's a skill I've naturally somehow come about. And I think Six Sigma helped me do that because a lot of times people will just try to solve things from their perspective. And it's so much more powerful when you get cross functional teams together to really talk and understand deeply what each issue might be in a given area. So that's what we did. We really looked at it solution, we looked at the payables process, we looked at all kinds of things to really determine what the real root cause was. We fixed those, we put controls in place to ensure the failures just stopped ongoing. And then we, we had good suppliers that we partnered with and they held us accountable too, which was really powerful. So it, it was it was a great experience to, to really do that. And I have lots of those, those kinds of areas where...

CMA Commercial: You’ve got to earn it. IMA Global Ad Campaign: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ima-launches-global-ad-campaign-to-highlight-importance-of-certification-in-todays-business-landscape-300918013.htmlJeff Thomson Bio: https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/ima-leadership/jeffrey-c-thomsonIMA Website: https://www.imanet.org/About IMA: https://www.imanet.org/about-imaAbout CMA: https://www.imanet.org/cma-certificationIMA Education Center: https://www.imanet.org/education-centerJeff Thomson LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffthomsonima/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00)Adam Larson: (00:04) Hello everyone. I'm Adam Larson.Mitch Roshong: (00:06) I'm Mitch Roshong.Adam Larson: (00:07) And we are excited to welcome you all to a special episode of "Count Me In". Starting today, we'll be releasing periodic episodes that highlight staff members and key stakeholders of the Institute of Management Accountants. This IMA mini-series within 'Count Me In" will help our listeners better understand who we are and what IMA's vision is, along with the value of the CMA credential. For today's conversation, to kick off our talks, Mitch and I sit down with IMA's president and CEO Jeff Thomson.Mitch Roshong: (00:34) Jeff is considered an expert on risk management and internal controls and is a global thought leader in management accounting. He assumed the role of president and CEO of IMA in 2008 and has since led the execution of a strategy that has resulted in IMA becoming one of the fastest growing and most influential accounting associations in the world. Jeff works tirelessly to help advance the profession and his leadership is positively recognized across the organization.Adam Larson: (01:00) In this conversation we asked Jeff various questions about IMA, the CMA, and the future of the profession. His passion and professionalism is evident in his responses and truly reveals the overall guidance and direction of the organization. Now let's hear from IMA, president and CEO, Jeff Thompson.Music: (01:22)Jeff Thomson: (01:25) Basically, IMA grew and we've been growing exponentially for 10 years. Primarily because we went from being inwardly focused to outwardly focused, meaning an intense, unwavering, relentless focus on member value on the CMA program, on volunteers as opposed to being inwardly focused on internal management in, in terms of you know, various issues. Of course we need to be focused internally and build a strong, solid inspired team. But, you know, the more you talk to yourselves, the less you're talking to the market and what are your needs and wants? How can I, how can I enrich organizations, how can I enrich your career? How can I enrich the public interest? So I would say more than anything else, it was that intense focus. And then I would say a a genuine sustained focus on core values and culture. I truly believe, although I don't have hard evidence that that helped lead not only to our growth but our strategic turnaround 10 or so years ago.Mitch Roshong: (02:43) With that change in focus, how do you anticipate sustaining that growth and where do you envision IMA in the next three to five years?Jeff Thomson: (02:50) So sustaining growth and managing the growth that you achieved is one of the hardest things in business. Sometimes it's even harder to manage and sustain your growth than it is to achieve the growth in the first place because sometimes you lose sight of what got you to your growth. The fact that you did it one member at a time, one partner at a time, one academic influencer at a time, one volunteer at a time. And as long as we take that approach to delivering value to staying current with technology and innovation having a solid strategy, fierce conversations embracing a culture of challenge and having a great team that first and foremost lives its core values and its culture. I believe will continue to do well. You know, the business environment, whether it's our members or IMA itself is very challenging. There is competitive risk. There's technology risk, as we've globalized, there's geopolitical risk. But I have a, a lot of confidence that if we continue to have an everyday sense of urgency that we'll continue to deliver for our members and even up our game because quite frankly, they should expect nothing less of us.Mitch Roshong: (04:18) What are some of the key competencies that management accountants need in today's industry that you are making sure we here at IMA are focused on continuously supporting for our members?Jeff Thomson: (04:27) Great question, Mitch. And although I'm very proud and honored to be CEO of this great, great organization my roots are in finance and accounting and I'm proud of that. You know, I was a SBU CFO at AT&T. I started out as a finance manager and analytics. And so I've seen how our jobs and our careers have evolved over time. Um you know, some of it is the CFO team is expected to do more with less meaning, more responsibility. In addition to closing the books and filing statutory reports, we now want you to get more involved in financing decisions and merger and acquisition activity. Funding, forecasting, strategy, technology, operations. Um you know, Doreen Remmen, our CFO is, as you well know handles all of those things as the chief financial officer. So on one hand, that's a great, great opportunity to be influential within your organization and outside your organization. But we have to be there to deliver the competencies to build that talent. And certainly the area of technology and analytics, more and more management accountants whether they're in financial planning and analysis or other sorts of decision support activities. You know, they're expected to offer insight and foresight beyond the numbers, but you need to be grounded in the fundamentals of data analytics, data visualization, storytelling, strategic management. And you know, IMA is up to the challenge and we're delivering some great products, but we have to deliver even more to build that competency, to meet that great challenge and that great opportunity.Adam Larson: (06:23) In addition to the great opportunities created through continuing education, what other benefits design may offer its members?Jeff Thomson: (06:30) Sure. Well, it starts with the CMA program. We're very, very proud of the CMA program. It's grown tremendously over the years outside and inside the U S because it resonates with CFOs and their teams who are aspiring to be stronger in the areas of insight and foresight to make sense of the numbers, to make sense of a complex competitive and market environment. So it starts with the CMA program. We're very, very proud of that. We've announced that for January, 2020 the exam will stay current with technology and analytics and reflect that in its revised exam in January. Um we're also very proud of our relatively new credential called C...

"Creating Great Long-term Sustainable Value" by Dr. Mark Frigo: https://sfmagazine.com/post-entry/october-2018-creating-greater-long-term-sustainable-value/Contact Dr. Mark Frigo:Email: mfrigo@depaul.edu LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markfrigo/Twitter: @drmarkfrigoWebsites: www.markfrigo.com and http://go.depaul.edu/SEVFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00)Adam Larson: (00:05) Hey everyone. Thanks for coming back to IMA and joining the conversation for Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson and once again I'm joined by my co host Mitch Roshong. Our episode for today is at the center of all skills needed to be a successful accounting and finance professional. As we listened to our conversation with Dr. Mark Frigo on the topic of strategic leadership. Mitch you spoke with Dr. Frigo, how did it go?Mitch Roshong: (00:28) Dr. Frigo is an excellent speaker and it was a pleasure talking with him. Dr. Frigo is the director of the center for strategy, execution and valuation and the strategic risk management lab and is the Ezerski Endowed Chair of Strategy & Leadership in the Driehaus College of Business at DePaul University in Chicago. We had a great time talking about the importance of leadership and how it needs to be a part of all business strategies. Without further ado, let's turn to the conversation we had.Music: (00:56)Mitch Roshong: (01:02) So my first question for you is what is a leadership Driven strategy?Dr. Frigo: (01:09) So leadership driven strategy is applying great business strategy that we've learned in studying high performing companies to the individual leader and also to teams within organizations. The idea is to identify what are the patterns of strategic leadership activities and team activities that create the most value for their team or their organization.Mitch Roshong: (01:42) So my understanding of this, as you just said it can be focused on individuals, and onto teams in general. So kind of what's the difference, I guess? How can we apply great business strategy at the different levels?Dr. Frigo: (01:56) So let me describe how this, process evolved. The return driven strategy, which is, discussed in the book driven, that I authored a few years ago, describes the pattern of strategic activities of long-term high-performance companies and those seminars and other works that we've done in presenting that framework to management teams, naturally, to internalize the way of thinking, they started thinking that CFO teams and the executive teams and management teams that we worked with started thinking about that pattern within their own, at the micro level, at the individual leader level and at the team level. So when we do workshops with, management teams, we often are presenting the return driven strategy framework, and as part of the exercise for understanding and learning and mastering it, we apply that to the individual leader. And then the next iteration would be applying it to the team; usually, in the case of a CFOs I'll present it to the individual CFO leader and also present it to the finance organization within that type of an environment.Mitch Roshong: (03:17) So to put this all together, it sounds like you've done a lot of practice with this and I'm just curious, you know, what kind of application, what kind of, implementation have you seen? How has this leadership driven strategy been used at companies and how has it helped?Dr. Frigo: (03:35) So, Mitchell, that's a good question. The, leader through leadership driven strategy has been a mechanism or a way for let's say a CFO to develop a strategic finance function within his or her organization. So the exercise is usually focused on, doing, we often do a SWOT analysis, which would be doing, you know, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in terms of assessing, the strengths and weaknesses relating to, different aspects of the leadership driven strategy. A framework, which I'll describe in a few minutes.Mitch Roshong: (04:18) Oh, that's awesome! And then just from your experience, what are some of the key takeaways from this strategy?Dr. Frigo: (04:27) Yes, so let me just describe, the, the logic and language of leadership driven strategy. It's a hierarchy of 11, tenants or activities. And then, three foundations. The first, , the top, the number one tenant is ethically create value. That's the most important, idea for an individual leader as well as for a team ethically create value. And then the next two levels of the framework are fulfill, otherwise unmet constituent needs, those constituent needs, which are highly valuable and valued by their stakeholders. Those could be either internal or and or external constituents or stakeholders. And then the next one number three, 10, and three, is serve the right constituents with those needs. And then how do we do that? We do that by innovating our offerings as professionals, individual leaders and teams. We do that by delivering our offerings efficiently and effectively. And we also do it by branding our offerings being known for that offering and how we create value for our constituents. Those, l call, the competency tenants and then supporting those would be five supporting tenants. The person supporting tenant is partner strategically, meaning partnering strategically to do what to innovate, deliver and brand or offerings targeted at fulfilling the otherwise unmet needs and the constituents we're serving, all with the idea of creating maximum value in doing so ethically. The next, supporting tenant is redesign your value chain, the way you do things and the way that you conduct your activities. Again, aligned with the innovation, delivery and branding of the offerings. And then tenant nine is engage yourself in others. Engage yourself and others means engage yourself, in a positive manner to create value in terms of that individual leader or the team and others means your other stakeholders. A balanced focus and options of next supporting tenants. And that means taking care of the current business but also creating the future, the future of value creation. And this also involves some strategic quitting meaning just continuing certain activities that are not value added for a team or for an individual leader. And then finally, number 11 is communicate strategically and holistically. Meaning we communicate the way we speak, the way we send emails, the way we communicate individually or as a team. The words we use, our appearance, all of that is the way we communicate our brand, which is, you know, important for a professional and for a team. And those are the 11 tenants of supported by the foundation's genuine assets and unique capabilities. Those are what you have that make you unique they're a combination, they're your skills or your experience, they're you're relationships and so forth. There'll be intangibles that you have as an individual leader and a team. And there's also sometimes missing genuine assets, which we have to try to figure out as leaders or teams, how do we create those missing genuine assets or partner to achieve them? The next, foundation is vigilance, the forces of change. And that means being very vigilant abou...

Contact Kaiser Mock:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaiser-mock/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00)Adam Larson: (00:05) Welcome back to "Count Me In". Thanks for joining us at IMA as we bring you the latest perspectives and learnings on all things affecting the accounting and finance world. This is Adam Larson and with me as always is my co-host Mitch Roshong. Today's episode we will get into an area of accounting, not often discussed - the importance of relationships with non-financial individuals. Our guest for today's conversation came to us from the MillerCoors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. And with that I'd like to ask our listeners to send us a note letting us know where you're listening from. We'd be happy to share some of the unique locations and let everyone know what kind of global reach "Count Me In" and IMA has. But now back to today's episode. Mitch, how was it speaking with Kaiser Mock?Mitch Roshong: (00:50) Our conversation was great. Kaiser is a Financial Analyst for Brewery Operations at MillerCoors. He monitors the brewing process and provides assistance with costing, variances and overall manufacturing processes. He is also a former IMA Young Professional Leadership Experience winner and remains very active with IMA as he strives to share his experiences and talks about the opportunities within accounting. The underlying theme for today's episode is the importance of relationship building for accountants. Automation has happened before and will continue to change their roles as new technologies emerge. But accountants of the future must be able to communicate effectively and work with individuals across all functions to add value to their organizations. Kaiser shared how he's worked alongside and built relationships with non-finance individuals to help drive efficiencies. And I think our listeners will be able to learn a lot from this episode. So let's listen in.Music: (01:43)Mitch Roshong: (01:48) So, tell me. What are the trends you've seen with accounting and automation? I know we tend to think about trends being these big dramatic changes but are we seeing changes right now that maybe are impacting business and accounting you know, slowly and steadily and a big future implication?Kaiser Mock: (02:09) Yeah, you know, Mitch. I think it's such an interesting topic with this because there's a lot of concern and a lot of hype out there right now about where accounting is going and what role accounting is going to play in the future. But I think if you look at what the profession has done over the past 10, 15, you know, you go back 50 years, accounting today is dramatically different than it was then. And you look at the horizon in technology and what, you know, even computers and automated reports have done for us. Automation is not something that's new to the field. It has been happening for a very long time now. And I think that what you see today is there might be an increase in the speed of the change, but the change is all the same. And I think what the biggest topic that I think when people are concerned about where accounting is going I think what people really should be asking themselves is, you know, what, what am I doing today to add value and are the changes that are coming and whether it be automation or you know, other changes to the accounting field. Are they replacing the role that I do or, or, or are they going to emphasize the impact that I'm having on my business? Because if it's simply replacing the role and replacing the responsibilities, that one has an accompany. I think that begs a better question about whether or not one is utilizing their skills and utilizing the abilities that they have for the business. And if it's more of how is it going to change my role within the company, I think that's a better question for us to say. How can we eliminate non value added tasks? How can we eliminate inefficiencies within our own jobs to increase what we are doing and the information we are providing overall to, to our companies, to the business world, to whoever our ultimate state quarter's stake holders are that we, that we support.Mitch Roshong: (04:12) And how about the overall scope of the profession? How are these impacts, you know, not just changing the role of the accountant and the way the finance function operates, but what kind of changes do you see the finance professionals realizing with the relationships with non-finance functions across the organization?Kaiser Mock: (04:36) Yeah. You know, I think it's funny because a lot of times, at least for myself, and I'm sure a lot of the listeners can relate to this, when you tell people that you work in finance, or you work in accounting or whatever it may be, you'll typically get a response for individuals outside of the profession that say, Oh, I couldn't, I couldn't ever do that. I'm not good with numbers. I'm not good with math. And to me that completely misses the point of what we do or what we should be doing. Because, you know, we get the stereotype of number crunchers, whatever that may be. But really what we're doing is we are storytellers and we are individuals that analyze information and convey that to our stakeholders, whether it's within the finance industry or outside of it, at our businesses that help them better understand what is going on and help them make better strategic decisions. So what I look at, the changes in the industry are ones that if we are truly, truly doing what our roles are and truly you know, as I said earlier, maximizing what our potential is. And what our skill set is, all that that does is it creates a better relationship with individuals that might not be accounting or finance per se, because it allows us to spend more time on the analytical, allows us to understand better about what is going on within, within our, our roles so that that information can be more useful to, to the outside world. You know, as an example, even here at my business, I work at MillerCoors here in Golden, Colorado. When I'm able to eliminate the need to run reports manually or to manipulate reports, what that does is it allows me to convey information to individuals here at the brewery about what exactly is going on in their field and whether it is helping them understand labor variance reports. So instead of spending hours computing it myself, I can simply have a report produced for me that I can then analyze and give them information or maintenance spend. It's something that allows me to spend more time giving them useful information instead of just giving them data.Mitch Roshong: (06:52) Let's talk a little bit more about that because I'm kind of interested as you're putting together these variants reports and you have a lot of financial data but as you said, you're trying to communicate it to people who may not fully understand. How do you go about really telling the true story behind the numbers and making sure everyone in the organization understands exactly what it is that you're trying to add value to or improve?Kaiser Mock: (07:15) Yeah, I think one of the most important things for that process, and at least for myself, what I've found is it's kind of the idea of instead of taking a top down approach, taking a more of a bottom up approach. And what I mean by that is I find myself very frequently caught in the idea that okay, I have reports or I have information and I need to, I need to get this information out to other individuals. And then they are going to follow up with ...

Contact Dr. Sean Stein Smith:LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sean-stein-smith-dba-cpa-63307444/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00)                   Mitch Roshong: (00:05) Hey everybody. Welcome back to IMA's podcast, "Count Me In". I'm your host, Mitch Roshong and I'm joined by my regular co-host, Adam Larson. Today we are going to listen to another bonus episode as we hear the remainder of the conversation we had with Dr. Sean Stein Smith. Adam, you and I both asked Sean a variety of questions about the impact of various technologies on accounting and finance. What are some of the takeaways you had from what Sean had to offer?Adam Larson: (00:32) Sean had a lot to share with us. If you recall, Sean recently received the New Jersey society of CPAs, 2019 ovation award in innovation and as an expert in technology, blockchain and data analytics. Throughout our conversation he discussed how the role of the management accountant has changed because of technology, talked to us about global business opportunities, referenced some cybersecurity issues, and even made some future predictions for us. Without giving too much away, let's listen to the rest of our conversation.Music: (00:32)                   Adam Larson: (00:59) You are clearly well versed in the emergence of technologies in accounting and have had great exposure to how they've made an impact on the industry. So I'm curious from your personal experience, how have blockchain, AI, RPA, and anything else you've come across begun to change the role of the management accountant and the accounting profession?Dr. Stein Smith: (01:25) So, I'd say probably the biggest, biggest change that I've seen is that really all of us have been talking for years on how to transform ourselves to be a business partner or a trusted advisor. Right? And that really now these tools and these processes are actually here to help us do that. Right? Because a audit is, is great, right? It's the core of how companies publish data out to the marketplace. Tax returns are important from a compliance point of view and all the rest. But really those don't add too much value to firms on a ongoing basis. I would, I would challenge you to find a CFO or a board who would argue that their audit team adds actual value going forward. Now again, the audit function and the tax function are cornerstones of what we do. But our true, I think future is to be more forward looking and to be those business advisers. Right? Right. Cause who knows data better than we do. Nobody. Now there are a whole bunch of of new firms out there, new job roles out there, data science, data analysis, all the rest. But all of those fields and firms and individuals lack the foundational knowledge that all of us have on how a company actually works, right? From a financial point of view and they operational point of view, right? Operations, drive, finance, drive data, and then all of that drives to forward-looking choices. And so that's where I've seen that that shift and that transition happen, right? From a compliance or, or a backward looking role or a team or a firm to a to a forward looking field and a team and the individuals working there. Every conference that I go to, every article that I read, every, every book I pick up, podcast, a webinar, all the rest -- This, this whole conversation on all of these tools, right, are just that tools, right? And it's up to us to be able to understand those tools. You'll harness the power of these tools and then most importantly do something with them, right? Because knowledge is is fantastic, but the application of that knowledge is even better. And so that's really where I've seen people in firms really, I mean grow exponentially, right? Individuals who are able to be proactive to humble themselves that you learn new tools, ideas and concepts and, and to then take the time to think, to analyze and to then point out where these new tools and ideas can actually be be put to use. And, and that's really the overall message that I have and the overall theme I've seen, right? You can be a CPA, CMA, any, any of of the alphabet soup, right? But it's that idea of, of harnessing these tools finally, right? The tools and the processes are our, at our hands to help us sort of transition from always having to focus on just doing the work, getting it done and having it out the door to having those tools automate parts of that work for us. And then that frees us up to be able to actually talk to our clients, offer them advice, to help them better understand how their firms are actually doing, and then help them take that understanding and then chart a better course forward. And that's really the, the key value. And it can be AI, it can be RPA, can be blockchain and I'm sure in five years there'll be some new buzz words out there, right? But, but it's that underlying theme, right, that our roles are changing, our jobs are changing and our field is already changing and that it is changing for the better, right? There's always going to be some anxiety and, and angst out there, but it's important to really take a step back to analyze what's happening, to be able to understand which trends are, are coming anyway, like automation technology overall, and to then harness those trends, right? To understand them, to learn them and to then take those to specific processes both inside your firm and outside your firm, have those conversations at both places and then use those conversations as a springboard or as a jumping off point to really help you in your firm evolve transition, have a better handle on your data and current processes and then that frees you up to focus on new business opportunities going forward.Adam Larson: (05:53) As far as news business opportunities in the expansion of transactional, how do you think these emerging technologies fit into the global business economy?Dr. Stein Smith: (06:02) On a global scale, I mean we're probably in the first in it, right? The first day and first quarter, first, first pitch tip off, whatever analogy works best, right? And we are just at the very beginning of this transition and it's important to to also note that that our conversation here as comprehensive as it is talking on AI, RPA and on blockchain is only about this much of a much broader change going on, right? Companies are going digital all, all across the world and to that data is really where all of that power is going to be going forward, right? Because the power and the information and the business opportunities are in that data, right? There are all kinds of opportunities out there for firms who are able to, to really analyze that data, go through it, find it patterns, and to then use those patterns to then see opportunities going forward in the marketplace. Now, hedge fund and PE firms have been doing this for years, right? You're mining information to build out trading patterns and all the rest, but now those exact same tools are out there in the marketplace for us as accounting people, to actually use ourselves, right? And to be able to help us analyze it, that data, and I always come back to that data, right? Because companies are built on, driven by and are governed by the information both, both produced internally and then gathered externally. And so we are people who understand data right? At the core of our work and our education, we are people who understand information. And so all of...

Brian's Work:https://www.apqc.org/resource-library/resource-listing/how-cfos-forecast-and-plan-futurehttps://www.apqc.org/resource-library/resource-listing/challenges-and-opportunities-financial-planning-and-analysis-fpahttps://www.apqc.org/resource-library/resource-listing/transformation-financial-planning-and-analysis-fpahttps://www.digitalistmag.com/finance/2018/05/01/finance-transformation-how-organizations-can-adapt-to-change-06143131https://info.sapdigital.com/1650_IFPA-CFO-White-Paper_OAP.htmlContact Brian:LinkedIn - http://bit.ly/2hoZavsTwitter - @FpandaBTK FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:04)Adam Larson: (00:05) Welcome to “Count Me In”. Thanks for coming back and listening to another engaging and insightful accounting conversation with us here at IMA. I am Adam Larson and I think you're really going to enjoy today's episode, as, in a minute we will listen to my co-host Mitch Roshong talk with Principal and Founder of Kalish Consulting, Brian Kalish. At the end, please take a moment and write a review and let us know what you think. Tell us how we're doing and what you think about the series either on this episode or by sending us a message with some feedback. So as I understand it, the theme of your conversation, Mitch, was why and how FP&A should embrace big data and technology. Tell us a little bit about Brian and some of his interesting points.Mitch Roshong: (00:46) Sure thing. Brian is an avid baseball fan, a history buff, and an extremely successful FP&A, a professional. For our conversation. He was able to explain how the emergence of big data is an asset to financial planning and analysis and that technology is not necessarily disruptive. One of my favorite quotes from the conversation was, the science of today is merely the technology of tomorrow. And Brian does an excellent job shaping the conversation around the opportunities created in FP&A. This was a really well rounded and interesting discussion. So let's listen now.Music: (01:26)Mitch Roshong: (01:28) Brian, what kind of impact have you seen big data have on FP&A?.Brian Kalish: (01:33) Well, I'd say Mitchell off the bed. You know, my, my gut answer is a huge impact. You know, in FP&A, we're really in the process of developing an analytics based culture of data driven decision making. And certainly utilizing big data is one of the components of that evolution. It's just incredible the amount of data that just exists today. I always like learning new things. And one of the things that I've learned recently is that we are now operating in a world of Bronto. So B-R-O-N-T-O-B-Y-T-E-S bytes of data, which is 10 to the 27th power. So, you know, we're now just, you know, given all the conductivity that that just exists in the world today. We just have so much data available to us. And what's, you know, kind of what's really changed is that we now have tools and infrastructure that permit us to actually analyze all this data in a useful, timely and, and cost efficient way. And so if you think about what the whole purpose of FP&A is, which is to help the organization make better, faster, smarter decisions, big data really flows into that. So as organizations begin to utilize big data, what's important from my perspective is really kind of the persona that FP&A has within the organization. So for most FP&A groups, you know, the aspiration is the move from being a reporter to a commentator, to an advisor. And I'd say kind of at a truly visionary standpoint becoming a strategist and why this matters and how big data plays into it is it really can help us answer the questions that the organization has for us. So whether you're at the corporate level, you're embedded in a business unit you're helping marketing or HR by utilizing big data, we can move from just answering the question of what happened to where did it happen. And then where it really becomes important is why did it happen, what might happen? And again, kind of at that top level is, you know, having the impact to actually make something happen. So you're looking at another way of dictated will move us up the maturity curve from just providing hindsight to what I hear most business partners asked for today, which is insight and I, you know, I'm a little bit further out the curve. I really think FP&A can actually begin providing foresight to the organization. So if you think about the level of analytics that we can use, you know, we can move from just providing descriptive to diagnostic to predictive and then ultimately to prescriptive. And certainly big data is one of the pieces that can help us get there.Mitch Roshong: (04:36) Sure. So as this big data flows into FP&A, and I love how you talked about the, the value maturity curve. As we kind of move along that curve, what are the challenges that are presented because of big data and the amount of it that you previously mentioned?Brian Kalish: (04:54) Sure. So, for me, I kind of have four pillars of what FP&A is built out of and they're certainly, you can always find challenges within any of the pillars. So, you know, what are we talking about as people, technology, process and culture. You know, you have to have a culture that wants to consume business new level of analytics. I was recently with an organization engaged with them and basically their management doesn't want it, like they're not interested in it. It's hard to implement it if you don't have a consumer. So you have to be in a proper culture that is willing to embrace it and utilize it and, you know, spend the resources to make it happen. But you also have your, you have to have the right processes in place because obviously as we're introducing new data sources, it's important to have from both a data governance perspective, but also from a decision making perspective. Do you have the proper governance in place? Do the people have the right skills? And then I think where we spend a lot of our time with big data is, is the technology. So it's great that we have access to this incredibly large database of structured and unstructured data, internal, external. But do we have the proper technology to do the analysis? And do we have systems that are actually powerful enough in place? I mean, these things all exist today. I mean, there are organizations that are certainly leveraging big data and utilizing even in artificial intelligence. But for individual organizations, do they have the proper technology in place? And one of the things that's I think has been fascinating is that we've really, and I'm not trying to get too wonky too soon but just the infrastructure, you know, we've been dealing with for the last 30 years, what's kind of known as an ETL, which is extract, transform load environment, which is, you know, data warehouses and we've very familiar with that. But what's really incredible, and I think what really poses a lot of tremendous op...

Kirstie's Resources:Tax Transformation Guide - https://www.bdo.com/thought-leadership/tax-transformation-guide Digital Transformation Survey - https://www.bdo.com/thought-leadership/digital-transformation-surveyInsight First Innovation - https://www.bdo.com/insights/business-financial-advisory/strategy,-technology-transformation/insight-first-innovation FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTAdam: (00:05) Hello and welcome back to another episode of Count Me In, IMA’s podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host, Adam Larson and today we're going to hear my cohost Mitch Roshong's conversation with the managing director in BDOs Chicago office, Kirstie Tiernan. First. As a reminder, if you're enjoying what you hear on, count me in, please make sure to subscribe, download rate and review all podcasts. Feel free to share your comments with us in the review section of the episodes or just send us an email now, Mitch, learning that Kristie has over 15 years of experience in data analytics and it advisory, what was she able to share during your conversation? Mitch: (00:43) Kirstie is a certified fraud examiner and an Oracle certified associate. She is experienced in managing fraud detection and prevention analysis projects and was able to share a lot of real life examples about some of her work with her clients. As you said, she has a strong background in IT, so she is a big proponent of researching and implementing technology to enhance various accounting services. We talked about how these advancements have improved the services she's able to provide as well as how it's changed the investigative work she needs to do with her clients. At the end of the conversation, Kirstie adds an intriguing prediction about what is next for the future of accounting. She's an engaging speaker and established and extremely successful professional. And someone I really enjoyed speaking with. Have a listen for yourself as we'll now go to the conversation. Mitch: (01:30) From your experience with digital forensics and eDiscovery services in the recent years, what kind of impact has this technology, the AIRPA had on fraud in the accounting industry? Kirstie: (01:50) Well, for forensic accountants in the increasing role of data that we have in business and in everyday of our lives and how much data is being created, that really just creates such a scope of potentially relevant evidence for investigations around and digital forensics need discovery. So I think the fact that the data is growing so exponentially so quickly, that's probably for forensic accountants, one of the biggest issues and one of the biggest impacts of technology is really had. With that though goes all of these new tools and all of these new ways and methodologies and using AI and machine learning, all these different things that we can utilize to call that data town. So where in the past for an eDiscovery project where we were looking at a lot more data, now we're using analytics, predictive coding, a lot of different tools to really narrow down on exactly what those relevant documents are and how we can review those most efficiently. So from my experience and going in digital forensics and you just go around that side, I'd say the impact that technology has really had been that and allowing us to review those very large sets of data very quickly and it's made it a little bit more difficult now that we have those tools for fraudsters to do the same old tricks. Right? So it, it does create a bit of a deterrent for the same fraud. You know, that's been created time and time again. However, with that also comes the risk that AI and some of these algorithms are allowing fraudsters to also develop their schemes. So it's technology, the impacted in both directions and we just hope that we can keep up, you know, with, with the way that the fraudsters are using it by detecting and quicker and using all these different new tools, statistic tools and analysis to really be able to identify these anomalies that are being created by fraudsters and new schemes. Mitch: (03:54) And how about with these tools, through your investigations, what kind of positive results have you recognized because of these different advancements and capabilities? In other words, what type of key business decisions or conclusions have you kind of been able to lead your clients to? Um, because of these accelerated processes. Kirstie: (04:13) So we have a lot of clients that maybe they know about a fraud that's going on and the typical issue is, okay, we're going to go investigate that. But our concern is what else is going on that we didn't know about? Right. And now we've got a ton of email data. We've got accounting system data, we've got POS data, we've got all this, this data that exists that we could search for where things could be happening that we're not even thinking about looking for yet. And so I think what AI has really allowed us to do is when a client comes to us and says, yeah, go investigate this, but what else is going on? We're now able to use those tools and that technology to go through those large sets of data. And so we have a, we had a client on too long ago where they came to us and that was this exact issue and they said what else could be going on? They said, just take a peek at the data and take a high level view of it somehow and tell us what else we should be looking at. So we ran a, through some of our, in an anomaly, we have a fraud detection algorithm we use and we look at it at the GL data. So the journal entry data by account. And we assess the risk by account using this algorithm. And what it's able to do is bubble up the top these transactions that look different than others, right? So you have all these transactions hitting revenue for instance, and then all of a sudden see something differently when you're talking about a client that has 10 million journal entries a month, it's impossible to run a round dollar analysis or show me all the payments on the weekends, that kind of stuff. To find this fraud, you need something bigger and something that can handle a lot more of the data sets that we're dealing with. So when we had that client come to us and give us three years of data and 2 million journal entries month, we were able to push it through that algorithm. The algorithm came back and it highlighted certain accounts of high risks year over year. And so we, what we did is we went back to the client and I said, okay, here are the top 10 high risk accounts that our tool is seeing. And one of the top one was a liquor tax and they had never had liquor tax in their review items. So that account kind of popped to the top and it was something that allowed us to further investigate, but something that they hadn't initially really reviewed in their typical internal audit process. Mitch: (06:36) And how about something that may not be fraud related? What are some of the positive results that you've been able to, you know, advise clients? Again, maybe something like process efficiency or you know, something where a tech has been able to just improve overall business functions. Kirstie: (06:54) Yeah, I'd say the biggest area for our clients right now is focused on tax transformation and tax automation. So within a lot of our clients tax teams, there's nev...

Contact Mason Brady:https://www.linkedin.com/in/masonbrady/https://www.hgofarms.com/FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00) Mitch: (00:05) Welcome to Count Me In. If you're joining us for the first time and you're interested in staying up to date with the latest perspectives on all things accounting and finance, please make sure you subscribe to our series, download rate and review all your favorite episodes as we keep you informed on what the experts are saying in the industry. And this week's episode, my co host, here Adam talks with Mason Brady, director of finance and supply chain for homegrown organic farms out in California. Now, Adam, you talked a lot about the finance function in a smaller enterprise. What did Mason have to say about it? Adam: (00:38) You know, Mitch, his passion for finance and operational efficiencies truly came through as he shared some of his insight into how one can lead strategic initiatives for smaller companies. Just like homegrown organic farms. Mason is a CMA with a finance and entrepreneurship focus MBA. He has a motivating perspective on improving the finance function for smaller businesses. So let's hear about Mason's current role and some of the rewards and challenges he's most familiar with.Music: (01:02) Adam: (01:04) Mason, you currently serve as the director of finance and supply chain for homegrown organic farms. Can you tell us a little bit about the rewards and challenges of serving as a CFO or finance director for a small enterprise? Mason: (01:23) You know, it kind of goes hand in hand as a reward and a challenge, but it's just the idea that you wear a lot of hats. So you know, it, you go online and you look up what does the CFO do for, and oftentimes you get a response FOR what a CFO does for a large corporation. And that usually involves capital management and procuring capital for projects and expansion plans and growth for the company. And it also involves a flavor of investor relations and having relationships with banks, et cetera, et cetera. And so that is a part of my job, but I also directly oversee the accounting functions. I do have a controller, an accounting manager in place, but very much so. Still involved in the accounting and, and building standard operating procedures and I'm really involved in the operations of our business and the operations of our accounting department as well. And so while I am tasked with doing a particular settings that a CFO or finance director, and usually it's known for when you work for a small enterprise that's just a sliver or a fraction of the entire pie of what you do. And so you know finding capital and procuring capital for growth for our company, that makes up maybe 10% of my time, while FPA makes up anywhere from 15 20% of my time. Overseeing accounting makes up another 30% of my time. And then in addition, I oversee the quality control functions and the procurement functions of materials, of packaging materials for our company. And so, yeah, it's just overall, it's the idea that you wear a lot of hats, which it's a lot of fun and it's really rewarding because you really understand the business as a whole better. But it is a challenge in ensuring that you are delegating appropriately, that you're not creating a bottleneck that you yourself are not becoming a bottleneck and ensuring that you're, you know, the operations of your business can flows smoothly without you having to be involved in absolutely everything or habit saying everything. And so yeah, it's finding that appropriate balance between the idea that you really get to see what's happening in your business. And so you can guide your accounting and your financing functions to ensure that they're meeting the needs of the business appropriately. But you really have to learn how to delegate and balance things as well. Adam: (03:47) So what comes with the oversight of accounting and FP&A in your organization? Mason: (03:52) Well you know a regular week looks like I have an accounting meeting with both my controller and accounting manager. Our County manager handles the AP and the grower accounting and then our controller you know, kind of, he provides a, we really have a part-time controller and he provides a higher level financial reporting perspective. And then also oversees our AR and our invoicing. And so the oversight there is really me engaging with them in those weekly meetings and reviewing our financials as a team together and ensuring that I'm able to spot out things or I'm able to ask questions and see how things are going and identifying where we may need a revised procedure and working with them directly to ultimately go implement a revised procedure. So if there is something related to AR invoicing, I would work, you know directly with my controller and go, you know, talk through what I understand and what they understand and try to come up with a common solution or, you know, I work with our accounting manager and talk to our AP and say, Hey, you know, how we're going with this. It doesn't seem to, it doesn't seem to align properly with the cruel standards. Maybe, maybe we need to make an adjustment like this and try to find the, a more simple way to do it. And so that's really what the oversight of accounting looks like. On the other hand, FP&A FP&A really resides in me And I, it's just the, it's just the fact that I have to you know, control the budgeting. I'm in charge of the forecasting, but I'm really the one with the financial modeling Excel skills to do that. And yeah, those are skills that, especially in a small enterprise are difficult to hire because you do have to pay good amounts of dollars for people who do have those skills in within small enterprises. That may not be something you can necessarily find the budget for. And so those functions really reside in me and really working directly with our CEO to provide forecasts and budgets as necessary. But I'm really pulling the data from our accounting team and our controller accounting manager and making sure that we all agree that what is being presented and in the financial reports looks appropriate. So then I can use that information and then forecast with it. So, in a way it's nice because from an FP&A perspective, I have my hand in the accounting, so I really no how to forecast something appropriately because I really understand the transaction. But I, yeah, I wish I could say that there's an oversight of FP&A, but really it's just me doing FP&A and well I do have a project coordinator that does handle a lot of KPI dashboards, produces a lot of KPI dashboards for me. It's still very much so me guiding that function me saying this is, this is how we're going to do it. And then laying out the plan of how we're going to do it. Adam: (06:45) That's great. That's a great kind of description of where you are. You know, so you were mentioning, you know, budgets and getting the right people involved. You know, a common story we hear is that small businesses can't take advantage of emerging technologies and software advancements because of their budgets. So what is your experience been with that? And do you have any best practices you can share to overcome the troubles with software design and implementation? Mason: (07:10) Oh, man. Yeah, this is probably the toughest question I have. It's, you know, it's very hard to replace the functionality and the flexibility of Excel. And I suggest whether somebody is in a smaller enterprise o...

(*EXTENDED EPISODE* Conclusion of Episode 4 from 6/24/19)#YAADS #datapossible https://www.theorylane.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-smith-data-scientist/https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/acid-just-sweet-80s-jeans-datapossible-daniel-smith/ https://github.com/thedanindangerFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00) Adam: (00:04) Hey everybody. Welcome to Count Me In, IMA's podcast about all things effecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larson here with Mitch Roshong and this week we cover the topic of data analytics and emerging technologies in accounting and finance. We have an extended bonus episode for you where we will cover multiple areas within this topic and conclude a previously recorded conversation. Mitch, can you tell us more about it? Mitch: (00:28) Thanks Adam. As you may remember a while ago I spoke with Dan Smith at length about all these technology and data related topics. Again, Dan is the head of innovation and the founder of theory lane integration solutions and he offers a very unique perspective on how these ideas relate to accounting, finance. Our talk got even more interesting as it went on, so I'm really excited for you to hear the remainder of our conversation.Music: (00:54) Mitch: (00:56) How can senior management accountants who may have limited knowledge when it comes to data analytics gain a deeper knowledge or a better understanding so they can enable themselves and their organization to kind of face these new challenges that are presented or new opportunities as we've said to work with technological tools. Dan: (01:18) Absolutely. We have this conversation almost every day. The easiest answer for me would be to check out the the IMA's analytics competency framework cause I've done a lot of advising with you guys on that. Absolutely right. Quick plug!, A longer answer is that I mentioned in a previous response the idea we're starting to break down the barriers of traditional business structure. There was a famous statement made over half a century ago by I believe he was a doctor, Dr. Conway. It's called Conway's law. It comes up in software development all the time. Conway stated, "any communication system designed in a business is going to model the structure of that business." In a modern context, it means that any solution, any application that's designed to solve a business problem is going to model the structure of that business. Now we've created a whole new set of ways we can current problems with the new paradigm of it's actually the internet. It's digital data. It's not just analytics, it's because now we can have information move in a completely different way. We have a business structure that is set up with a pencil and paper type of data in mind. Up until the past 10 or 20 years, we've just used computers to accelerate what was otherwise a written form of communication. Now we have to have these cross functional competencies because information is no longer constrained to a specific department. Those cross functional competencies are what we've been calling data science. That's the intersection of data statistics and business application of data and statistics. In my general competency framework, not the one that's just for accountants management accountants. I replaced statistics with machine learning simply because machine learning to me is the application of statistics through computer programs as opposed to a more traditional statistical approach. I don't think in many cases now for financial accountants you do because you guys are heavy in math, but in most cases you don't actually need to know that much statistics. It's abstracted away in most of the models you just need to know if it's right or wrong. So management accountants are a little bit of an exception, but otherwise in terms of data, the competency, if you know the lower level competencies, so you know how data moves in an organization, where does it live? How, how was it created, what are basic data structures and do you know how to use the data to create analysis in such a way that it benefits the business? Those are the low level competencies. I'm going to get more into those later so I don't want to dwell too much on them. fundamentally though it's the difference between understanding the competencies, understanding the low level reasoning behind what you're doing versus thinking about what tools should I use or what program should I use to solve this problem? Understanding what that tool is doing to solve the problem as opposed to what type of tool should I use. Mitch: (06:03) Once we have that foundational knowledge, those low level competencies, how do we, how do we move up? You know, how do we get these skills, these competencies? How do we learn the tools that are available so that we can make more effective decisions? Dan: (06:20) Yes. Perfect segue. There's a slide that I use all the time and you can probably find it on a webinar or on LinkedIn or somewhere where I talked about the idea of concepts versus tools versus technology. I use the analogy of building a house. When you first want to build a house, you talk to an architect. That architect uses the concepts of material design, of calculus, of structural engineering, all these ways in which he or she knows where to place a wall, to build a house, to put the foundation in, to put up the roof, et cetera. What you don't ask that architect is what type of hammer do they want to use for, or what type of CAD software are they are they using to create these images? It's irrelevant. and an architect certainly wouldn't start learning architecture by going to the hardware store and picking out, sitting there, evaluating what's the best hammer for the job. They would figure out what the concepts are and they would realize that, you know, a hammer might not even be what they need. They might need a screwdriver, they might need a pneumatic press. I look at learning a specific tool in the same way. Some concepts and some knowledge and tools translates very easily into other ones. I tend to recommend a bottom up approach with the caveat that you want to be able to apply that knowledge as quickly as possible. So you feel like your doing something, it's easy to get discouraged if you just feel like you're taking classes all the time. a nice mix of that is Python and Python, Jupiter notebooks or the various notebooks, solutions that you can find easily. If you know, if you know Python or if you can, you can't, you can't know. You can't know a programming language. First off, that's, that's a that's a common misconception. You can be capable of solving problems using that programming language, but you will never learn all of the programming languages. It's impossible. It'd be like learning English. People still study English all the time, but you can reach a level of functional competency with it. With, with Python, you can understand what's going on behind the scenes. You can do some basic programming, but it abstracts enough so that you're not bogged down in defining every single thing and working through all this obscure knowledge with that knowledge, with understanding basic programming competencies, you can move into a lower level language like a Java or a C plus or a C sharp. you can also easily move up into a into a more visual tool lik...

John on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejohngarrett/Meet John: https://therecoveringcpa.com/meet-john/What's Your "And"? Podcast: https://therecoveringcpa.com/episode-200-whats-your-and/The Recovering CPA: https://therecoveringcpa.com/John's Message: https://youtu.be/YNs0BS0pjCcFULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPTMusic: (00:00) Adam: (00:04) Welcome back to count me in. IMA's podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm Adam Larsen and with me as always is my cohost Mitch Roshong. Today I know you can count on another great episode. We were joined by the host of the, what's your and podcast keynote speaker and MC John Garrett. John is an engaging motivator who looks to shatter accounting stereotypes and encourages everyone to develop stronger relationships with colleagues and clients. Tell us, Mitch, what was John's message throughout your conversation? Mitch: (00:35) John is referred to as the CPA turned catalysts for culture change and his message is all about the future of professionalism. He has done extensive research on how people's hobbies and passions impact their careers and in turn create a stronger workplace culture. On his podcast, he talks to accountants, consultants, lawyers, and other professionals about all the things they do outside the office. His emphasis is on identifying how these interests positively impact the work they do for our podcast. He shared some of his background and gave us a few interesting examples from his former guests to help explain the value of recognizing and calling on an individual's passion.With an accounting background and a unique perspective on workplace relationships. John explains how and why organizations can and should create cultures that attract and retain top talent.   Music: (01:31) Mitch: (01:33) I want to hear a little bit about your journey and how did you become, what you call the recovering CPA? John: (01:38) Yeah, so I, graduated from the university of Notre Dame and then started at a PriceWaterhouseCoopersand I did that for three and a half, almost four years. And then in the meantime, I was at a training? One of my first trainings was in LA, and so I took a, there were four or five of us that every way was like a three or four week training. And, we would drive down on Thursdays to the improv in Hollywood and watch whose line is in any way would tape in the studio and then they would come to the improv and do an uncensored show, in the middle of standup comedians before and after. And it was amazing. You're hanging out with Drew Carey and Collin Mockery and Ryan Styles and all these, and then comedians, Adam Stanley would drop in. And, you know, It was just like nuts. And and so, you know, you see these standups in Hollywood and you're like, well, I can be as funny as some of these people. And yeah. And so I just started to do stand up for fun, just as a hobby. It was clearly the exact opposite of, doing internal audit and mergers and acquisition work. And it was, you know, just a creative outlet. And, yeah. And then over time, I accidentally got really good and you know, I started to take vacation to go, do it. And then I left public accounting and went into industry, so that then I could, you know, have a little more of a regular schedule and, yeah, I just kept pursuing it. And then in may of 2005 left altogether to do a stand up full time, although I don't ever advocate that anyone does anything that ridiculous. Like it's insane. It's insane. Don't quit your job, keep it as a hobby. Like it's nuts and, yeah. And then about four or five years ago, kind of married those two lives together and bringing some engagement and a unique thought to corporate events. you know, all staff meetings, partner retreats, executive, new manager training type things or even just as an emcee and hosting panels. Because let's face it, I've been in the audience for a lot of these and, they are not, stimulating, I guess is the nicest way to say it. Mitch: (03:45) Very fair. Well, a definitely an interesting journey, you know, not one you hear too often from, from an accountant. But yeah, out there though, man. They're out there. They're, we're cool. Don't tell anybody. No, no, no. I, I really enjoy the stories. So yeah. Where are you are now how you married everything together? I guess in a nutshell, kinda tell me, you know, what, what's your vision? What's your goal? What are you doing here to help companies kind of recognize why their culture matters and, and what do you have to offer them? John: (04:13) Yeah. Well, the ultimate goal is that when a teacher asks a kid, Hey, what do you want to be when you grow it up? They say, I want to be an accountant. And instead of astronaut or fireman or whatever ridiculous other job, no, I'm just kidding, they're not ridiculous obviously, but, but yeah, I mean it would be just so cool if people just quit looking at us, and we quit looking at ourselves in this way and so I'm out there just shattering the stereotype of what people and, and the saddest thing to me is that I think the people that believe the stereotype the most are accountants themselves. And it's just trying to get them to see that, we all have a unique skill set and a unique talent that we bring to the office and that expertise isn't always in our degrees and letters after our name with certifications, sometimes this expertise is, outside of work passions and interests that we have, makes us better at our job. You know, it gives us unique skill and or, and makes us human and relatable to, good coworkers to people in other departments. And, and so it's been fascinating and about four years of research now that I've put in and just, just finding all kinds of examples, and , interviewing 'em over 200 people, and of all kinds and , just just finding out that, you know, hey, the stereotype is upside down. Actually the stereotypical professional is someone who has multiple dimensions to them and the sooner that, organizations accept this and celebrate this and shine a light on that, the better it is going to be for everyone, including your bottom lines. So, that's basically what I'm out there doing is yeah, just working that, shattering that stereotype. Mitch: (05:57) Well, I know here at IMA we've released our competency framework recently, you know, enhanced it with a couple revisions to it and one of the, you know, central elements is our leadership domain. So, you know, in talking with you a lot that you are sharing with organizations, I feel kind of fit into those competencies, you know, are very relevant to, the industry even though it is a little bit off kilter. You know, it's a little bit different perspective, but you know, how can you provide some highlights for our listeners on how important, you know, motivation, inspiring a lot of the key attributes of leadership apply to understanding who they are outside of the office. John: (06:37) Yeah, absolutely. And you know, I mean, because you can't really develop trust, with people if you're trying to be super manager, super accountant, super technical expertise person No one believes you. No one trusts you. That's very ...