More than coffee and LinkedIn: ‘You never know who you might inspire’

Trisha Nomura, CPA, CGMA, and Abel Soares III, CPA/PFS, don’t live far from each other, but they didn’t know the other’s story until Soares was featured in an AICPA & CIMA Member Spotlight Series video.

They joined the JofA podcast recently to discuss how connecting has led to mutual admiration — and opened up new ideas for mentoring. The episode is in recognition of Asian American Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month and intended to celebrate the diverse voices of the profession.

Resources

• AICPA & CIMA home page for diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Full index of the Member Spotlight Series focused on diverse voices:

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• How Nomura and Soares learned that they were essentially neighbors.
• The background of each CPA and why it matters — particularly this month.
• Their advice for fellow accountants on being more entrepreneurial.
• The inspirational emails Nomura has received after speaking to students about accounting.
• Why Soares wanted to go “beyond the numbers” with his firm’s focus.
• Their ideas for helping to grow the profession.

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: Hey listeners. Welcome back to the Journal of Accountancy podcast. This is Neil Amato with the JofA. I’m talking today to two CPAs from the state of Hawaii, Trisha Nomura and Abel Soares III. This story is one focused on two people forming a bond that goes beyond the simple “I’d like to join your LinkedIn network.” We’re having this conversation in recognition of AANHPI Heritage Month. That acronym stands for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month Again, that month is May.

Now, Crystal Cooke, AICPA & CIMA’s director – Diversity and Inclusion, introduced me to you two and in an initial email she said, “The way you both came together is the power of telling stories and amplifying the diverse voices of the profession.” First, Trisha and Abel, welcome to the podcast. I guess I’ll ask Trisha first, can you tell our listeners: How did you two meet?

Trisha Nomura: Sure and thank you so much, Neil, for having us on your podcast. Last December, I was scrolling on LinkedIn and saw a post from the Association about a Member Spotlight Series where they featured Abel. As soon as I saw it, I thought, “He’s from Hawaii, too.” I’m always so proud whenever I see someone from Hawaii being featured. So I reached out to our executive director here at the Hawaii Society [of CPAs] to ask if he was a member and if I could get his contact information.

That is how I reached out to him via email and we ended up making plans to meet up for coffee in-person. I had such a great time meeting him, learning more about him, about his background, and his interests, so that’s how we met.

Amato: That’s great. You did connect on LinkedIn, you did see it on LinkedIn, but you took the next step and didn’t just do the digital “OK, we’re connected now. That’s it.” Abel, tell me some about just getting to meet Trisha and why you think telling that story, your story, can be powerful as you make connections in business.

Abel Soares III: Well, Hawaii, even though a lot of people know about it as a tourist destination and everything, it’s a small market overall. When I heard and saw Trisha reach out, I’m very interested to be able to make additional professional connections. Then when we finally did meet for coffee, I was blown away by her experience and her story and some of the things that she had done through the AICPA, and it reaffirmed all of the things that you can do no matter what market you’re in.

To be able to see somebody that is a minority as well be able to take on those leadership roles and those professional opportunities that I wouldn’t think are normally available to Hawaii as a smaller market, it was reinvigorating for myself. I’ve been able to accomplish some things by just keeping my head down, but I was genuinely surprised and happy to meet Trisha and hear her story.

Amato: That’s great. Abel,  you mentioned being from Hawaii. Are you a native Hawaiian?

Soares: I’m 25% native Hawaiian. I was actually born on the mainland in California and then moved to Idaho when I was about 5 years old. Then came out to Hawaii at about 15 and finished high school on a combination of the West Side and then the North Shore when my grandfather basically had a heart attack. He was in the hospital and at that point, my dad decided he wanted to move home, so we moved back to Hawaii with them.

From that point forward, I was in Hawaii for a little over a decade and then made the tough decision to move back to the mainland to do my master’s in taxation, just because of the cost of living, because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to afford living and staying in Hawaii.

Amato: Tell me some a little bit about your CPA background and how you’ve gotten to your firm now?

Soares: I always knew I wanted to be on my own and be more entrepreneurial. I wasn’t sure how I was going to get there, but I’d say overall, the biggest support system has been my wife. She’s in the military and a psychologist. But by having her steady income and just her support, she was able to allow me to take one of the CPA Exam windows off from working. I was lucky, I’d say, to be able to knock out all four exams in a six-week period, April 9 to May 28, when I took the four exams.

Then after that, I added on the CFP and PFS credential that I’m now working with the AICPA in Hawaii, to help be a champion for that subcertification. Actually, Crystal Cooke – I reached out to her about a year ago last year and found out that there’s only five people in the state of Hawaii that had the PFS, so it would be good to try and help promote that credential as well.

My transition has been from working a small office initially in Boise, Idaho, to working for Deloitte and then the Defense Contract Audit Agency and going through the myriad of experiences from audit, internal controls to taxation and getting that well-rounded experience so I can help from a consulting aspect. Then coming back home knowing I wanted to help native Hawaiians, BIPOC – Black and Indigenous People of Color – being able to help them get to that next level of generational wealth and have something to be able to pass on to the next generation. I wanted to take all of that knowledge and not have the red tape of a larger company.

Amato: That’s great. Now, Trisha, we’ve heard from you some, but also same question: Tell us some about you, your background, and then a little bit about how you got to your current role.

Nomura: I am not native Hawaiian. I’m actually Japanese, but I was born and raised in Hawaii. My mom is originally from Japan and actually moved to Hawaii when she was in high school. I majored in accounting in college and then went on to pass the CPA Exam [and] became licensed in Hawaii – one of my proudest achievements. Then, also became a CGMA. I started my career as an auditor and then later worked in the private sector as well, including roles within HR.

Today I have a consulting practice, where I help clients with accounting, operational, and strategic HR needs. I’m also a volunteer with the Association and the Hawaii Society of CPAs, where I love giving back by sharing what accounting has meant to me and helping students and young CPAs as they navigate their educational and professional journeys.

Amato: You mentioned giving back. You’re both, I would say, entrepreneurial CPAs. What advice would you give to our listeners about embarking on a new career path? Maybe it’s people thinking about doing something a little more entrepreneurial or maybe they’re just getting started in their careers – for either one of you.

Nomura: I think, “Don’t be afraid to take a chance, especially on yourself.” I think, as an accountant, I started my career very conservatively, wanting to know the probability of success with each decision I was making and whether or not it was going to be you know, high. But later, I learned that even though something doesn’t turn out exactly how you envisioned it to be, there’s still a learning lesson tied to it that you can use to build on your experience and be better in the future.

So, especially if the decision or path you’re choosing has to do with your own credentials, your own background, and abilities, then you’re not betting on someone or something else. You’re betting on yourself. Who better to take a chance on? I started my consulting practice as a temporary option, and it’s been six years, and it’s been just really rewarding for me. I haven’t regretted it for a day, so I am very grateful that this is what I’m able to do for a living.

Soares: Very well said, Trisha. I’d say the hardest thing for us as accountants is we’re risk-averse and we really don’t want to take that step to branch out on our own. But, there’s fewer people getting into accounting; there’s fewer people taking the CPA Exam. There’s as many or more people in the U.S. that need their taxes filed. There’s a large number of people that have small businesses, that need their bookkeeping and accounting and business consulting. Accounting is such a wide industry that you can specialize in any of those areas.

I’d say the main thing that I would tell somebody getting started is make sure you spend enough time on your policies and your procedures and the way that you’re going to run your business. Because you’ll be surprised how much work will come to you. Because if you do well, you’re going to have a lot of work come to you. With that opportunity, you’re going to have the chance to be able to grow quickly, and if you’re going to hire additional staff, you want to have that set up, otherwise you’ll be a little bit behind the eight ball.

Outside of that, I would say also trying to look at what you want your niche to be. Myself, having gone from audit to tax and then getting into financial planning and advising with my wife as a psychologist, I noticed that it’s not all about the numbers. It’s about the behavioral aspects.

So, then, that’s how we created our company, Hui Malama Advisors, which “hui” is team and “malama” is to take care. So it’s a team of caretaking advisers. Having that behavioral standpoint, along with the financial and the numbers standpoint is what we wanted to bring to the public because there’s a lot of just the numbers side, we felt, and we wanted to provide a little bit more of that help you overcome what is keeping you from making the decisions or how to support the decision that you are making.

Amato: A much-discussed topic on this podcast and, of course, throughout the profession is the issue of available talent. There’s a lot of talk about how to address the talent shortage. I’d say one way is to make sure leaders are not limiting their organizations or themselves in a search for potential accountants. In your mind, what are some of the ways to better engage with the full diversity of candidates?

Nomura: I think the most impactful thing that each and every one of us can do is to reach out to our local high school or college and ask if you can come in to speak. I’ve done this many times, and I’ve been flexible with the amount of time. I’ve said whatever you can give me – 10 minutes, 30 minutes, one hour, I’ll take it. Even with a specific topic, I’ve been very flexible with it and tailored presentations based off of what is of interest to them. Throughout that presentation, I’m able to weave in information about accounting as a profession.

Even if your local high school doesn’t have an accounting class, then I would say volunteer in any capacity that they need. It might be mock interviews or judging for a competition. I’ve even been asked to be a mentor for a capstone project for a business class. These are all ways to connect with students and how you can tell your story and plant a seed about what a career in accounting is like.

For me if I’m able to touch just one person, and it took an hour of my day, I am thrilled. I’ll get emails saying, “I hadn’t considered accounting as a major before, but I think I’ll look into it now” or “I thought accounting was really different, so thank you for telling me more about what it’s like.” I love that. Going to the theory of gratitude – small wins. I’ll take these small wins any day and hopefully if each of us have these small wins, it’ll end up with a really big win for us as a profession.

Soares: I would second that. From my personal experience, that’s how I fell into accounting was there were guest speakers coming to the university that I went to and then later taught at. But the guest speakers were coming in and saying how either they got burned because somebody had stolen money from them in their business and they didn’t know about it and they wish they knew more about accounting so they could have helped catch it, or they’re happy they knew the accounting that they did and that helped them make better business decisions.

But then outside of that, in the growth of my career – seeing how there’s the IT side, there’s the business consulting side, there’s the compliance side, seeing all of the available options – is that you don’t have to pigeonhole yourself into one area. Whether it’s that early opportunity to provide an additional career opportunity for somebody or even if, like Trisha was saying, at the university level, my thought is if somebody is on the fence trying to decide what they want to get into, seeing plenty of past colleagues that have been able to go from accounting to IT or accounting to finance and all of those areas is that accounting seems like a very solid background to be able to start into, even if you are not sure. Because of the technical knowledge that we’ve gained, and it’s harder, I feel like, to transition into it later in life than it is to transition out of it.

Amato: I said at the top of the episode, it’s AANHPI Heritage Month, for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander. To you, Abel and Trisha, and I’ll start with Abel on this one, what is the importance of celebrating diversity, in your mind, hearing and amplifying those diverse voices?

Soares: I think for myself it’s being able to see yourself in the industry, see yourself in positions of leadership. When I met with Trisha and seeing what she was able to do as another minority and having worked here in Hawaii and just hearing her background and story, like I said, it was very uplifting. Seeing in what I was able to accomplish, feeling like that was a great thing. But seeing how much more she was able to do in her career, it was rewarding seeing that there is no cap, there is no limit on where you can go.

I think it’s being able to help provide access, not just for people with careers, but also the small business owners that are trying to find services. When they see somebody that’s like them, they have a little bit more trust because they can understand the cultural background, maybe language background and all of those things that are not directly related to compliance and the operations of their business but may result in some background or subconscious decisions as to why they’re going to operate their business in a certain way or why they’re going to execute certain transactions.

I think if the professional can meet their clients where they are and understand what it is that they’re trying to do, then that will build a deeper trust, especially with us as CPAs. I’ve experienced that the clients then come to you for things that are not accounting related and they end up using you as a trusted adviser in a lot of different realms that may not even be in your wheelhouse, but it’s nice to see that that trust is gained and built. I think by maintaining and growing the diversity, we’re actually hoping the client base, which is just helping the community as a whole.

Nomura: For me, I think it’s because people really connect to stories. They love to hear and learn about someone that maybe started out with a similar background as them or is from the same place. Perfect example with Abel and I being able to connect with each other, both living in Hawaii. Abel is actually from a part of the island where we don’t have a lot of volunteers right now to go out and speak to high schools. I just know that if students from his community met him, heard about the success that he has had, that they will know that they can achieve that, too.

By telling your story, you never know who you might inspire. I think that showing how diverse our profession is really speaks to the endless opportunities that exist within accounting.

Amato: Well, that’s perfect. Thank you both for telling your stories today. Abel Soares III, Trisha Nomura, thanks for being on the Journal of Accountancy podcast.

Nomura: Thank you, Neil.

Soares: Mahalo.