After a decade at the helm of the Illinois CPA Society and as a major voice shaping the profession, Todd Shapiro shares valuable insights into the current and future state of the accounting profession on the verge of his retirement.
Transcription:
Dan Hood (00:03):
Welcome to On the Air with Accounting Today, I'm editor-in-chief Dan Hood. Todd Shapiro's been at the head of the Illinois CPA Society for a decade, and in that time he's been a major voice for change in the accounting profession. He's been identifying and in many cases actually quantifying some of the most important issues in the field from diversity in the pipeline issues to the move toward a more advisory focused mindset as well as a host of other issues — everything, as I say, pretty much, that matters to the profession, both in public accounting and for corporate accountants.
He's retiring soon and so we're glad to take this opportunity to get his thoughts on where the profession has been, where he expect to go in the future, and all sorts of other things, hoping to benefit from his wisdom. Todd, thanks for joining us.
Tod Shapiro (00:38):
Thank you very much for having me.
Dan Hood (00:40):
I should mention before you joined the Illinois Society, which you did, I think in 1998 you had a number of roles in corporate accounting for a couple of decades all over the place a bunch of different companies, a bunch of different industries and then obviously more than two decades at the Illinois Society and more than decade as it's head. What are some of the biggest changes you've seen in the profession over the course of all that time?
Tod Shapiro (01:05):
Well, some of this is going to be... Dan, one of the things that I've always tried to do throughout my tenure as C E O and probably previous to that was and me well enough that I'm going to say what I think needs to be said. Sometimes people want to hear it, sometimes people, but that's the way I roll. What have I seen the biggest changes to a degree, I think if you asked anybody, a lot of other people they say technology but I'm going to take a step back on that and say technology has had a major impact on our profession, but really if you break it down to a large degree, it's driven nothing more than increased productivity tools. I look at the tools we used say whether or not it's accounting software or tax software or audit software or Excel which are still broadly used.
(02:01)
I'm not sure we even embraced the true change. I think the biggest change is yet to come. I talk to people and I say, do you think we've been through a technological revolution in the profession the last 30 years? And every single time I say that, people say we have absolutely been through technical revolution. And I look at that and I go really mean, really? Do you really talk about these tools as a revolution? And unfortunately all we've done is taking these productivity tools, which is really what they've been to a large degree and allowed us to do more of the same. We'll do more audits, we'll do more of this, we'll do more of that. Now, I will say things have happened like the cloud header. The cloud is nothing more than a different storage medium. Now what it has allowed, it has allowed in my mind, the explosion of the cast business, the client accounting services businesses.
(02:56)
And it's done that because in the old days you had, in the old days, I guess we can say that now, if you were going to do a client accounting services, you had to go out to the client, you had to be on site, you had to process information, you had to process accounts payable, process payroll on site. And what the cloud has done, it really has opened the door for client and accounting services because now you can do it anywhere, anytime, which gains you efficiency, profitability, and productivity. And it allows companies, because you said I, I've lived on both sides of the world, it allows companies to say, I don't have a career path for that finance person, so why don't I outsource that to my accounting firm? So the cloud had a big growth in that area. Now I'll tell you the other side of it.
(03:36)
What have we done with it? And the cast stands for a couple things. Some people say it's client accounting services, some people say it's client advisory services. I see it now positioned as case client, c a s, client Accounting and Advisory Service. What we haven't necessarily done is gotten to that advisory piece. We still do the payroll, the financial statement preparation, the accounts payable. But are we truly providing information that helps businesses and clients become more successful? So if you ask about the biggest change, I've seen technology, I say yes, but I really view technology. It's nothing more productivity tools. And what we've done with it is we've grown more and more of the same. Cloud, cloud has allowed the side of the business. It also, listen, the other thing cloud did was it allowed for this whole, whether it's good or bad, a whole different way of working because you can now work remote, which was critical when we had a pandemic.
(04:38)
But now we're two, we're we're now three years out from band, the two years out to almost three years out from pandemic. And in fact, as cloud become a hindrance because it's now not bringing us together individually and face-to-face, are we collaborating as well as we could? But the cloud has been a massive impact on profession only from the standpoint it's allowed us to work remote, which got us through the pandemic. But the question in my mind is it now is now preventing us from becoming the best we can be and limit to our collaboration. So technology, the cloud, D E I, the increased focus on d e i, significant. And in Illinois, I tell people that when I interviewed for this position I'm in now in 2013, I told the search committee, which is interesting because you're supposed to respond to the initiatives in the strategic jack direction of the board.
(05:34)
I told the search committee that if I took over a C e o, DE and I would be a key strategic initiative for the Illinois Space Society. And if they didn't want that to be, then don't make me the CEO o, right? So it has got increased focus, but I think part of that increased focus has been a realization of how deep, the depth of the issues and the depth of the challenges. Because progress is slow. Progress is hard. So the biggest changes, technology, productivity, cloud remote focus on D E I I'm not sure that we, I say all that, but then I look at the profession, I go to a large degree. Structures within accounting firms haven't changed. We're now seeing a little bit of change with the private equity concept, but structures and some of the challenges that have discouraged people from moving into the profession, a lot of those still exist. A lot of the way we build business still exist. Every firm out there is saying, well yeah, we've got more business than we know what to do with yet what do we do? We respond to another RFP for another audit, we respond to another RF RFP for another tax engagement. We're going to shed our less valuable clients so we can get bigger audits and bigger this. So we've seen a lot of change. I'm not sure we've seen true change to make us the profession of the future.
Dan Hood (07:02):
Well, it's fascinating. I mean a lot of the things you're describing, particularly from the technology perspective is it's just doing the same thing only faster. And on computers, it's how much of it hasn't really changed the work you're doing. It's just maybe changed whether you're doing it on a piece of paper, it's flat in front of you or a screen that's upright in front of you. And as you say, the cloud means you're just doing, that screen has now moved from your office to your home or the beach or wherever you're not working in your office. And a lot of that you got into some of the issues that are facing the profession. But I want to sort of highlight those as well in addition to the changes. But the challenge is obviously the pipeline that you mentioned is a big deal the attempt to move forward on diversity, which has been going on for a little bit but seems to really constantly run into headwinds. Are those the main issues you're still seeing? Are there other issues you see that the profession should be paying attention to?
Tod Shapiro (07:55):
So I sum up this way and I think it's a challenge and I think we have a lot of issues. We have the pipeline, we have diversity. And in too many cases, in far too many cases, and this is not an accounting profession issue, this is a societal issue. People want an easy solution. They want an easy fast solution. So what we do is we look for an easy fast solution to very, very, very complex problems, to very complex problems. So for instance, the pipeline here all the time, we did a pipeline study which you covered extensively and we heard, we talked individuals about why people weren't going to this profession. You know, look, yet when I talk to people they say, well, it's 150 hours, it's 150 hours, it's hundred 50 hours. The only 40% of recounting grants in the last few years. And this last three or five years, only four, the number of first time exam takers has dropped to 40% of the county majors.
(08:58)
150 hours has been off. And I say that because one of the biggest issues is not looking for the easy answer to a very, very complex problem. So if you ask me what the biggest issue facing the profession is today, in my mind I would tell you it's how do we ensure our relevance? Because ensuring our relevance is not going to be focused around the easy answer to the easy to a complex problem technology. We are going to see a technology explosion. The largest accounting firms are using technology in ways that we can't even imagine. And that's going to trickle down to all firms of all sizes. So what's I relevance going to be? I was in a meeting and I was asked to come and talk to a pretty large firm, top six or seven firm and they had top 10 firms and they had brought in some of their tax partners around the country and they had some of their clients in and they asked me to come out and talk about the future of the profession.
(10:03)
And I talked about relevance. Are we truly relevant? And I define that as are we helping our clients? If you are a firm or companies, if you work in a company, become more successful. So I sat in the room and boy, I'm going to say some things and we'll see what people think, but that's how I've been. Yep. So I sat in the room, I'm in this room and I said, can you tell me, and it's all tax people, right? Tax partners, national tax partners, clients. And I said, can you tell me one company Now by the way, I'm not going to discount the need for audit. I'm not going to discount the need that we protect the capital markets, but is that an anti to play the game now? So I said to this group, I said, can you tell me one client, or if you're in it, if you're the client, can you tell me one company that it became wildly successful, wildly successful because they had a good audit,
Dan Hood (11:03):
Right?
Tod Shapiro (11:04):
And now you're in a room full of tax people. So Dan, what happened next? The tax people thought that was very funny. <laugh>, because they're a tax people, they're not the audit people. So then I said, so now tell me one client or one company that if you are in the company that became wildly successful, defining wild success as growth in profits and returns and R ROI and market share and all those pieces that became wildly successful because of the tax strategy.
Dan Hood (11:36):
And they like that
Tod Shapiro (11:37):
They looked at their shoes.
(11:40)
So it's how do we ensure relevance, how we have been a profession? And I don't mean this to be a my, I truly don't mean this to be a complaint. I think it's critical we should start to do this. I think we've been too much of a profession that has reactively adapted to things to change versus proactively embracing and creating it. And I think relevance, I think relevance is our number one issue. And the way we stay relevant is we proactively create proactively. There's nothing that stops us from bec, as you have heard me say, the only spa side to you. We think being the trusted advisor is ever so critical. On the other hand, is it enough? I talk to firms and members all the time. I say, what does trust mean? And they say, it means that my client trust what I say, that I give them the right answer that they know going to, I know what I'm talking about. And then I say, what does it mean to be a strategic advisor? And they'll kind of look at me with their eyes open and they go Well forward thinking about your client's future and how do we proactively create that future to become that most trusted and strategic advisor? Because that will ensure relevance, right? Take all the AI in the world, take all the RPA in the world that will ensure our future. The other. So relevance is my number one and it was a long answer and I apologize for that.
Dan Hood (13:10):
No, it's good stuff.
Tod Shapiro (13:11):
If I looked at the second biggest issue facing the accounting, it's going to be d, ei de and I. Yes, it has focus. We've got to start again trying to address the real core issues. And it's not necessarily just, well, we just need to be more inclusive and all the world's going to get better. There are underlying, you peel that onion back, you peel that onion bad and we can make progress. But we're going to have to face some tough challenges and some tough questions. And we're going to have to look in the mirror and say, if we're going to do this, then we got to do it this way. And then we'll truly begin to make progress on increasing the diversity in the profession.
Dan Hood (13:48):
And it's going to require those a lot of tough discussions on a lot of tough thought. And to your earlier point, I think that is very difficult to get the profession to do that in part because as you say there's so much work. You can always apply for another audit put in an RFP for another audit. You can always find another client who needs a tax return. You can always find, or at least currently you can always find more work to do, put off the hard work of reshaping your firm to go forward. And I think that's in some ways it's a great problem to have, but it's a terrible thing that holds the profession back. That ability to focus on the work you're doing currently and the billing you're currently doing as opposed to preparing yourself for the changes that are coming.
Tod Shapiro (14:33):
I mean if you think about it, and it's true if you think about a lot of the work especially if you're in the tax and audit side, it it's an annuity business. And who would ever argue with annuity businesses? Because now here's the other challenge with that though. Are we attracting the best and the brightest to want to do that? Because the world has changed, the workforce has changed. Young people are different today than young people were when I started out 40 some years ago. So it's not just the work, but you're right. And it's all so annuity, it's annuity business, it's easy and it's not risky. I mean some would say, why would I ever want to be given my client insight, input or thought my thoughts on how they should grow their business differently? Because what if I'm wrong? I say, what if you're right? But you're right, it's easy. And hey, listen, you and I both heard callus times, these are all annuity businesses. Why? And I got more work than I possibly know what to do with, but why do we have it? Because technology tools allow us to add more of the same, more of the same, more of the same,
Dan Hood (15:42):
Yeah. In some ways that the productivity that the technology enabled has helped firms to put off hard decisions and hard choices and hard rearrangements.
Tod Shapiro (15:51):
I agree completely 100%.
Dan Hood (15:53):
Alright, well let's look a little bit forward. We talked about some of those issues. Obviously some of those issues are going to play out in the future. But what else are you seeing coming up for the profession? I put it this way, anything good coming up?
Tod Shapiro (16:04):
I think the future is hugely bright. The question is will be pro, the future's going to come whether we want it to come or not, the future's going to come. So technology is going to continue to accelerate. You're going to see services and I know people will say, oh, we figure it out. Okay, yeah, I truly have heard people say this. Well yeah, I say technology is going to dis me what see what accountants do. And it's going to do that at a greater accelerated pace. So what I hear people say is, well, we'll fig, we always figure it out. What do you call that's reactive. So I think the big thing you're going to see coming in the profession is going to see the technology continue to accelerate. The need for people is going to force us to start accelerating that need for technology.
(16:54)
The question is what do we do with it then? Do we then just say, Hey, we got it. So now we're good. We don't need the people as much. So I think the biggest thing coming up in the profession is going to be that this intermediation of a lot of what CPAs and accountants do today by technology, I think you're going to see a workforce that's going to be coming up and think that's a great thing by the way, it's going to push us the question again whether we will react. The question is whether we'll change the question is will proactively, will we control the change or whether the change reactively controls us? So you look at the tech technology side, what else do we see coming up? Businesses are going to demand more. As we see technology change, our clients and our companies are going to demand more from us.
(17:40)
They're going to say, why are you doing the same old thing? So I think you're going to see an expectation increase. I think you're going to see the tools allow that to increase. And I think you'll see I think the future is hugely bright. It it's hugely bright. You have some areas E S G E S G is now, when I talk to firms, E S G is not for most firms today. E S G isn't relevant for the largest of the large. It's relevant. So our part of our job is to communicate that E S G's out there and it's going to affect every firm eventually whether or not whether or not you have a client that has E S G compliance that they have to deal with or that client actually is part of a supply chain that a S G compliance or by the way, whether or not you audit a government entity and the government entity has embraced E S G concepts and principles.
(18:41)
But on the other hand, so I had firms, some P member practitioners saying, what should I do though because I have that world today. I said, read everything you could possibly read, be ready for it, embrace it. It also is going to, how do we help? Do you look at the pipeline, it's going to help us again, I want to recruit the best in the bright. So there was a Wall Street journal that came out and I'm sure you saw it, I don't want to plug Wall Street Journal, but there was an a wall it's been pointed out to me 15 times and somebody sent me the article and I saw two parts of the article, why aren't people becoming accountants? And if you read the top part of the article, it said, because they don't like doing the work, it doesn't mean they're lazy, right?
(19:27)
Doesn't mean they want to work hard, they don't like doing the work. Not the bottom part of the article talked about one 50 billion barrier. So everyone read that article and they took the part they wanted. And so if I look at that top part, if we can change what we do, if we can think about E S G and embrace E S G, if we can think about embracing real technology change and making ourselves trust, trusting strategic advisors will become a sought out profession. So I think the future's tremendously bright. I think technology will give us, if the question, it will change everything in 10 years. The question is whether we proactively embrace it and control and shape the change or the change shapes us.
Dan Hood (20:11):
Right? Well and that goes to your talking about the simple solutions. Everyone looks, and I'm as guilty of this as anybody if not more. So everyone looks at the pipeline and says, well we'll just get rid of the 150 hour requirement and that'll fix everything. Well it's not going to fix. Well it's not going to happen. If it did, it wouldn't fix the issue. Cause there's a lot broader issues. You talked about relevance. That's important.
Tod Shapiro (20:32):
I'll tell you in that one's very interesting and I've heard, I was in a meeting yesterday and I heard I was in a meeting the other day and heard a partner of a pretty good, an office manager partner for a pretty good sized firm said, we should get rid of this. People know no more now first they do basket weaving to get it. They know more no more now than they knew beforehand. And I stopped them too many times. People say that and then we just kind of move on. So I stopped them and I said, so let's be very clear, most people who get the most people who become CPAs or go to college and get the one 50, they aren't taking basket away. And to say that is insulting hundreds of thousands of young people going to college today, most of the people who become CPAs who even go into county who get the 150 hours, they do it because they either A, go to a master's program, B, they figured out how to do it during four years.
(21:31)
How do you do it in four years? You double major in accounting and finance, you double major, you've heard this, you know, double major in accounting, marketing, double major in accounting and technology. You double major in accounting and supply chain. So I said, I used an example, I said two people apply for a job and both of them have the same exact accounting classes. One person has a double degree in accounting and technology or accounting and supply chain or accounting and marketing. And one person just has 120 hours in just an accounting degree. Who are you going to hire? We keep saying that. We keep saying the one 50 s done nothing, no one knows anything anymore. Well they may not be able to put a balance sheets in any faster. They may not know the technical accounting standard any faster. But I will guarantee in 100 cases if the people both are the same, otherwise I'm a, I'm going to hire the person who has the accounting, who has a double degree and trust me. And I know there are people out there, we say, I don't care, I'll hire the one because that's get the work done and didn't even get done. And that is the problem.
Dan Hood (22:34):
And even there, right, there's a perfect example. The problem there is a disconnect between academia and the profession. That academia is not necessarily teaching the things the profession wants or needs from its graduates that not has nothing to do with how many hours, you know can take a gazillion hours. But if you're not being taught the things that firms need or firms aren't communicating clearly to academia what they need again, it's the simple solution versus the hard work of digging in and figuring out is there a way to coordinate accounting, academia and accounting the accounting marketplace to get, and there's moves towards. Anyways, we could dive into those in great detail. But to your point, right, it's the search for the simple solution and the simple solution is almost never going to be the actual solution. It's somewhat of a panacea. So we got, well there's a lot to dive into. Going to dive some more of it but we're going to take a quick break and allow Todd to catch his breath because he's been telling us a lot of throwing of wisdom at us. So we'll give him a break for a couple of seconds.
(23:32)
Alright, and we're back talking to Todd Shapiro of the Illinois C P A society. As we mentioned at the top Todd's been a voice, major voice in the profession on a huge number of issues that are of significant impact to the profession. We've covered a bunch of them in the first half of this, but I want to turn, we've been talking about the 150 hours. We've been talking about accounting education, we've been talking about the pipeline. And I want to turn a little bit to that issue and specifically to younger accountants. And you have a lot of experience. You've worked with people at all levels of the profession at all ages. What advice do you have for anybody who's looking to make a career in accounting?
Tod Shapiro (24:09):
That's a wonderful question about what advice I would give to somebody. So I will tell you this A young person thinking about accounting or a young person entering the profession, I made the comment to somebody said, you want to solve a pipeline problem and you want to make this a really exciting profession. I'm only half kid here, CPA and not all accounts are CPAs, but we hope they do become that CPAs the CPA stands for certified public accountant. And I said, let's change the title to certified public analyst.
Dan Hood (24:44):
Yeah,
Tod Shapiro (24:46):
I threw that out to some people and they said, oh sure, we'll just do that. But I relate that to what advice I would give somebody who willing to make a career in accounting. And it's really this, if I tell somebody and my son became a cpa he worked, worked a public accounting firm and now he works in a large corporate finance environment. So I had this conversation and it would be the same with everybody. It would be an unending focus, an unending focus from the first year to partner all places in between, whether you work in a public accounting firm or whether you work in a company, it's an unending focus on providing insight and input. Not accepting just the work, not just cranking out work. It's an unending focus on doing that. I heard it means going on beyond it. This concept of being the most trusted and strategic advisor that I talked about.
(25:50)
Everybody can do it. I've heard people say, well, to really be strategic and provide strategic insight, you need to be a partner with 35 years of experience. I was a financial analyst as an electronics when I was 24 years old and I was expected to provide insight and input into the strategy of the company as a 24 year old. So it would be this unending focus. And it doesn't start as a partner. It starts as a first year saying, I want to learn about business. I want to do my clients and my companies better, which means I have to go beyond compliance, technical skills, technical skills, technical knowledge of accounting standards, technical skills of software and of software tech, software accounting, software, Excel. Those are just table stakes. I told my son, I would tell her this, if you want to be successful, if you want to be the winner, your analytical and your strategic thinking skills, no matter what you do, will be the differentiator. And if you do that and you use those to focus on somebody say, well, I don't have the time to do that. No one asked me to do that. Don't wait to be ask, don't wait, don't wait for somebody to ask you to be strategic. Be strategic.
Dan Hood (27:14):
Well, it's interesting because a lot of these there's so much new in the profession and C to a certain extent that move to the more strategic advisor as opposed to the purely compliance provider is relative is in many ways new that importance or theri rising importance of providing that strategic advice. Or if you look at other specific areas, we talked about e esg. ESG is practically brand new. You can be as much of an expert as someone who's a 50 year old partner because no one's an expert in it, right? Cannabis, the industry's only been around for 10 years. No one is an expert in it, or no one is much more of an expert than you can quickly make yourself. So there's an opportunity for young people coming in to leapfrog older generations of partners to expertise.
Tod Shapiro (27:53):
And even if you are working in the compliance field dm, you're working in a tax audit, people think that people think that strategic thinking and insight is all limited to this third leg of the profession called advisory services. It shouldn't be, all of us should be thinking about that tax, audit, everything. So I don't have the time, make the time. I said to somebody once, I said, what you should do is you should tell a staff auditor and you can do it. Same for tax. You say, when you turn in your work papers, to me, I want you to give me two thoughts about what would make this company a better company. Now most people would say, now to your point, are we teaching that skill? But B, are we demanding that thought process? So to your right, they are new and whether it's cannabis or whether it's E S G or whether it's just a different way of thinking again, can we have people who know the standards, the tax law and the accounting standards and audit standards inside and out any day of the week, take somebody who is the strongest analytical and strategic thinking skills and they'll rise to the top.
Dan Hood (29:02):
And in some of it is you say somebody requiring it. If you're you as a firm insist that your younger people think that way and give, you said two ways to make this company better or two ways to improve this person's life, or whatever the case may be. Forcing them to think that way is a great idea and it's great. It's certainly going to develop skills in them and teach them that you care what they think. Right,
Tod Shapiro (29:23):
Right.
Dan Hood (29:24):
Excellent. I will say, and some of the things you're bring up has brought up some of, I've been thinking about a lot, which is that the career structure of accounting used to handle your career for you to a certain degree. Well over simplifying a little bit. But you left college, there was an internship, you went to a firm, you worked in the firm curve a couple years you made partner or you didn't, in which case you went to corporate accounting. But it was all very, there was a pathway and it was relatively straightforward. Everyone kind of knew what it was and the structure of the firm kind of managed your career for you. And it seems like that's much less true these days, as you said, you have to do the hard work of saying, what do I want to be and how do I do it? And here's how I learn it and here's how I put myself forward to be in a position for it.
Tod Shapiro (30:03):
So you're right. And in fact that's why you have people now who say, well, I don't want to do that. You have young people speaking with their feet, they don't, again, 40%, only 40% of the accounting majors sit for the CPA exam. They counting graduates except for the CPA exam, they're speaking with their feet. Again, that was an easy path. And I think young people saying, well, I don't want that easy path. I don't really care about being a partner. I want to do something interest, I want to excel exciting. So they're actually already starting to say, I'll manage my own path. I don't need to be in your path yet. I think one of the interesting things about our profession, and we'll see where it goes in five years, is the movement of private equity. It's disrupting that whole path. Because all of a sudden, if you look at some of the deals that are out there, the whole model has been forever.
(30:54)
Whole model has been you go to work as a young person, you move up through your class, as you said, they manage your career. After a number of years, you eventually get to be a partner. And when you're a partner, that's when you make the money and that's when you get ownership. Well, on the corporate side, because they don't have partnerships, they figured out something different years ago called stock options. So now you're a 30 year old and you get stock options and stock options or the money. And if you're anybody who's anybody stock options in a company, that's where the money's at. It's not the salary, it's the stock options. That's where the big win will be eventually on the what have we done. So what brings private equity unique is some of those non-partner people, some of those staff individuals are getting units and those units vest over time.
(31:44)
So when the company does well, they do well. If the company sold to another private equity group, they make a killing. And what I love about it is it's breaking the mold of the model of the firm. They're chewing something different. Now, what happens when a private equity firm sells to another private equity firm sales in our private equity firm? And we don't know what that's going to look like 10 years from now, but I, I'll give all the credit for breaking the mold saying we're going to do something different. We're not going to follow the traditional model of every firm out there. And I think that's going to make it attractive to young people because they're going, oh, this is something different.
Dan Hood (32:22):
Something different. And doesn't tie into that. You've got to stay at this firm for a million years to get your payoff to become a partner and get your payoff.
Tod Shapiro (32:29):
My gosh, they're they're going to sell in five years. That's ce No, they're going to sell in five years another priority. That's great,
Dan Hood (32:35):
Right? Brings brings the cash forward.
Tod Shapiro (32:37):
I tell people, my last company I worked for, the only disappointment I had, and this was, I guess it's a good thing because I spent so many years in the corporate sector before I came here, was I got stock options and only my disappointment was they sold the company and I did okay. I made some money in the sale of the company because all the stock options, my disappointment was I wanted to sell the company five years later, <laugh>, when I would've had a whole lot more options and I would've just retired. Now, of course then we wouldn't be talking today.
Dan Hood (33:07):
Right? So it's bad for you, but good for us. Sorry you missed out on that pile of cash, but glad we had you Were here to talk us through all this. I do want to talk briefly, sort of a little bit narrower, the focus a little bit to the Illinois society. We've talked about a lot of the things that they, they've done under your watch the pipeline serve study, the, you've done d e I studies we've just come off a year of the The CPA Centennial. The centennial, the first black CPAs in the country. And that's been all through the year. There's been a lot of great material that's come out of that project to highlight the importance of D E I and the importance of the contributions of black CPAs to the profession. And those are just some highlights of some of the many, many projects that are going on at the society. And I wanted you to just can you give us a sense of what do you hope for or expect from the society going forward?
Tod Shapiro (34:00):
Well, I have very high hopes. Our next CEO o my successor is an individual individual named Jeff Brown. Jeff, I've been working with Jeff for since, well, he started December 5th. I've been working with him since before December 5th. And he is energetic, he's strategic, he wants to drive, he embraces, he's already embracing the concept of driving the profession forward. So I expect nothing less out of the Illinois space sighting. I think that we will continue to push the profession to be the most relevant profession out there. I think he, he will continue and the society will continue to ask the hard questions. I think he'll that this society will continue to look for the real solutions, not necessarily the easy solutions. It was funny, I looked back at our first special feature and it was about a really sexy topic, audit quality. Well, I'll tell you, audit quality's a big deal.
(35:07)
We can have, I tell people all the time you look, hear about tax shelters and tax issues that come up and you guys have covered these. This firm got nailed because a tax shelter was found to be this or that the next, and it kind of gets a story and then it kind of goes away. You have an audit failure. Our right art profession still is heavily driven by the profession of the audit profession. So it's, it's not just the fun stuff, it's audit quality. So I think I truly believe, and I know the organization is committed to continuing to try to move the profession forward proactively, ask our questions, raise the right issues, try to help guide with solutions and ideas and thoughts. And I have very high hopes and I have no concerns that Illinois will continue to be a thought leader within the profession.
Dan Hood (36:00):
Excellent. Alright, well that'll be a great way to recognize your legacy. You've been a thought leader for so long and leading a lot of issues. Any final thoughts before we go? Any final things you want people to take away?
Tod Shapiro (36:10):
I will tell you, if there's nothing you do more than reflect when you're at this point in time and mentioned last night we had a celebration with some of the people from around, from the profession around the country here. And this, if you had asked me 11 years ago that I'd be sitting here talking to you, Dan Hood, and accounting today about the future of the profession and being accused of being a thought leader. And I said, I know exactly all I wanted to. I couldn't have imagined. I couldn't have imagined that we'd be having this conversation today. And it has been as much my privilege and honor to serve in the profession, to talk, to help move the profession forward, to make the friendships we've made. I couldn't be more humbled by when I made the Accounting Today top 100 list for the first time in 2015 or 14, my kids made fun of it. They said, look, dad's the top 100 list. But it's humbling and it's been truly all I have to say. It's been an honor to be part of an amazing profession. I wish everybody the best and truly it's been a joy.
Dan Hood (37:29):
All right. Well, thank you for joining us and thank you always. We've had great conversations throughout the years. Thank you for everything. The chances to talk with you and share your insights have always been great. And I want to thank you for all your many, many contributions to the profession. Todd Shapiro, thank you.
Tod Shapiro (37:42):
Thank you.
Dan Hood (37:43):
And thank you all for listening. This episode of On the Air was produced by Accounting Today with audio production by Kevin Parise. Rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform and see the rest of our content on accountingtoday.com. Thanks again to our guest and thank you for listening.