Future-proof | A Podcast For Tomorrow's Accounting & Finance Pros

The world has been slowly transitioning towards remote work, but we are suddenly in an era where many of us have been forced to adopt remote work practices in a very short time. Some of us weren’t ready for this, and we could all use a little guidance in making the leap. Here to help us through that is Greg Rittler, the founder of Blue Ocean Ideas. We learn what it takes to lead a fully-remote team like this under very difficult circumstances, and he has some great insights into how to lead a remote team in an era of crisis — lessons that many of us need in this profession.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Blueoceanideas.comMACPA.org/COVID-191. Welcome to the World of Exponential Change: Becoming an Anticipatory Organization | with Daniel BurrusFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Amidst all the chaos of the coronavirus, we are all trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy in our day-to-day lives. One way people are trying to maintain as much of the status quo as possible is through remote work. Our guest this week, Tina Garza, has some great guidance for businesses and employees alike when it comes to working remotely and returning to business as usual.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Accountingprose.comlinkedin.com/in/cristina-tina-garza-small-business-superhero-b5622124/The Coronavirus Outbreak Has Become the World’s Largest Work-From-Home ExperimentCOVID-19 Has My Teams Working Remotely: A Guide for LeadersFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

The coronavirus has caught everyone’s attention, and not in a good way. Most of what you read out there largely falls somewhere between paranoia and panic and — given the reliability of the “news” we see in our social feeds — that’s not good for anybody. Jennifer Elder of the Business Learning Institute has compiled a list of questions that business leaders can use to help their organizations prepare for the potential impact of the coronavirus. And now is the best time to do it because things are likely to get worse before they get better.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Coronavirus: How prepared are you?Experts Simulated a Coronavirus Pandemic Last Year and It Killed 65 Millionwww.centerforhealthsecurity.org/Event201www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/recommendationswww.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/videosFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

When you’re talking about life in an exponential age, there are few skills that are as important as anticipation — the ability to spot future trends early, before they become truly disruptive, and take advantage of the opportunities they offer.One person who truly understands the importance of anticipation is our guest today, Rita McGrath. Rita is a longtime professor at Columbia Business School and a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. She’s considered one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth, and her latest book, Seeing Around Corners: How To Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen, offers an interesting perspective on the concept of anticipation. She joins us to talk about how her thoughts fit into what the MACPA is doing with Daniel Burrus and share insight into how we can all become better anticipators.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more: www.ritamcgrath.comRead: Seeing Around Corners: How To Spot Inflectio

Bots are the name of the game this week. They are all the rage, and they’re setting their sights on the accounting and finance world. No one knows that more than our guest this week. Jody Padar built her “Radical CPA” brand as chief executive officer of New Vision CPA Group near Chicago. But then, in January she was named vice president of strategy for Botkeeper. We ask Jody about the potential of bots to transform this profession. As a future-focused accounting and finance professional, this is a conversation you need to pay attention to.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more: www.botkeeper.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jody-padar-18a9711/Start mastering these Future-Ready skills now by visiting MACPA.org/future-learning-frameworkFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

When we had a whole show highlighting blockchain last year, the hype around it was sky-high. It was supposed to transform our profession and, in fact, many professions. It seemed like there was no problem that couldn’t potentially be solved through the use of blockchain technology. Now, things have cooled off a bit, but people in our profession are still very interested in how blockchain might transform what we do.Keith Nichols, General Manager for small to mid-size firms with Thomson Reuters, is one of them. Keith was previously Thomson Reuters’ managing director for government, which meant he had significant say in the global strategy and business operations of the government practice with the Tax and Accounting business at Thomson Reuters. That meant he was recognizing blockchain’s potential to disrupt things like governmental tax transactions, land registries, and things like that. He’s been watching this technology for a while now, and he has some pretty interesting insights into the real potential

We spend a lot of time talking about exponential technologies and the disruptive impact they’re having on our world — but today’s guest turns the tables on the mindset and focuses, instead, on the importance of exponential thinking. Jeffrey Rogers is the Principal Facilitator at Singularity University, which is a global learning and innovation community that uses exponential technologies to tackle the world’s biggest challenges.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-rogers-ab368658/Read: “How Will You Measure Your Life?”Watch: "Jeff Rogers: Exponential thinking and creative resolution | SingularityU Brazil Summit 2019"Start mastering these Future-Ready skills now by visiting MACPA.org/future-learning-frameworkFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

In this episode, we’re talking about innovation in CPA firms — and, no, this isn’t the punchline to a knock-knock joke. It’s happening, believe it or not, and on a pretty serious scale.Joining us to about it is none other than Jonathan Kraftchick. Jonathan is the partner of assurance services in the Raleigh office of Cherry Bekaert, where he is known (informally) as the firm’s Innovation Partner and heads up the firm’s Innovation Team. Jonathan has some great insights into what innovation actually looks like in practice within the stereotypically non-innovative environment of a CPA firm, and understanding what innovation looks like is an important first step towards being innovative.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Twitter: twitter.com/jkraftchickLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jkraftchick"Jonathan Kraftchick Named Triangle’s Funniest Accountant"Start mastering these Future-Ready skills now by visiting MACPA.org/future-learning-frameworkFuture-Proof is a pr

We spent last week talking about federal tax issues that you might need to know about as we head into this year’s Busy Season. This week, we’re going to do the same thing — but on the state tax side of the ledger.So we sit down with Peter Franchot, comptroller for the state of Maryland. We also asked some of our MACPA members what questions they have for the comptroller, and we got a ton of responses. We were able to ask a few in this episode, but we hope to share answers to even more of your questions on the MACPA blog soon.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Prepare for tax season at MACPA.org/taxStart mastering Future-Ready skills now by visiting http://macpa.org/future-learningFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Settle in and relax, folks, because this might be your last chance to chill until April.Yeah, tax season is here. And yeah, you’re probably going to be busy — but today’s episode just might help.Our guest is Cari Weston, director of tax practice and ethics for the American Institute of CPAs. She down with our host, Bill Sheridan, at the 2019 Digital CPA Conference to talk about the issues that will be impacting tax pros in 2020. This year, for a change, those issues go well beyond the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Prepare for tax season at aicpa.org/taxConnect with Cari on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/cariwestonLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learning Find CPA tax training at MACPA.org/taxAccounting Today's 2020 "Year Ahead" surveyRead: "2020 tax season filing preview”Future-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Given the latest research within the profession — see our recent conversation with Lexy Kessler for details on all of that — there’s one thing that most accounting and finance professionals are thinking about: talent.How to find talent, how to keep it, and how to figure out what the best talent wants in the first place. This last bit is really important, too, because what younger generations want is often different from what the older generations wanted. To learn more about this generational gap and what you can do to attract the best and brightest of the next generation of accountants, we sit down with Monique Malcolm-Hay, a senior consultant at PwC and founder of New-Gen Accountants.If you have any interest in the future of this profession, this episode is a must-listen.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:www.newgenaccountants.comLinkedIn: .linkedin.com/company/new-gen-accountants/Twitter: @NewGenAccountInstagram: @NewGenAccountantsLearn more at MACPA.org/

This episode releases on the cusp of a new year — so, if you’re reading this in 2019, we want to wish you a very happy, healthy, and prosperous 2020. Here’s to you and yours.Of course, with the new year comes New Year’s resolutions, and there’s one resolution that all accounting and finance professionals (and, really, most people) can benefit from: becoming a better delegator.So we sit down with Emily Morgan, the mastermind behind a group called Delegate Solutions, which offers premium-level virtual assistant services for entrepreneurs. They tackle your distracting to-dos, create a strategic delegation plan for meeting your goals, and fully manage the virtual team assigned to your projects.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:DelegateSolutions.comDownload your FREE Delegate and Elevate worksheetRead: Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino WickmanRead: How To Be A Great Boss by Gino Wickman and Rene BoerLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proo

Client Accounting Services (CAS) are the services that CPAs provide because clients can’t do them, don’t want to do them, or just aren’t good at doing them. It’s that full-menu offering of taking over many of a client’s routine internal accounting chores. The popularity of these services is growing, too — to the extent that a lot of people in the accounting and finance profession consider CAS to be a new line of business, something they need to start exploring to keep up with the competition.But these services really aren’t new at all. Some firms have been doing this stuff for years, and bear the battle scars to prove it. In the process, they have also learned a thing or three that the rest of us can benefit from.So we sit down with one of these early vanguards of Client Accounting Services, Robin Thieme. Robin is the CEO and CAO — that’s Chief Anticipation Officer — of KBS CFO, a company that serves as a CFO, Chief Information Officer, and Chief Operating Officer for their clients. That might sound like

Today’s episode puts the P in CPA — because we’re talking about public practice! What is going on with CPA firms these days, anyway?Quite a bit, as it turns out. The world is changing, and with every change that the world experiences these days, the folks who work at CPA firms seem to get a double dose of it. They have to figure out how to embrace these changes and disruptions inside their own firms, but at the same time, they have to help their clients figure out what to do about all of this complexity.But our guest Lexy Kessler has her fingers on the pulse of CPA firm challenges and opportunities more firmly than most people in the profession. Because, in addition to being a partner with Aronson LLC and a member of the Maryland Association of CPAs’ Board of Directors, Lexy is the current chair of the AICPA Private Companies Practice Section, a group that supports CPA firms in the everyday intricacies of running a practice.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Lea

Today we’re asking an important question that every industry is going to have to ask sooner or later: What does future-focused leadership look like?Our guest, Rachel Druckenmiller, is on a mission to humanize the workplace by igniting intentional leadership. She has made a name for herself nationally in the fields of workplace wellness and culture. In 2019, she was recognized as a 40 Under 40 Game Changer by Workforce Magazine, and in 2018, Employ Humanity named her one of “7 Wellness Leaders Making a Positive Impact.”But all of this — wellbeing, wellness, culture — it all ties directly to leadership. And Rachel trains leadership teams to be more self-aware, curious, and connected so that they can have greater impact and influence at their organizations.So, with those types of insights at our disposal, we wanted to find out from Rachel what a future-ready leader looks like.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:www.RachelDruckenmiller.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/i

So you know Simon Sinek? Best-selling author, leadership expert, the people-don’t-buy-what-you-do-they-buy-why-you-do-it guy?Well, he has a new book titled The Infinite Game and our host, Bill Sheridan, has become a bit obsessed with this notion of playing the Infinite Game, of adopting an infinite mindset.So we sat down with Stephen Shedletzky, chief of staff with Simon Sinek’s team at Start With Why. He supports leaders in creating environments where their people feel inspired to go to work, feel safe and valued while they are there, and return home at the end of each day fulfilled by the work they do.Stephen and I talk about ALL of this — the difference between Finite and Infinite Games, the benefits of thinking more infinitely, and how traditionally Finite-based professions — LIKE accounting and finance — can get started down a path toward thinking more Infinitely.Really good stuff this week. And if you can’t listen to Simon Sinek, then Stephen will definitely do. Here is Stephen Shedletzky.To learn more,

Back in episode 66, we spoke with Matt Loeb about digital transformation, and he brought up a great point — just because you’re enacting some digital solutions doesn’t make you a digital organization. There’s a difference between doing digital and being digital, which is about culture and mindset more than anything else.Jeanne Ross is a principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan Research Center for Information Systems Research and co-author of a new book titled Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success. And she says there’s a key reason why your organization isn’t crossing that digital divide, and one that really isn’t being talked about enough.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Read: Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained SuccessCenter for Information Systems Research: http://cisr.mit.edu/Connect with Jeanne https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/jeanne-w-rossTwitter: twitter.com/MIT_CISR

Today’s episode focuses on something a little different. Not the technology that’s going to prepare us for the future, not the hard trends that will affect change in the future, and not why we should stop panicking about AI putting all auditors out of work. Today, we’re talking about joy.Because our guest is Richard Sheridan, co-founder and CEO of Menlo Innovations (and of no relation to our host Bill Sheridan), has written two books on the topic: Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love and Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Check out MenloInnovations.comRead: Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace People Love Read: Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate FearLearn more at MACPA.org/future-learningFuture-Proof is a production of Crate Media

Riddle me this, Batman: What do you get when you cross exponential advances in technology with an unrelenting regulatory environment?The answer is no joke: what you get, oftentimes, is one big headache. These “hard trends” or “future facts” that futurist Daniel Burrus talks about — the things that we know will happen, with absolute certainty — they’re hard enough to come to grips with individually. But when they cross borders and join forces... well, that’s when our lives really start to get complex.There’s another way of looking at it, though, and our guests today are here to provide a little perspective.Marchelle Klippenstein is the Director of the SAP Concur value consulting organization and Jameson Hughes is a Value Consultant at SAP Concur, and they are both working to help organizations improve their financial outcomes through data analytics and deep-dive management consulting.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more at www.concur.comSEC’s Financial T

Halloween is over. Autumn is kicking into full gear. And you know what that means — it’s time to talk about audits!Because the future of audit is... uncertain, to say the least. Luckily, we had an opportunity to talk to Mark Miklosovic, the Customer Proposition Strategy Lead for tax professionals at Thomson Reuters, who spends much of his time thinking very critically about the future of this profession.We talk about where audit has been, where it is now, where it is going — and most importantly, what the future of this profession looks like. Given the pace of change today, it’s a crucial conversation to be having, and to be able to dig deep into the brain of someone who has a passion for this stuff like Mark does is a real treat.To learn more, and for the complete show notes, visit blionline.org/blog.Resources:Learn more at tax.thomsonreuters.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/markmiklosovicAccounting Today: “Where is the audit profession going?”Accounting Today: “Audit dead in a decade?”Accounting Today: