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Together, Let's Shift Perspective

This year we had a clear vision to celebrate the accomplishments of our profession. As CPAs, we're used to rewarding good work with more work. But our board was very clear that we wanted to think differently and celebrate good work with recognition. 

Each of my President’s Messages highlighted the efforts of our CPA community and as we roll into the holiday season, I can’t help but be thankful for everyone’s contributions. 

 on why we stay in the profession, why we stay as members of CalCPA and why we want to enrich our lives with more than just the work. 

Highlighting our Young Emerging Professionals (YEPs)

. These are the impact players to our organization who are constantly challenging the norms of what a nonprofit should be. Each of these YEP Committee chairs have contributed time and energy to create an inclusive environment that all can enjoy. 

It was extremely important to me and chapter board members that we 

. The success we have as an organization is based on the daily contribution from these impact players. They even sacrifice their weekends to ensure successful events! Our profession is surrounded by these supportive members of the community.

 at our wonderful event at the W Hollywood. The time and energy spent successfully completing the CPA Exam is no easy feat and each of these new licensees deserved an evening of recognition. 

Diversity and inclusion have been at the forefront of our board. We expressed our support by doing something the LA Chapter had never done before: We created an event supporting our women’s soccer team, 

. Not only did we get to celebrate the team’s win, but we also got to celebrate on the field! 

Our CalCPA scholarship recipients put together a video to 

. Those that contribute to our Scholarship Fund make a direct impact on our student member’s ability to enter the profession. Your contributions helped hundreds, if not thousands of students enter the CPA profession and our scholarship recipients wanted to thank all those donors. 

Lastly, we wanted to celebrate you, the CPA. Your contributions to our profession have led us to where we are today. We worked for more than 15 months with the 

. The success of this event was in large part thanks to the contribution of the 

, which saw our vision to celebrate our profession’s success.

As we approach 2023, I can’t help but thank the volunteering efforts of our members and the firms that support them. If you want to 

Celebrating Our Profession

To begin, I want to steal from one of my predecessors. CPA – Coolest Professional Around. Thanks Ty Dennis! We all need to do a better job of presenting this message to the next generation of high school, community college, and four-year college students. One of my passions for many years has been financial literacy. I think that the outreach that CalCPA does in this area for students can easily be combined with our efforts to increase the numbers of candidates in the CPA pipeline. We need to inform them of the myriad of niche opportunities in our profession. They may know about tax and audit. However, they may not know about what I do. My practice consists of business management services for entertainment clients and financial planning/investment advisory services. What about forensic accounting or work with non-profits? We need to address this void of knowledge about our profession if we are to succeed in increasing the number of students entering our profession. 

While trying to engage the next generation of CPAs has to be a priority, we still need to provide benefit and meaning to our current membership. When I first became involved with CalCPA in the 90s, there were many monthly discussion groups. Today, they are quite rare. While we can’t turn back the clock, we have made a real effort to have several exciting events in various locations around our chapter area. I think that you will find them engaging and useful. I know that we all utilize webinars. However, this online learning does not replace in person events. You can’t compare online groups with networking in the flesh. I know I have learned a lot from my colleagues by talking with them at various events. I hope that you will join me at our ABC (Attorneys, Bankers & CPAs) networking event on June 13th. We also have our Student Summer Leadership Program on June 25th and June 26th. Volunteer and be a mentor. We also have a networking mixer for our SLP attendees and Emerging Professionals on July 25th and then our Honoree night for new licensees and scholarship award winners on August 8th. As you can see, we have a lot going on. This is your chapter and organization. If you have any ideas on how we can better serve members, please let me know.

An Organization for All CPAs

To begin, I want to steal from one of my predecessors. CPA – Coolest Professional Around. Thanks Ty Dennis! We all need to do a better job of presenting this message to the next generation of high school, community college, and four-year college students. One of my passions for many years has been financial literacy.

Program Manager

Director of Chapter Engagement & Operations

Chapter President

Richard Giedlin

Whether you’re an entry level staff accountant or seasoned partner, let’s face it – there is a ton of work to do right now. The market for compliance work is on fire, driven by huge changes in government tax and audit regulations. Firms are drowning in work and need to find staff, but face a huge problem - We have broken the CPA career path and now face the consequences of our actions.

The CPA “pipeline” has seen better days. The new generation looks to stressed-out partners and employees in public accounting and shudders. Between flat pay, long hours, and a tax season that “never ends,” I can’t blame them. Why work in a field that may be automated, or pays less than the tech industry for the same hours?

Everything is now on the table, and many different players now drive the pipeline solution. It’s urgent - something needs to be done now and quickly. CalCPA Council members and executive leaders are asking tough questions, such as: 

Yet with all of this noise, it makes me reflect on what I enjoy most about the accounting profession. Flexibility (work wherever!), upward mobility (less red tape to move up), and entrepreneurship (run your own company on minimal startup capital) are great reasons to join the profession. Additionally, some of the practice focus areas are beyond fascinating – who knew I could build a career solely on forensic accounting work?

As an industry, we need to shift the newer generation’s perspective on the CPA profession. I hope that during my term we can do just a bit more to bridge the gap between generations and generate some “buzz” for accounting.