5 E’s for leading through change in the accounting profession

Sponsored by Thomson Reuters

Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, CPA/CITP, CGMA, returned to the JofA podcast after being named the AICPA’s Gold Medal Award of Distinction honoree at fall Council.

When Ellison-Taylor was named AICPA chair in 2016, her focus areas were on next-generation talent and technology. Ten years later, she said, both are as critical as ever. In this conversation, she reflects on her growth as a leader and shares the lessons her parents taught her that still apply today.

Ellison-Taylor also looks ahead to how artificial intelligence will require new business models and new ways of working in the profession. She describes her own plans to keep learning and to help firms, schools, and professionals navigate the change. She also talks about upcoming outreach to students, including an Accounting Explorations event and work with the American Accounting Association aimed at community college students.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• What receiving the AICPA’s highest honor means to Ellison-Taylor.
• How she has grown as a leader in the past 10 years.
• The five E’s that her parents instilled in her and how they apply today.
• Her work sharing the accounting profession’s many career options with students.
• What she does to keep her skills and knowledge sharp.

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Welcome back to the Journal of Accountancy podcast. This is Neil Amato with the JofA, a pioneer in the profession, an innovator, and many other things, is our guest on this episode. You’ll hear my conversation with Kimberly Ellison-Taylor right after this brief sponsor message.

[Sponsor message]

Amato: Welcome back. Again, I said our guest is Kimberly Ellison-Taylor. Kimberly, we’re glad to have you back on the podcast. Thank you for being here.

Kimberly Ellison-Taylor: Neil, you know how excited I am whenever I get to speak with you. So thank you for having me.

Amato: We did see each other at ENGAGE. We saw each other at the Future of Finance Summit, National Harbor, Md., in August, but we haven’t been able to speak on this platform for the podcast in a bit. What’s been going on with you?

Ellison-Taylor: Neil, I could not be more excited. Recently, I had really big news. Do you know about the big news?

Amato: I don’t know. Maybe I do. Maybe you’re talking about something else, or maybe it’s something I’m going to get to.

Ellison-Taylor: It’s something you’re going to get to. But in the meantime, let me tell you what I’ve been doing. I have two big things coming up and I’m really excited about it.

One is the Accounting Explorations event hosted by the Maryland Association of CPAs, the North Carolina Association of CPAs, and the Virginia Society of CPAs. We are going to talk about how exciting the accounting profession is and how many options are available. No matter what students want to do, there is an accountant for that.

I’m also really excited that I will be working with the [American Accounting Association] to really speak to community college students about the options that are available to them after they complete their program. I’m really excited because I went to the community college, the Community College of Baltimore County. And it really was a bridge to help me become a CPA because I went after I got my bachelor’s and MBA so that I could take all the accounting classes I needed.

So I am excited to speak with students all over the country and many, many offices of the Big Four. So this is going to be great. And it’s really sponsored in conjunction with a lot of the state societies as well, and, I have no doubt, universities, colleges, and other accounting firms.

Amato: That’s great. Now, recently at AICPA Council, you were given the AICPA’s highest honor. Its official name is the AICPA Gold Medal Award of Distinction. What does receiving that award mean to you?

Ellison-Taylor: Neil, I just cannot believe that I actually earned such a prestigious award. I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. I’m overwhelmed with how awesome this moment is for me and understanding that this is really a recognition that continues. It doesn’t just stop here.

And so I’m going to continue to do my part to help advocate for our amazing profession and ensure that people all over the world know that there are options for them in this profession.

Amato: We will get back to some of that advocating in just a little bit, but I’m going to go back in time a little bit right now. It has been, as of this recording, 10 years since you were named AICPA and also the global Association chair. How do you reflect on that and that it’s been a decade since you were named to that role?

Ellison-Taylor: It’s interesting because we were saying that the pace of change will never be as slow as it is. And we could say the same thing today. I think it’s even more uncertain. I think there are even more opportunities. I think there’s certainly ways that our young people can get involved in a profession that we didn’t even think about at the time that I became chair.

My platform themes, in addition to all the other things that we advocate for, were next-generation leadership and technology. And I think I did great with picking those because now more than ever, they are just as critical as they ever have been. And I am really excited about the future. Also cautiously optimistic about how we can engage and leverage those opportunities for our clients and customers. And so I know we can do it. And that’s what I said then. And I’m just doubling down right now on the same things.

Amato: That’s some about the profession and how maybe it’s come forward in the past 10 years and also what’s ahead. But how would you say you have grown as a leader in the past 10 years?

Ellison-Taylor: At the time, I thought to myself, because I was relatively on the young end, the first Gen X chair, and I thought that as a chair, one of my main roles would be to communicate and connect with all of the segments of our profession.

And I knew then that lots of times people really double down on public accounting as they should, but there are other options. And I am in business and industry. So when you’re in one particular segment, your assignment is to make sure that you don’t forget about all of the others. And so I learned a lot about our members across all demographics and all geographies around the world. And it was really exciting for me to understand how and what things people were excited about and how they were excited about them.

And I grew as a leader because my communication styles evolved. And I think I also grew as a leader because I needed to synthesize and analyze lots of data about topics that were not natively known to me. I had to learn them in order to speak about them. And so I was able to really grasp complex topics in a very quick way, but also in a simplified way so that I could connect with all audiences.

Amato: That November 2016 Journal of Accountancy cover article included this quote from you that I’d like you to respond to: “I think it’s my responsibility to pay that back,” — meaning the interest people took in you — “and help other people. I think I have a responsibility to carry others along. And so every opportunity I have to do that, I really try.”

Ellison-Taylor: It’s just like today. I feel the same exact way. I grew up thinking that way. In my acceptance speech, I talked about the five E’s. And very quickly, I’ll just say the first one was expect. My parents expected a lot of me and they expected no excuses. Either you did or you didn’t, but don’t make excuses about it. And so I hopefully lived up to what they expected of me, but I think that’s a very good start. And then they encouraged me. They would say, hey, if you fail, get up, try it again. Rub some dirt on it, in other words.

And then they said, hey, you need to be empowered. Don’t ever get a case of the big head. Always keep learning. There’s always more to know. You can always do better. And you need to go out and be self-aware. Get the tools, resources, and maybe find the people that you need in order to be the best version of yourself.

And then they said, after you do that, you have to excel. And you have to do it over and over and over again. You can’t phone it in. You can’t rest on your laurels. You can’t think I’ve got it, and then it’s done, mission accomplished. It’s never accomplished. Always, you can do better.

And then, execute. Don’t try. Do it. And so I learned with those 5 Es the ingredients I think that set the stage for my entire life, along with “to whom much is given, much is required.” And my parents made sure I knew that my responsibility, obligation, and honor was to hold the door for other people and not just get there — wherever there is — and then forget about all the people who need help as well.

Amato: That’s great. Can you go through those five E’s for me again? I remember expect, I remember excel and execute. But can you just say those five E words?

Ellison-Taylor: Yes. Expect, encourage, empower, excel, execute.

Amato: That’s fantastic. Thank you. Somehow I missed encourage, but there was definitely a message of encouragement in there. I just didn’t catch the word. So thanks. Speaking of encouraging and expecting, what’s next for the profession as we are on the cusp of 2027? And also, what’s next for you?

Ellison-Taylor: So for the profession, and this is hard because we don’t have a crystal wall, but the impact of artificial intelligence is going to require new business models, new ways of thinking, new ways of learning, new ways of engaging, new ways of working. And we’ve done this before, in other transformations, although this one is a little more far-reaching as far as scale is concerned.

And so we will really have to put aside what we did yesterday and embrace new ways of thinking. And I think that’s a huge opportunity for us. I think there’s also going to be a challenge for us, but I am confident that we will get there because we have people relying on us. They expect us, our clients, customers, and the public, communities across the world, expect us to rise to the occasion and to be their trusted adviser. So I have every confidence we will do that, but we will have to absolutely change and rethink the things that we do today.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to keep learning. Every year I get a new certificate. And so this year I did a John Maxwell certificate and then I also did a NACD and Carnegie Mellon — which I attended, as you know — did a program on AI oversight for board directors. It’s probably not the exact title, but close enough. And so that was a really great 22 hours of information about AI and AI governance and oversight.

Next year, I will work on something else. I think learning never stops. We have a commitment to lifelong learning. I think we have a responsibility to really look at AI, not just from my perspective, but also how I can then help firms and schools and universities and career professionals, regardless of where they are, move and navigate through what will be very scary for a lot of people.

Amato: This has just been a quick checkup in fall 2026. What have I not asked you about that maybe you’d like to say as a closing thought?

Ellison-Taylor: Neil, I think you’ve asked me everything, and that is my mindset for change, my mindset to help other people, my mindset to remember that I did not get here by myself, that there were so many people that nominated me, who sent letters on my behalf and who have now since from that day to now where we are today, Neil, have sent me so many congratulations.

I really, really, really thank them and I really appreciate it and I will work with them to continue to move this great profession forward.

Amato: That’s Kimberly Ellison-Taylor on the Journal of Accountancy podcast. Kimberly, thank you very much.

Ellison-Taylor: Thank you, Neil.