3 things to know about AICPA & CIMA’s new CEO

Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA, was officially just a few days into his role as CEO of AICPA & CIMA when he took time to join the Journal of Accountancy podcast for a conversation that will be shared in two parts. Part one is below, and part two will be published in the coming days.

Koziel — named in October to succeed the now retired Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA — discussed the importance of hearing about the successes and challenges facing members, how he hopes to create communities, and more in this interview.

Koziel also invited members to send email to AskMark@aicpa-cima.com and “tell me how the Association can help you, your career, and the profession.”

Related links:

• The news of Koziel’s hiring, succeeding Barry Melancon as CEO.
• Melancon’s words about Koziel in a December podcast conversation.
• Koziel’s previous JofA podcast appearance, as part of a 2022 episode when he was the CEO of Allinial Global.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Three facts for members to know about Koziel, in his words.
• What he sees as the profession’s strengths and opportunities.
• Why he calls accounting pipeline concerns “not a U.S.-only problem.”
• Koziel’s “listening tour” with members and his request for feedback.
• More about his ideas for creating communities within the global membership of AICPA & CIMA.
• Koziel’s thoughts on the evolution of the profession.
• The important distinction between outsourcing and offshoring.
• A look ahead to part two of the conversation.

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: Hello and welcome to the Journal of Accountancy podcast. This is Neil Amato with the JofA. Thanks for joining us for another episode. But this is not just another episode, as our guest is the new CEO of AICPA & CIMA, Mark Koziel. Mark, thank you for being on the podcast. You’re a repeat guest. We’re glad to have you back.

Koziel: Thanks, Neil. Look forward to it.

Amato: We look forward to it as well. I say “we” because on this interview is also JofA editor-in-chief Jeff Drew. We’re going to start with this. What are three things that AICPA & CIMA members should know about Mark Koziel?

Koziel: Thanks, Neil. Well, I think with anyone coming into a role like this, there might be assumptions about who the person is.

Yes, I did have a 14-year history with AICPA & CIMA before joining here. I think the first thing is where I’ve been the last five years, with Allinial Global. It was an association of independent accounting firms around the globe. We had about 270 firms globally, $6 billion in represented revenues, but those firms were anywhere, in the U.S. anywhere from $5 million in revenues to $1 billion in revenues. And then, depending on the market, we had larger firms, we had smaller firms, so kind of like a subset of an association similar to AICPA & CIMA. I learned a ton from that. I’m sure we’ll get into that a little bit later.

Spent the last five years there getting my hands dirty with firms, figuring out how they’re serving their clients in a much different way today than what I remembered. And that would be the second item — would be that I did come from public accounting. I spent 12 years in local accounting firms in Buffalo, N.Y.

No. 3, I’m from Buffalo originally. But those 12 years in public accounting, local firms, local audits, started off as an auditor, did some advisory work toward the end of that before going to work for a client for three years.

That client happened to be in political media and public affairs. While I went into business and industry, I wasn’t their controller. I actually went in and I ran their time-buy division, buying time for clients for political campaigns for public affairs. So I actually had D.C. experience because I started to then coordinate client relationships, especially on the public affairs side and some very large clients, even though we were a tiny shop of 12 people in the political media firm.

All of this, when thinking about my journey to get me here today to run the largest member body in the world, both AICPA & CIMA together, it has been the perfect storm. I’ve had experience in public accounting. I’ve had experience in B&I. I have experience in politics and public affairs, which is absolutely necessary for this role given our influence in D.C. and everything that’s going on there.

I feel, first of all, humbled and incredibly lucky to represent this great profession of ours, but I feel like I’m ready for the role, and my experiences have definitely made me ready to be here.

Amato: That’s a great start. Thank you. What would you say is the state of the accounting profession today? What are its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats?

Koziel: I think the strengths are still the people, the members that we have as part of us, and they do some incredible things. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet so many in my journeys. Whether we’re talking about CPAs in public practice in the U.S. or CGMAs around the world, our members are doing some incredible things for businesses. So our strengths are definitely in the members that we have.

The threats, I think, more so are the pipeline aspect that is talked about a lot. What’s interesting about the pipeline is people have brought this up for so many years. I’ve heard it first from the U.S. side and from the firms that I’ve been dealing with, but then as I joined Allinial Global and spent the last five years with firms around the world, one thing I figured out very quickly is we’re not alone. It’s not a U.S.-only problem. It is a U.S. problem, it is a U.K. problem, it’s a Germany problem. It’s a Hong Kong problem. It’s an Australian problem.

We are not unique in this, so I think that that continues to be a threat. There’s been some good pipeline things that have happened in the U.S., but I do think having some semblance of a global perspective of that and what we need to do as an entire profession globally to try and increase those numbers no matter where it comes from, becomes incredibly important. But there’s growing markets like China and India. India, we actually had a program with Allinial that there were India-based accountants coming to the U.S. to get trained and then working for firms in the U.S., and that helped solve some of the pipeline issue. I think the people aspect of it, while it’s our strength, it’s also that threat of continuance for us.

Then, you can’t not talk about technology and AI, although as many people say it’s a threat, and it’s going to put us out of business. I’ve heard that time and again. I was not around practicing when there were punch cards for tax returns and processing centers and all these things, and processing centers were going to be the death of the accountant when those were eliminated and all these things. Excel was going to be the death of the accountant, and blockchain was going to be the death of the accountant, and we’re still here. We’re prospering more than ever.

While that is a threat, I also see it as an opportunity and an opportunity to do things differently and interact with our clients differently because they also have the challenges with AI and how to implement it and what it means and providing some level of assurance over AI that gets implemented. So, threat? Yes. Opportunity? Absolutely.

Amato: We’ll definitely come back to the AI topic later in this conversation. It’s early in your tenure. In fact, we’re recording just a few days into it, but what are your thoughts as far as hopes and accomplishments in your first year or six months on the job?

Koziel: There’s a number of things that first and foremost, coming back in and I’ve already met with the team. I’ve met with all of my direct reports around the world and their direct reports. I did that a couple of weeks ago, spent some time just to see where all the projects are, where people are in getting things done, reviewing the strategic plan. That’s the beauty of coming into this role. It’s not like I’m starting from scratch.

There are a lot of things already in process, and so one of the things that I found very quickly, and I knew this already having been one of the team members back in the day is it’s an incredibly strong team. Part of it is me staying out of the way, let people do what they’re good at doing, but providing some level of support around that.

I do think there’s some high-level initiatives that will have my attention early on. The National Pipeline [Advisory Group], I think, is one that’s really important in the U.S. around what’s happening in trying to drive the pipeline.

I also think that the Dynamic Audit Solution, which I was a big part of when I was here earlier and now coming back to that continues to grow, and that continues to be a strong thing on the CPA profession side.

The advocacy — what a great opportunity for me to walk in and see what possible legislation can happen given that the White House, the House, and the Senate are all of the same party, that there is the best chance of something happening when all of those things align. And, it’s incredibly temporary. I’m sure in two years from now, that’ll turn itself somewhere along the way, the House or the Senate. But, right now, there are opportunities for additional legislative activity in D.C. So to come in and be a part of that, I think, is going to be really exciting.

Then for me, really listening to our members. I want to be on a listening tour. Everyone can have my email address, share it with the podcast and Journal of Accountancy. I want to hear from members. I want to hear about what’s working, what is a challenge for them, and where they see improvement. It’s not up to the AICPA.

I even say this about the pipeline. Everyone says that this is an AICPA problem. It’s not. It’s my problem, it’s your problem. It’s every professional in the profession’s problem to solve. I have personally mentored eight students into accounting in the last five years. That is, to me, my responsibility to do that as a CPA and a CGMA to make sure we have that continuation. I say if we had every one of our members encourage one person to go to school for accounting — a child, a child’s friend, a relative, whoever that is — imagine the numbers that we could see.

We are our own worst enemy at times to talk about, brag about the hours worked. I’ve worked my busy seasons, I had 12 of them. I also had three years in politics. I will tell you, three years in politics, you can measure those in dog years in comparison to tax years because there are no extensions in political season. Election Day is Election Day, that’s it. When your clients are calling, and they’re all calling at the same time and they’re all politicians who all think they are the most important person in the world. Now you have 20 of them, that becomes much more problematic than tax clients who tend to be a little nicer, let’s say, in being able to make that happen.

I do think that listening to our members, hearing where else we can help as the Association, I think, becomes really important and trying to respond to that. We’re not always going to have the answers, but having those questions upfront can give us some additional strategic direction.

Amato: You mentioned your time in public accounting. You mentioned your time in Washington. You’re also a former AICPA & CIMA employee. But how do you see the profession differently after being the head of a global association of accounting and advisory firms at Allinial?

Koziel: I don’t know if it’s changed as much as it’s been enhanced. I think one of the greatest things, especially as I’m coming back into the Association, relationships matter. Relationships matter in a major way. I knew that. I was probably one of the key relationship people at the Association when I was here five years prior. I carried that into the Allinial Global perspective.

I just think we need to interact with our members differently and allow our members to interact with each other. I think, in a lot of ways, members may feel at times that they’re out on their own island and they don’t have the support that they’re looking for, for some things.

When I got to Allinial, one of the things that we were focused on when I came in, as I said, I want to make sure that we’re managing our firm relationships in a different way. How do we relate to our members? What is the interaction? What’s the communication vehicle that we use to do that? They said, “Well, we use our website.” I’m just like, uhh.

I just dealt with that for 14 years at the AICPA, and it’s not a personal relationship in any way, shape, or form. You can’t rely on a website. You can’t rely on LinkedIn to be your communication vehicle and your community — creating community around things, so this is going to be a focal point of mine, and it comes out of what we did at Allinial. We created communities. We created communities around audit, audit U.S., audit global, tax, transfer pricing, SALT.

All these different communities, allowing members to interact with each other, where they want to interact with. I can see that, especially on the CGMA side — they have less community than you may see in firms around the world. I think that there will be opportunities for us to create community differently, and I’d love to bring that into the Association like we created for Allinial over the last five years.

Jeff Drew: How did you do that at Allinial, or how do you see it possibly working differently for the Association? In terms of how do you create those communities?

Koziel: Like anything in life, Jeff, there’s an app for that. See if it comes from the PCPS experience I had with AICPA when I was there and the Association in total. But the Private Companies Practice Section for member firms in the U.S., especially the smaller firms, all the great resources that they have, how do they find it? Website was always a challenge to try and find it. Maybe there’s a different way to do it. You create it.

There’s all great community-related platforms out there where you could have an area for members to interact with each other, but also a resource section that makes it easier and puts things at their fingertips. We watch commerce explode after having this capability in the hands of our member firms because a firm in the Netherlands is at a client and they say, “Hey, we need help in Germany. We need help in Latin America. Who can you have that can help us?” Boom, they’re on the app, they start looking at it.

They can even interact with a specific firm to make it happen, but they have that at their fingertips. When the client or the CEO of your organization, if you’re a CFO, whatever it is, you have access to things at your fingertips and it’s amazing how you feel like you’re part of a stronger community by being able to make that happen.

Amato: One statement you made upon the announcement of your appointment read, “The profession is well positioned to expand and to continue to evolve.” That’s just part of the statement, but tell me more about that evolution, that expansion, what you mean by that?

Koziel: I think, first and foremost, when you think about, and I mentioned AI earlier, who’s going to provide some level of assurance over AI? We are in the assurance business. We have done assurance over financial information for years, 100-plus years that we’ve been able to provide that. Then we got into assurance over controls, and the SOC reporting that we now have, and then assurance over cyber, which we have even greater opportunity to expand what we’re able to do in that market, and so assurance, for sure.

But then also as this expansion — one of the things that I’ve said time and again as I was presenting for Allinial for all these years, we would talk about outsourcing. And the minute I say outsourcing, some people are immediately going to have in their brain that I said offshoring. I didn’t. I said outsourcing. Now, outsourcing can include offshoring if that’s the choice that you do make.

But outsourcing, much like threats and opportunities, is it a threat to the profession? Some think it is because it’s reduction of jobs, even though it hasn’t been. It’s been to in order to help firms grow and continue to grow. But that outsourcing, the challenges that we’ve seen in the profession of those in public accounting trying to find people and being challenged by it, those in business and industry are suffering the same fate, and so they’re having the same challenges in public accounting.

One of the things that we found, and a great example of this was one of our member firms had a client that was a billion-dollar spinoff from another company, massive thing. That they needed to be up in 24 countries in two weeks, SAP implementation and accounting support. We made that happen, and now they’re in 56 countries. Of the 56 countries, the average size firm that’s doing the work in those countries is probably about $5 million to $10 million in revenues.

In a number of those countries, 12 of the 56 countries, in those 12 countries, the Allinial firm is doing the outsourced accounting for this billion-dollar global company, and that’s because they didn’t want to take the resource to have to set up an accounting department in that particular country. More and more companies are doing this. In a variety of markets, this is what makes the CGMA so important globally.

But it also shows why bringing together AICPA & CIMA was the right strategic vision that happened back in 2016. Because you have this and these opportunities around outsourcing and being able to make it happen are exponential. Now we’re seeing more firms in the U.S. who are doing client accounting services are asking for more upskilling support.

Well, the upskilling support is actually the CGMA content that we can roll into what is happening in client accounting services. Then, when you look at the CGMA globally and more firms that are out there that aren’t necessarily AICPA member firms because they’re in a member body in their particular country, but the CGMA is going to be a great alignment for them to be able to differentiate themselves in the marketplace with other folks. That expansion, I think, is going to be incredibly opportunistic, and this is just going to continue. It’s not going to go away anytime soon.

And so this whole outsourcing concept, it helps firms grow and be able to fill capacity. And maybe AI takes some of that over, but it’s not like AI is taking over for the people that are inside the firm. The AI may be taking over for some of the outsourcing that’s happening to fill the gaps, but it’s all complementary with each other. It’s hard to say that one is going to get eliminated by the other as firms continue to progress in a different way.

Amato: That’s the end of part one of our conversation with AICPA & CIMA CEO Mark Koziel. Part two will be published in the next week. In that episode, JofA editor-in-chief Jeff Drew will ask about the advice Koziel gives to accounting students. We’ll also discuss how the profession can embrace AI and what the future holds for client advisory services.

Again, that’s coming up in part 2. In part 1, Koziel mentioned wanting to hear from members, so we’re going to share the email address that has been set up for such interaction: AskMark@aicpa-cima.com.

This is Neil Amato. Thanks for listening to the JofA podcast.