We were fortunate and pleased to have Mark Koziel, Executive Vice President of Firm Services for the American Institute of CPAs here to address our team at an all staff outing held at Shadow Lake on August 3.
Mark has an interesting background, prior to joining the AICPA, he served for three years as Director of Media Planning for a consulting firm. This was after finishing his twelve-year public accounting career in a variety of accounting, auditing and consulting roles at large local accounting firms in Buffalo, NY. Mark graduated with a B.S. in Accounting from Canisius College in 1991. He holds his CPA license in North Carolina, where the AICPA is headquartered, and is also a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA). Mark was an active member of the Buffalo Chapter of the New York State Society of CPAs, and was one of the founding members of the Young CPAs committee, which is still going strong today under its new nameNexGen. Mark was named on of the Top 10 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today in 2015, and has appeared on the Top 100 list since 2008.
Mark spoke to our team about Going Beyond, and what that looks like for the future of services, talent and positioning in order for firms to maintain sustainable growth. His dynamic speech highlighted what the audit practice will be including: Cognitive Computing, Data Visualization, Process Robotics, The Cloud Platform, Advanced Analytics, Blockchain and Cybersecurity. For tax services, the future is not compliance. It is an increased focus on providing the entire life cycle of services to our clients such as, Retirement, Education, Estate, Investment and charitable planning.
He also had a lot of interesting information regarding public accounting talent. To keep up with innovative service offerings, 20% of new hires in public accounting are now non-accounting degreed individuals. There were less entry level hires brought on last year, showing trends towards needing advanced skill sets and experience to deliver higher level services. Mark also addressed women in leadership roles and the importance of diversity in the workplace. The AICPA has programs dedicated to moving these initiatives forward along with certification programs in many of the growing industries siting 100,000 Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMAS) and CGMAs were achieved in 2017 as a few examples.
All in all, it was an exciting hour and a true pleasure to have Mark with us. He spent time after the presentation talking with members of our team and reminded us as a member firm, we all have access to some great resources through the AICPA. Mark and his team are readily available to provide guidance and advice when needed. You can follow Mark on Twitter: @markkoziel
