February 4, 2025 • 26 mins
On Episode 197 of The Unique CPA, Randy Crabtree welcomes Greg Adams, Senior VP and CFO at the American Management Association and author of the novel Green Shade$. Greg discusses his career journey, his passion for the profession which served as inspiration for his novel—which features an accountant protagonist—and his advocacy for improving the image and perception of accountants. He emphasizes the importance of soft skills in the accounting profession and offers insights on how to address the declining number of CPA exam takers by improving the image and appeal of accounting as a whole.
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(00:00):
Hello and welcome to the UniqueCPA with your host, Randy Crabtree.
We're committed to creating a thrivingcommunity of accounting professionals
who are physically and mentally healthy,fulfilled, and energized by their work.
Our ultimate goal is to elevatethe reputation of the accounting
profession and vastly improvethe lives of those in it.
The Unique CPA is broughtto you by Tri-Merit, the specialty tax professionals.
(00:24):
Today, our guest is Greg Adams.
As a side note, I'm very excited aboutthis discussion today, but Greg is a senior vice president and chief financial
officer of the American ManagementAssociation, but the reason I'm excited about this discussion today, and more
importantly, Greg is a huge advocate forthe profession and recently released a
book called Green Shade$ (00:45):
Accountants Aren't Supposed to Die this Way.
I have my copy of it.
Uh, Greg, welcome to the Unique CPA.
Thanks, Randy.
It's great to be with you and Ilook forward to our discussion.
Yeah, I do too.
I've actually been telling somepeople about the book and they're like, Oh, I got to get that.
And then I pull up the websiteand they said, that sounds cool.
(01:06):
I got to get that.
But all right, before we get into that,why don't you give us a little background of who you are and what you're doing?
And then we'll start discussingthe profession and the book.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I'm currently, as you said,I'm Chief Financial Officer of the American Management Association.
It's a not for profit educationalinstitution, particularly soft skills,
(01:27):
which many of those skills accountantsmay or may not lack or definitely need.
But prior to being CFO of the AMA, andI've been here a little over five years, I did the traditional accounting route.
I spent 11 years at KPMG.
I was an accounting major, a CPA,passed the CPA exam, and then after
(01:48):
KPMG, I've been a CFO of three publiccompanies and a private company.
It's been quite a journey.
And, uh, now moving into a not for profitwith a very good mission, an educational mission to actually try to change behavior
and help individuals at work, and oftenthe skills you learn are at home, in
(02:09):
particular, uh, listening skills, whichso many, many folks need to work on.
But I only say that because I, evenmyself, I'm still taking courses.
I took a critical thinking course acouple of weeks ago, and you know,
one, one major skill is, yeah,listen before you react to something.
So it's been a fun journey as a CFO and.
What got me to write this book isI've had all these, you know, almost 30 years plus of experience of Being
(02:36):
a CFO and more importantly being theaccountant and I was getting frustrated
to a degree Of someone would ask youwhat's your you know, what do you do?
They always ask that.
What do you do?
What do you do?
I said, I'm an accountant And I alwaysfound myself having to pause and use the but, but I really do a lot of
(02:56):
cool things like when I was at KPMG,I was, I was three years in Australia.
How many people get to workin Australia for three years?
Nice.
I saw so many different industries from,you know, Banking at Citibank, to Pepsico, to a gold mine in the middle of the bush.
So, that really drove me towrite this novel, Green Shade$.
(03:18):
To have a protagonist, ahero, that's an accountant.
You know, that solvesproblems and saves the world.
And so I tried to make the book alsonot only a fun, you know, crime thriller
worldwide, which takes place in Australiaand New York City and Barbados and India.
I also try to work in what's goingon in the accounting profession and what are some useful tools.
(03:42):
And I put a lot of those, thatinformation in the exhibits to the book.
Yeah, I did notice thatthe exhibits were there.
I want to go back to one thing yousaid, because I find this interesting when people ask, what do you do?
Because every time someone asks that,I like, uh, well, I'm an accountant.
But, and exactly what you justsaid, I'm an accountant, but I really just go out and talk.
(04:04):
And so that still doesn't, I have tohave a mindset of what it is that I do.
And without a but, I'm an accountant andI do really exciting things that are just
so, you know, they're passionate about andit lights me up and that kind of stuff.
That's what I need tofigure out how to say that.
So
yeah,
exactly.
Then again, that's why I reallydrove me to write Green Shade$ and have an exciting journey that you
(04:30):
can follow this Jack Reacher typecharacter who's in nice around the world as he figures out, you know.
What had happened to is one of hisclosest friends who happened to show up dead on the northern beaches of
Australia And he had to figure out howthe heck did that happen because he's
a good surfer and I don't think hedrowned Something happened with that.
(04:53):
Yeah
an adventure, you know, there's so manyDirections you can go as an accountant so many industries you can go to and
we're in a unique situation in thatwe can We usually have our fingers in everything, and we know what's
going around, particularly a CFO or acontroller or even an accounting manager.
You know what's going on inyour corporation, your company, all different departments.
(05:17):
And that is one profession that isprobably one of the only professions that you have your hand in almost anything,
and you can quickly go to differentindustries if you want to move jobs.
Not pigeonholed necessarily.
Let's go a a little deeper into thebook without giving things away, just as a, I mean, you, I think you did a
(05:38):
good job already, but is there any,because then I wanna go into, we got an
idea of how you wrote it, why you wroteit, but just the, give us the synopsis.
And I assume you can do thisbecause you talked about the book
and you wrote the book without,without giving us any spoilers.
Yeah, I'll give you alittle bit of synopsis.
So the protagonist, thehero is Derek "Dex" McCord.
(05:59):
Oh, cool
name.
And Dex McCord is a bigfour, a big accounting firm.
Can't say big four, butI use a fictional name.
Although I referenced the big four andother large accounting firms in the book.
Okay.
I'll talk about theirpersonalities of each firm.
Dex McCord sends his.
Close buddy, he used to live in Australia,Dex Macquarie, sends his buddy from Australia to India to do a simple
(06:23):
audit of an SEC XBRL processing companythat creates documents XBRL tags them, and if you don't know about XBRL, the
book will explain it, and a lot moreabout the exhibit, so don't worry.
I was going to
say, this isn't simple to me,but I'm not an auditor, so
So they're barcodingfinancial statements in India.
(06:44):
Tony comes back to Australia, andlike I said, he's all of a sudden He's asked to do something that
he's found on the northern beachesof Australia, and the authorities conclude it's a surfing accident.
Dex McCord goes to Australia tothe funeral, and he starts to
uncover facts that, hey, this maynot have been a surfing accident.
And all of a sudden, he's theone being hunted by the bad guys.
(07:06):
Oh.
All right.
The journey takes himback to New York City.
He has to go down to Barbadosto see what's going on there.
And it really, it covers so many differenttopics in the novel because at times
I will go back and talk about how didDex McCord become a good accountant?
What skills did he have to learn?
Right.
(07:26):
His mentor is in the book is a CFO ofEdgar, a. SCC Document Filing Company, who kind of helps them and mentors them.
And every accountant needs a good mentor.
But, you know, the novel is, like Isaid, it's a financial crime thriller.
But it has all the, I got toput a warning in there, it has violence, has some sexual tension.
(07:46):
Oh!
That's what you might comeacross in this journey.
Yeah.
But it's just a fun, fun novel.
But it also has things in therelike, what's the pay scale at large accounting firms?
Okay.
What are some of the key financialratios when algorithm trades are
made, made and, you know, nanosecondtrades are made from SEC information?
(08:08):
What happens if someone has someSEC information a little bit early?
Oh, look at you.
All right.
So I know one of the, the, youknow, you actually recently wrote a, an article for Accounting Today.
And I think, actually I should have putthe title here, but I think some, one
of the themes of it or the theme of itwas soft skills for accountants, right?
Or am I Confusing that.
(08:28):
I've written two articlesrecently for Trendlines.
One is the importance and the powerof soft skills for accountants.
And the other is how financeleaders use storytelling.
In particular, storytelling here,in Green Shade$, is obviously the epitome and the big example of it.
(08:48):
But, you know, first startingwith storytelling, I use the term, actually it's an AMA term, it's a
degree that we teach this, we need tolearn how to spar with our audience.
And as accountants, We'reconstantly doing that.
We don't realize it, butwe're constantly doing that.
SPAR stands for There's a situationthat we identify, there's an
(09:08):
action that has to happen, there'sa result that we're looking for.
And by the way, oh, oh, I forgot the first
one.
There's a P in there somewhere.
Situation problems.
Problem.
Got it.
Action and result.
And so storytelling, you need to sortof start with that and then build on it and how we, we solve those problems.
(09:28):
And as accountants, we're constantlyasked to solve problems, so we're constantly asked to make our clients
money or save them money or usuallyimpact their lives quite often.
So that's a big part of it.
So the soft skills storytellingis this one aspect of it.
We also need good communicationskills, good critical thinking skills, business acumen 100%.
(09:52):
And, you know, getting backto the original reason I wrote the book, accounts in general.
You know, there's aperception, there's an image,
and
break through that image.
And I think that image has hurt us in theprofession with respect to the pipeline of the number of people taking the CPA exam.
It's a bad image.
So that needs to change image.
(10:12):
And it needs to be, you know,disclosed to the world how cool it is to be accountants.
Like, like Dex.
Yes, exactly.
Dex McCord is a cool accountant.
There's a lot of them.
So we need to, uh, makeaccountants cool again.
So maybe I should havea hat like that, right?
A Macca, Macca hat.
Make accountants cool again.
(10:34):
I think we've always been cool though.
It's just the perception hasnot been there of the coolness.
Maybe not.
I'm very lucky.
I get to hang out with a lot of coolaccountants like you writing, uh, mystery novels that are pretty cool.
So the book though, with Dex, a lotof things that you're highlighting with him is his soft skills, right?
And how he's using that to,you know, come up with these.
(10:56):
And again, I haven't read the book, butsolve this mystery that he's dealing with.
Exactly.
So it's a lot of it is criticalthinking skills and diving deeper into issues and circumstances and what is
happening and trends and then learningabout things like, you know, what is the Edgar system and the SEC and if
(11:18):
the Edgar system is being played with,what can happen and SEC violates.
And so Dex McCord has to constantlykind of build these skills and
deep dive into how are, youknow, how are financial traders?
How are black box tradinghappening with financial data?
You know, how is quant analyticsgoing on to make investment decisions?
(11:42):
Impacted by SEC filings, for example.
Right?
He has to be able to, uh, explain thisto his audience and, and in the novel, I need to explain it to my audience, a
lot of the things by, by keeping it in afun way, not necessarily technical way.
And so it gets, again, it getsback to that storytelling.
It gets back to everyday lifethat accountants have this storytelling usually leveraging.
(12:05):
Data, the data will show you thetrends and, and now with artificial intelligence, that's a whole nother
direction of how we start having theleverage and the trends that go with it.
Yep.
And then, so with, you know, Dex andsoft skills and general soft skills for the accounting soft skills, I think I
had read that this is something that youthink that we need to concentrate on more.
(12:28):
In the education part ofbecoming an accountant that this is something that's ignored.
We're very good at teaching the technicalon that, but the soft skills and I think I read somewhere was maybe in your article
where people are valuing the soft skillsmore than they are the technical skills.
And so you think we'refalling short on that?
And how do we handle this?
Yeah,
exactly.
I think we are falling short on that.
(12:49):
Seems like most of the trainingaccountants focus on and even
most of their bosses or the HRdepartments is technical in nature.
And we have the same issue here atAMA where most of our audience is engineers, for example, and accountants.
At AMA we have over 30 coursesthat you can get CPE credits for your CPA that are just soft skills.
(13:12):
Nice.
Soft skill credits.
So, you know, one solution is topush away the technical skills.
That's kind of a given.
And even now with Google searches,you can find the answer or other resources or auditors.
That's a given.
But what CEOs and higher seniormanagers and the relationships you have at work, what matters most is
your soft skills, is your presentationskills, is your communication skills.
(13:36):
Like I said, your businessacumen, your critical thinking.
So I believe accountantsneed to focus on that.
And Randy, also for your listeners.
They can always reach out to me at AMA.
I will take 500 off any of our coursesfor anyone that reaches out to me.
Oh, nice.
And as a matter of fact, I'll evengo a step further and the first three people that contact me, I will give
(13:57):
them a free course at AMA and you canget, you know, you get 24 CPEs if you need and our retail value is 2, 500.
So it's a good offer for us.
Well, I'm very lucky that this episodewon't be coming out for a while
because I just signed up now, so Iget 24 hours of, no, I'm kidding.
I am not going to do that.
I will not be one of the first three.
(14:19):
I'll wait for the episode to come outbefore we let anybody know about that.
But we'll put a link in the shownotes, and I really appreciate that.
But those soft skills, I agree completely.
I don't remember who told methis, but I don't know if it
was in a session somewhere, orI was just talking to somebody.
But I think that's how they put it.
You know what?
No matter what you do, you'renot going to be the greatest technical accountant in the world.
(14:40):
Everybody has these skills.
What's going to differentiate you isthese soft skills, these leadership skills, communication skills, and these
relationship building skills, and that iswhat's going to differentiate you in this profession, because that's what really
puts your personality out there, which iswhat attracts people to what you're doing.
Absolutely.
My whole career has beenreally kind of presented.
(15:02):
Whether it's to the staff, whetherit's to the board of directors, whether it's to the community, I mean, all your
stakeholders are looking at you sortof to, to be the leader in the room
and communicate out what's going on andwhat's important, what's not important.
So the soft skills, wecan't emphasize enough.
And sometimes I likecalling them power skills.
(15:24):
Nice.
The power skills are so important toevery Accountant out there and it'll
change perception because most of thetime it internally at your company.
Oh, oh, I have to go talk to the Internalaccountant and it's almost like a burden.
Well, if you can approach them in avery friendly and Exciting way and get them really behind you But what
(15:46):
you're trying to do on the situationon the problem and create an action in
the result That will help you in yourprofession, I think, in the long run.
And so, let's just talk, since you'rejust talking about profession, let's talk about the profession in general.
Because we are, you know, I don'tknow if we call it crisis mode.
We are in a situation where we don't havethe people coming in that we used to.
And we have probably morepeople leaving once they come in that they have in the past.
(16:10):
And so, I guess first, uh, thereare other issues that you're identifying, but not just issues then.
How do we change this?
Do you have the magic, uh, pillof how we, uh, and perception?
I know you already mentioned this partof it, but let's talk about, you know,
what is going on that is causing thisand then what can we do in your opinion?
Right.
So yeah, it is very alarming thatbasically since the turn of the century and kind of when they
(16:35):
changed the 120 hour rule, it's beenroughly a 40 percent decline, over 40 percent people taking the exam.
That is really alarming.
And I look at three major factors.
First and probably foremost,and improving a bit, but not there yet, is work life balance.
Yep.
Now, accountants don't mind working hard.
(16:56):
They'll work hard, they havedeadlines, they have to, you
know, meet their deadlines, andmost accountants usually will.
But there does need to be a littlebit better work life balance, and I think, Randy, you might have
even written about that recently,and done some studies about it.
The second in my mind is, um, pay, andthe pay scale, I think, needs to increase for accountants, it's so, so important.
(17:18):
I'm a little bit more draconianin thought of particularly auditing and accounting firms.
That there should be some kind ofprofit share and revenue share.
You know, the private equity guys arecoming into our profession for a reason.
There's a lot of profits there.
So I think, potentially be a little morecreative in the pay scale for accounts.
And then the third gets back tothat, the image and the branding.
(17:40):
Dex McCord, we will count, but youwant friends with because, um, you
know, the image, the perceptionof accountants needs to improve.
It's not, you know, you and I,we, we know we've been around.
It's really got to start thehigh school and college level.
You've got to be programs.
I don't want to bam out the AICPA,but you know, they're sitting on 120 million plus of cash.
(18:05):
If you look at that in 990.
And I think there needs to be a bigcampaign, a big branding and imaging campaign at the high school level.
You know, maybe it's giving a novel outlike Green Shade$ at the college level.
I have had some professors thathave bought it and reached out to
me, and they're working it intotheir curriculum as extra credit.
(18:27):
If you read this book andanswer a few questions, they're going to give you extra credit.
So they reached out to me.
Hey, what kind of questionsshould we ask our students?
So image is so important.
It starts.
Really at, you know, lower level and eventhroughout, throughout everyone's work history It'll encounter people that say,
you know I should have been an accountantbecause they're kind of stuck in a dead
(18:48):
end job Whereas as accountants like, youknow, I really don't like this industry.
I'm gonna move over to the tech industryI want to get into tech industry,
even though you might have been in themanufacturing industry as an accountant.
So there's a lot you can do.
So we need to brand it and brand animage out, get those salaries up.
And it's good to see some firmsare starting to put at least some 10 percent increases.
(19:12):
I know some of the big fourfirms are starting to do that.
And then lastly, again, that worklife balance needs to be there.
We can't constantly be in theoffice, we need to get out and go surfing, for example.
Yep, and I honestly think that'sa personality issue, not issue, yeah, I'll say issue with us.
It's just the way we think of thingsand the way we want to help rather
than, you know, look at, you know,how we help ourselves as well.
(19:34):
In fact, today, I mean, obviously whenthis gets released, this will have run already, but it'd be on YouTube today.
I'm recording a webinar with HectorGarcia, uh, which is prioritizing mental health while preparing for tax season
because you and I are recording rightnow in November, you know, which I think that's still staying evergreen.
I can tell him when we're recording,this'll probably be released in January or February, but it'll be in tax season.
(19:59):
But yeah, You know, wewant to get people ready.
We're in tax planning season.
Let's not only just tax plan for ourclients, let's tax plan mentally for ourselves for this next tax season.
So that we don't come out April 16th,just completely exhausted and burned out, so what are the things we can do?
And I know there's a lot of peopledoing positive things in that way,
(20:19):
but that's that image that we nowhave to show that, Hey, we are.
Integrating technology tohelp us be more efficient.
We are prioritizing work life balance.
We are finding ways to shut down atthe end of the day, this kind of stuff.
And so if we can show thatthat's happening, I really am.
Bullish means positive, right?
I am really bullish on this profession.
(20:39):
All right, there we go.
Exactly, and
actually I think recent statisticsare starting to show that the
pipeline is starting to build,people are getting more excited.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a good thing.
I think.
Yep.
For sure.
And I know that AICPA, the pipeline,the survey study that they did, Jennifer Wilson helped out with that, you know,
had a lot of good data in there andactually it looks like we're going to try to incorporate the data that you
(21:03):
referenced that we did recently onsatisfaction levels in the profession
in with that survey and see ifthere's any way we can collaborate on.
Getting even stronger data out of there.
So I see positive thingshappening, cool things happening.
Like your book will be a lotof fun for the profession.
And I'm looking forward to Januarywhen I have my downtime and I can spend it reading the book.
(21:27):
I'm seeing so many good reviews online.
Then I'm very excited to get this going.
So before I ask a couple last questions,anything you want to, uh, um, summarize on what we've discussed so far?
Yeah.
Just.
Just the biggest takeaway, obviously,besides buying my book and give
it to your friends and family,particularly future accountants.
(21:49):
The advice I have for most people, whetheraccount or not, is when you're at work,
one, go into the office as much as you canbe present, because let people see you.
And two, when you're in youroffice, don't sit at your desk, get up, walk around, talk to people.
That's how you're going to findout how things are going on.
And then.
You'd be able, from there, elevateyour career, network properly with individuals, and networking, we haven't
(22:16):
talked about networking, but obviouslythat's a really important thing.
Oh, yeah.
Even tonight, I'm going, still networkingat my age, still going to the New York Society of CPAs is opening a new office.
Oh, nice.
They're having a reception tonightfor their new office, and that's
exciting, but things like that, I'msure I'm going to meet a handful.
Accountants just like me and havea great time and make new friends.
(22:39):
So, get out there as much as you can.
Yep.
For me, relationships are one ofthe most important things that we, I think, ignore too much because
we just concentrate on work, work,work rather than relationships.
But relationships is reallythe key to, you know, I think, mental and financial success.
So, yeah, that's important.
All right.
Two last questions.
And the final one will be, you know,information on where they can get ahold of you in the book and all that.
(23:02):
But before that.
I'm a big proponent of peopleare more than their job title.
And so, you know, you are CFO,you're an author, but what are your outside of work passions?
What do you do for fun when you're notdoing all of these work related things?
Yeah, probably thebiggest thing is softball.
(23:25):
Nice.
I played baseball in college.
I'm in my young sixties now and I'm stillplaying softball and you know, it's.
Nothing I say more about thegame and who wins or loses.
It's about the camaraderie.
Oh, yeah, I agree completely.
Yep.
Yeah having a beer withthe guys afterwards.
So yep.
That's one thing I still do besidesread I like reading historical fiction and I also like fishing.
(23:48):
Nice.
I'm a good surfer.
I'm a good body surfer But I'm not good
surfer.
I tried that when I wasliving in Australia.
I tried surfing.
It was a disaster They had tocome rescue me half the time
Plus, there's all those sharks there.
So,
and in the book, Dex McCord,he will encounter some sharks.
Nice.
All right.
(24:08):
Well, those, those soundlike awesome hobbies.
Uh, then lastly, then if people want to,you know, get the book, reach out to you,
find out more about what you're doing,where I think we're places they can look.
Yeah, take a look.
The first one, obviously,is, yeah, Amazon.
The book's on there.
Green Shade$ with an S. A lot ofpeople get the S. It's a dollar sign.
(24:29):
Yep.
But it's not available on Amazon, but alsogo to my website, which is CPA-Author.com, and you'll be able to see videos.
There'll be some examples of the exhibits,like salaries of Big Four accountants.
And on there you'll see an email.
GAdams@CPA-Author.Com, or youcan always reach out to me at the AMA at gadaGAdams@AMANet.org.
(24:57):
You know, I would love yourfeedback, but like I said, so far, the reviews have been great.
It's been, the book also, one surprisehas been a lot of companies have bought it in bulk to give for prospecting.
Some small accounting firms have sentit to their customers and prospects.
Insurance companies, accountingsoftware companies, so.
It's getting out there, andI think the reader will enjoy
(25:19):
the journey of Dex McCord andrealize that accountants are cool.
Nice, I agree, accountants are cool.
Well, I'm excited, likeI said, to read it.
I'm also excited, you're motivating me.
I've been working on thebook for two plus years now.
But it's going to be released in 2025.
So now I have to do itbecause I said it on here.
(25:39):
It will be released, butit's nothing like your story.
It's more about the firm culture and theimportance of it and putting people first.
So, all right.
Well, Greg, thank you somuch for being here today.
I'm glad we were able to do this.
And again, looking forward to seeingthe impact that your book's going to be making on this profession.
Thank you, Randy.
I really appreciate it.
And hopefully after the book, you'llsee us on Netflix and there'll be
(26:02):
an accounting hero instead of acop or a doctor and those stuff.
Nice.
I want a cameo appearance on that show.
All right.
Great.
All right.
Well, thanks.
Thanks everybody for listening today.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining ustoday on the Unique CPA.
You can find the shownotes for today's episode.
(26:24):
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(26:44):
net.
Hello and welcome to the UniqueCPA with your host, Randy Crabtree.
We're committed to creating a thrivingcommunity of accounting professionals
who are physically and mentally healthy,fulfilled, and energized by their work.
Our ultimate goal is to elevatethe reputation of the accounting
profession and vastly improvethe lives of those in it.
The Unique CPA is broughtto you by Tri-Merit, the specialty tax professionals.
(00:24):
Today, our guest is Greg Adams.
As a side note, I'm very excited aboutthis discussion today, but Greg is a senior vice president and chief financial
officer of the American ManagementAssociation, but the reason I'm excited about this discussion today, and more
importantly, Greg is a huge advocate forthe profession and recently released a
book called Green Shade$ (00:45):
Accountants Aren't Supposed to Die this Way.
I have my copy of it.
Uh, Greg, welcome to the Unique CPA.
Thanks, Randy.
It's great to be with you and Ilook forward to our discussion.
Yeah, I do too.
I've actually been telling somepeople about the book and they're like, Oh, I got to get that.
And then I pull up the websiteand they said, that sounds cool.
(01:06):
I got to get that.
But all right, before we get into that,why don't you give us a little background of who you are and what you're doing?
And then we'll start discussingthe profession and the book.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I'm currently, as you said,I'm Chief Financial Officer of the American Management Association.
It's a not for profit educationalinstitution, particularly soft skills,
(01:27):
which many of those skills accountantsmay or may not lack or definitely need.
But prior to being CFO of the AMA, andI've been here a little over five years, I did the traditional accounting route.
I spent 11 years at KPMG.
I was an accounting major, a CPA,passed the CPA exam, and then after
(01:48):
KPMG, I've been a CFO of three publiccompanies and a private company.
It's been quite a journey.
And, uh, now moving into a not for profitwith a very good mission, an educational mission to actually try to change behavior
and help individuals at work, and oftenthe skills you learn are at home, in
(02:09):
particular, uh, listening skills, whichso many, many folks need to work on.
But I only say that because I, evenmyself, I'm still taking courses.
I took a critical thinking course acouple of weeks ago, and you know,
one, one major skill is, yeah,listen before you react to something.
So it's been a fun journey as a CFO and.
What got me to write this book isI've had all these, you know, almost 30 years plus of experience of Being
(02:36):
a CFO and more importantly being theaccountant and I was getting frustrated
to a degree Of someone would ask youwhat's your you know, what do you do?
They always ask that.
What do you do?
What do you do?
I said, I'm an accountant And I alwaysfound myself having to pause and use the but, but I really do a lot of
(02:56):
cool things like when I was at KPMG,I was, I was three years in Australia.
How many people get to workin Australia for three years?
Nice.
I saw so many different industries from,you know, Banking at Citibank, to Pepsico, to a gold mine in the middle of the bush.
So, that really drove me towrite this novel, Green Shade$.
(03:18):
To have a protagonist, ahero, that's an accountant.
You know, that solvesproblems and saves the world.
And so I tried to make the book alsonot only a fun, you know, crime thriller
worldwide, which takes place in Australiaand New York City and Barbados and India.
I also try to work in what's goingon in the accounting profession and what are some useful tools.
(03:42):
And I put a lot of those, thatinformation in the exhibits to the book.
Yeah, I did notice thatthe exhibits were there.
I want to go back to one thing yousaid, because I find this interesting when people ask, what do you do?
Because every time someone asks that,I like, uh, well, I'm an accountant.
But, and exactly what you justsaid, I'm an accountant, but I really just go out and talk.
(04:04):
And so that still doesn't, I have tohave a mindset of what it is that I do.
And without a but, I'm an accountant andI do really exciting things that are just
so, you know, they're passionate about andit lights me up and that kind of stuff.
That's what I need tofigure out how to say that.
So
yeah,
exactly.
Then again, that's why I reallydrove me to write Green Shade$ and have an exciting journey that you
(04:30):
can follow this Jack Reacher typecharacter who's in nice around the world as he figures out, you know.
What had happened to is one of hisclosest friends who happened to show up dead on the northern beaches of
Australia And he had to figure out howthe heck did that happen because he's
a good surfer and I don't think hedrowned Something happened with that.
(04:53):
Yeah
an adventure, you know, there's so manyDirections you can go as an accountant so many industries you can go to and
we're in a unique situation in thatwe can We usually have our fingers in everything, and we know what's
going around, particularly a CFO or acontroller or even an accounting manager.
You know what's going on inyour corporation, your company, all different departments.
(05:17):
And that is one profession that isprobably one of the only professions that you have your hand in almost anything,
and you can quickly go to differentindustries if you want to move jobs.
Not pigeonholed necessarily.
Let's go a a little deeper into thebook without giving things away, just as a, I mean, you, I think you did a
(05:38):
good job already, but is there any,because then I wanna go into, we got an
idea of how you wrote it, why you wroteit, but just the, give us the synopsis.
And I assume you can do thisbecause you talked about the book
and you wrote the book without,without giving us any spoilers.
Yeah, I'll give you alittle bit of synopsis.
So the protagonist, thehero is Derek "Dex" McCord.
(05:59):
Oh, cool
name.
And Dex McCord is a bigfour, a big accounting firm.
Can't say big four, butI use a fictional name.
Although I referenced the big four andother large accounting firms in the book.
Okay.
I'll talk about theirpersonalities of each firm.
Dex McCord sends his.
Close buddy, he used to live in Australia,Dex Macquarie, sends his buddy from Australia to India to do a simple
(06:23):
audit of an SEC XBRL processing companythat creates documents XBRL tags them, and if you don't know about XBRL, the
book will explain it, and a lot moreabout the exhibit, so don't worry.
I was going to
say, this isn't simple to me,but I'm not an auditor, so
So they're barcodingfinancial statements in India.
(06:44):
Tony comes back to Australia, andlike I said, he's all of a sudden He's asked to do something that
he's found on the northern beachesof Australia, and the authorities conclude it's a surfing accident.
Dex McCord goes to Australia tothe funeral, and he starts to
uncover facts that, hey, this maynot have been a surfing accident.
And all of a sudden, he's theone being hunted by the bad guys.
(07:06):
Oh.
All right.
The journey takes himback to New York City.
He has to go down to Barbadosto see what's going on there.
And it really, it covers so many differenttopics in the novel because at times
I will go back and talk about how didDex McCord become a good accountant?
What skills did he have to learn?
Right.
(07:26):
His mentor is in the book is a CFO ofEdgar, a. SCC Document Filing Company, who kind of helps them and mentors them.
And every accountant needs a good mentor.
But, you know, the novel is, like Isaid, it's a financial crime thriller.
But it has all the, I got toput a warning in there, it has violence, has some sexual tension.
(07:46):
Oh!
That's what you might comeacross in this journey.
Yeah.
But it's just a fun, fun novel.
But it also has things in therelike, what's the pay scale at large accounting firms?
Okay.
What are some of the key financialratios when algorithm trades are
made, made and, you know, nanosecondtrades are made from SEC information?
(08:08):
What happens if someone has someSEC information a little bit early?
Oh, look at you.
All right.
So I know one of the, the, youknow, you actually recently wrote a, an article for Accounting Today.
And I think, actually I should have putthe title here, but I think some, one
of the themes of it or the theme of itwas soft skills for accountants, right?
Or am I Confusing that.
(08:28):
I've written two articlesrecently for Trendlines.
One is the importance and the powerof soft skills for accountants.
And the other is how financeleaders use storytelling.
In particular, storytelling here,in Green Shade$, is obviously the epitome and the big example of it.
(08:48):
But, you know, first startingwith storytelling, I use the term, actually it's an AMA term, it's a
degree that we teach this, we need tolearn how to spar with our audience.
And as accountants, We'reconstantly doing that.
We don't realize it, butwe're constantly doing that.
SPAR stands for There's a situationthat we identify, there's an
(09:08):
action that has to happen, there'sa result that we're looking for.
And by the way, oh, oh, I forgot the first
one.
There's a P in there somewhere.
Situation problems.
Problem.
Got it.
Action and result.
And so storytelling, you need to sortof start with that and then build on it and how we, we solve those problems.
(09:28):
And as accountants, we're constantlyasked to solve problems, so we're constantly asked to make our clients
money or save them money or usuallyimpact their lives quite often.
So that's a big part of it.
So the soft skills storytellingis this one aspect of it.
We also need good communicationskills, good critical thinking skills, business acumen 100%.
(09:52):
And, you know, getting backto the original reason I wrote the book, accounts in general.
You know, there's aperception, there's an image,
and
break through that image.
And I think that image has hurt us in theprofession with respect to the pipeline of the number of people taking the CPA exam.
It's a bad image.
So that needs to change image.
(10:12):
And it needs to be, you know,disclosed to the world how cool it is to be accountants.
Like, like Dex.
Yes, exactly.
Dex McCord is a cool accountant.
There's a lot of them.
So we need to, uh, makeaccountants cool again.
So maybe I should havea hat like that, right?
A Macca, Macca hat.
Make accountants cool again.
(10:34):
I think we've always been cool though.
It's just the perception hasnot been there of the coolness.
Maybe not.
I'm very lucky.
I get to hang out with a lot of coolaccountants like you writing, uh, mystery novels that are pretty cool.
So the book though, with Dex, a lotof things that you're highlighting with him is his soft skills, right?
And how he's using that to,you know, come up with these.
(10:56):
And again, I haven't read the book, butsolve this mystery that he's dealing with.
Exactly.
So it's a lot of it is criticalthinking skills and diving deeper into issues and circumstances and what is
happening and trends and then learningabout things like, you know, what is the Edgar system and the SEC and if
(11:18):
the Edgar system is being played with,what can happen and SEC violates.
And so Dex McCord has to constantlykind of build these skills and
deep dive into how are, youknow, how are financial traders?
How are black box tradinghappening with financial data?
You know, how is quant analyticsgoing on to make investment decisions?
(11:42):
Impacted by SEC filings, for example.
Right?
He has to be able to, uh, explain thisto his audience and, and in the novel, I need to explain it to my audience, a
lot of the things by, by keeping it in afun way, not necessarily technical way.
And so it gets, again, it getsback to that storytelling.
It gets back to everyday lifethat accountants have this storytelling usually leveraging.
(12:05):
Data, the data will show you thetrends and, and now with artificial intelligence, that's a whole nother
direction of how we start having theleverage and the trends that go with it.
Yep.
And then, so with, you know, Dex andsoft skills and general soft skills for the accounting soft skills, I think I
had read that this is something that youthink that we need to concentrate on more.
(12:28):
In the education part ofbecoming an accountant that this is something that's ignored.
We're very good at teaching the technicalon that, but the soft skills and I think I read somewhere was maybe in your article
where people are valuing the soft skillsmore than they are the technical skills.
And so you think we'refalling short on that?
And how do we handle this?
Yeah,
exactly.
I think we are falling short on that.
(12:49):
Seems like most of the trainingaccountants focus on and even
most of their bosses or the HRdepartments is technical in nature.
And we have the same issue here atAMA where most of our audience is engineers, for example, and accountants.
At AMA we have over 30 coursesthat you can get CPE credits for your CPA that are just soft skills.
(13:12):
Nice.
Soft skill credits.
So, you know, one solution is topush away the technical skills.
That's kind of a given.
And even now with Google searches,you can find the answer or other resources or auditors.
That's a given.
But what CEOs and higher seniormanagers and the relationships you have at work, what matters most is
your soft skills, is your presentationskills, is your communication skills.
(13:36):
Like I said, your businessacumen, your critical thinking.
So I believe accountantsneed to focus on that.
And Randy, also for your listeners.
They can always reach out to me at AMA.
I will take 500 off any of our coursesfor anyone that reaches out to me.
Oh, nice.
And as a matter of fact, I'll evengo a step further and the first three people that contact me, I will give
(13:57):
them a free course at AMA and you canget, you know, you get 24 CPEs if you need and our retail value is 2, 500.
So it's a good offer for us.
Well, I'm very lucky that this episodewon't be coming out for a while
because I just signed up now, so Iget 24 hours of, no, I'm kidding.
I am not going to do that.
I will not be one of the first three.
(14:19):
I'll wait for the episode to come outbefore we let anybody know about that.
But we'll put a link in the shownotes, and I really appreciate that.
But those soft skills, I agree completely.
I don't remember who told methis, but I don't know if it
was in a session somewhere, orI was just talking to somebody.
But I think that's how they put it.
You know what?
No matter what you do, you'renot going to be the greatest technical accountant in the world.
(14:40):
Everybody has these skills.
What's going to differentiate you isthese soft skills, these leadership skills, communication skills, and these
relationship building skills, and that iswhat's going to differentiate you in this profession, because that's what really
puts your personality out there, which iswhat attracts people to what you're doing.
Absolutely.
My whole career has beenreally kind of presented.
(15:02):
Whether it's to the staff, whetherit's to the board of directors, whether it's to the community, I mean, all your
stakeholders are looking at you sortof to, to be the leader in the room
and communicate out what's going on andwhat's important, what's not important.
So the soft skills, wecan't emphasize enough.
And sometimes I likecalling them power skills.
(15:24):
Nice.
The power skills are so important toevery Accountant out there and it'll
change perception because most of thetime it internally at your company.
Oh, oh, I have to go talk to the Internalaccountant and it's almost like a burden.
Well, if you can approach them in avery friendly and Exciting way and get them really behind you But what
(15:46):
you're trying to do on the situationon the problem and create an action in
the result That will help you in yourprofession, I think, in the long run.
And so, let's just talk, since you'rejust talking about profession, let's talk about the profession in general.
Because we are, you know, I don'tknow if we call it crisis mode.
We are in a situation where we don't havethe people coming in that we used to.
And we have probably morepeople leaving once they come in that they have in the past.
(16:10):
And so, I guess first, uh, thereare other issues that you're identifying, but not just issues then.
How do we change this?
Do you have the magic, uh, pillof how we, uh, and perception?
I know you already mentioned this partof it, but let's talk about, you know,
what is going on that is causing thisand then what can we do in your opinion?
Right.
So yeah, it is very alarming thatbasically since the turn of the century and kind of when they
(16:35):
changed the 120 hour rule, it's beenroughly a 40 percent decline, over 40 percent people taking the exam.
That is really alarming.
And I look at three major factors.
First and probably foremost,and improving a bit, but not there yet, is work life balance.
Yep.
Now, accountants don't mind working hard.
(16:56):
They'll work hard, they havedeadlines, they have to, you
know, meet their deadlines, andmost accountants usually will.
But there does need to be a littlebit better work life balance, and I think, Randy, you might have
even written about that recently,and done some studies about it.
The second in my mind is, um, pay, andthe pay scale, I think, needs to increase for accountants, it's so, so important.
(17:18):
I'm a little bit more draconianin thought of particularly auditing and accounting firms.
That there should be some kind ofprofit share and revenue share.
You know, the private equity guys arecoming into our profession for a reason.
There's a lot of profits there.
So I think, potentially be a little morecreative in the pay scale for accounts.
And then the third gets back tothat, the image and the branding.
(17:40):
Dex McCord, we will count, but youwant friends with because, um, you
know, the image, the perceptionof accountants needs to improve.
It's not, you know, you and I,we, we know we've been around.
It's really got to start thehigh school and college level.
You've got to be programs.
I don't want to bam out the AICPA,but you know, they're sitting on 120 million plus of cash.
(18:05):
If you look at that in 990.
And I think there needs to be a bigcampaign, a big branding and imaging campaign at the high school level.
You know, maybe it's giving a novel outlike Green Shade$ at the college level.
I have had some professors thathave bought it and reached out to
me, and they're working it intotheir curriculum as extra credit.
(18:27):
If you read this book andanswer a few questions, they're going to give you extra credit.
So they reached out to me.
Hey, what kind of questionsshould we ask our students?
So image is so important.
It starts.
Really at, you know, lower level and eventhroughout, throughout everyone's work history It'll encounter people that say,
you know I should have been an accountantbecause they're kind of stuck in a dead
(18:48):
end job Whereas as accountants like, youknow, I really don't like this industry.
I'm gonna move over to the tech industryI want to get into tech industry,
even though you might have been in themanufacturing industry as an accountant.
So there's a lot you can do.
So we need to brand it and brand animage out, get those salaries up.
And it's good to see some firmsare starting to put at least some 10 percent increases.
(19:12):
I know some of the big fourfirms are starting to do that.
And then lastly, again, that worklife balance needs to be there.
We can't constantly be in theoffice, we need to get out and go surfing, for example.
Yep, and I honestly think that'sa personality issue, not issue, yeah, I'll say issue with us.
It's just the way we think of thingsand the way we want to help rather
than, you know, look at, you know,how we help ourselves as well.
(19:34):
In fact, today, I mean, obviously whenthis gets released, this will have run already, but it'd be on YouTube today.
I'm recording a webinar with HectorGarcia, uh, which is prioritizing mental health while preparing for tax season
because you and I are recording rightnow in November, you know, which I think that's still staying evergreen.
I can tell him when we're recording,this'll probably be released in January or February, but it'll be in tax season.
(19:59):
But yeah, You know, wewant to get people ready.
We're in tax planning season.
Let's not only just tax plan for ourclients, let's tax plan mentally for ourselves for this next tax season.
So that we don't come out April 16th,just completely exhausted and burned out, so what are the things we can do?
And I know there's a lot of peopledoing positive things in that way,
(20:19):
but that's that image that we nowhave to show that, Hey, we are.
Integrating technology tohelp us be more efficient.
We are prioritizing work life balance.
We are finding ways to shut down atthe end of the day, this kind of stuff.
And so if we can show thatthat's happening, I really am.
Bullish means positive, right?
I am really bullish on this profession.
(20:39):
All right, there we go.
Exactly, and
actually I think recent statisticsare starting to show that the
pipeline is starting to build,people are getting more excited.
Yep.
Yeah, that's a good thing.
I think.
Yep.
For sure.
And I know that AICPA, the pipeline,the survey study that they did, Jennifer Wilson helped out with that, you know,
had a lot of good data in there andactually it looks like we're going to try to incorporate the data that you
(21:03):
referenced that we did recently onsatisfaction levels in the profession
in with that survey and see ifthere's any way we can collaborate on.
Getting even stronger data out of there.
So I see positive thingshappening, cool things happening.
Like your book will be a lotof fun for the profession.
And I'm looking forward to Januarywhen I have my downtime and I can spend it reading the book.
(21:27):
I'm seeing so many good reviews online.
Then I'm very excited to get this going.
So before I ask a couple last questions,anything you want to, uh, um, summarize on what we've discussed so far?
Yeah.
Just.
Just the biggest takeaway, obviously,besides buying my book and give
it to your friends and family,particularly future accountants.
(21:49):
The advice I have for most people, whetheraccount or not, is when you're at work,
one, go into the office as much as you canbe present, because let people see you.
And two, when you're in youroffice, don't sit at your desk, get up, walk around, talk to people.
That's how you're going to findout how things are going on.
And then.
You'd be able, from there, elevateyour career, network properly with individuals, and networking, we haven't
(22:16):
talked about networking, but obviouslythat's a really important thing.
Oh, yeah.
Even tonight, I'm going, still networkingat my age, still going to the New York Society of CPAs is opening a new office.
Oh, nice.
They're having a reception tonightfor their new office, and that's
exciting, but things like that, I'msure I'm going to meet a handful.
Accountants just like me and havea great time and make new friends.
(22:39):
So, get out there as much as you can.
Yep.
For me, relationships are one ofthe most important things that we, I think, ignore too much because
we just concentrate on work, work,work rather than relationships.
But relationships is reallythe key to, you know, I think, mental and financial success.
So, yeah, that's important.
All right.
Two last questions.
And the final one will be, you know,information on where they can get ahold of you in the book and all that.
(23:02):
But before that.
I'm a big proponent of peopleare more than their job title.
And so, you know, you are CFO,you're an author, but what are your outside of work passions?
What do you do for fun when you're notdoing all of these work related things?
Yeah, probably thebiggest thing is softball.
(23:25):
Nice.
I played baseball in college.
I'm in my young sixties now and I'm stillplaying softball and you know, it's.
Nothing I say more about thegame and who wins or loses.
It's about the camaraderie.
Oh, yeah, I agree completely.
Yep.
Yeah having a beer withthe guys afterwards.
So yep.
That's one thing I still do besidesread I like reading historical fiction and I also like fishing.
(23:48):
Nice.
I'm a good surfer.
I'm a good body surfer But I'm not good
surfer.
I tried that when I wasliving in Australia.
I tried surfing.
It was a disaster They had tocome rescue me half the time
Plus, there's all those sharks there.
So,
and in the book, Dex McCord,he will encounter some sharks.
Nice.
All right.
(24:08):
Well, those, those soundlike awesome hobbies.
Uh, then lastly, then if people want to,you know, get the book, reach out to you,
find out more about what you're doing,where I think we're places they can look.
Yeah, take a look.
The first one, obviously,is, yeah, Amazon.
The book's on there.
Green Shade$ with an S. A lot ofpeople get the S. It's a dollar sign.
(24:29):
Yep.
But it's not available on Amazon, but alsogo to my website, which is CPA-Author.com, and you'll be able to see videos.
There'll be some examples of the exhibits,like salaries of Big Four accountants.
And on there you'll see an email.
GAdams@CPA-Author.Com, or youcan always reach out to me at the AMA at gadaGAdams@AMANet.org.
(24:57):
You know, I would love yourfeedback, but like I said, so far, the reviews have been great.
It's been, the book also, one surprisehas been a lot of companies have bought it in bulk to give for prospecting.
Some small accounting firms have sentit to their customers and prospects.
Insurance companies, accountingsoftware companies, so.
It's getting out there, andI think the reader will enjoy
(25:19):
the journey of Dex McCord andrealize that accountants are cool.
Nice, I agree, accountants are cool.
Well, I'm excited, likeI said, to read it.
I'm also excited, you're motivating me.
I've been working on thebook for two plus years now.
But it's going to be released in 2025.
So now I have to do itbecause I said it on here.
(25:39):
It will be released, butit's nothing like your story.
It's more about the firm culture and theimportance of it and putting people first.
So, all right.
Well, Greg, thank you somuch for being here today.
I'm glad we were able to do this.
And again, looking forward to seeingthe impact that your book's going to be making on this profession.
Thank you, Randy.
I really appreciate it.
And hopefully after the book, you'llsee us on Netflix and there'll be
(26:02):
an accounting hero instead of acop or a doctor and those stuff.
Nice.
I want a cameo appearance on that show.
All right.
Great.
All right.
Well, thanks.
Thanks everybody for listening today.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining ustoday on the Unique CPA.
You can find the shownotes for today's episode.
(26:24):
And learn more aboutTri-Merit at theuniquecpa.
com.
Remember to subscribe and leave a fivestar rating on your favorite podcasting
app and join us next time for moreexpertise and insights on the unique CPA.
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(26:44):
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