Darren LaCroix is the only speaker in the world who is a Certified Speaking Professional, an Accredited Speaker, and a world champion of public speaking. He's also the co-host of Unforgettable Presentations podcast. Darren always stresses, "Don't go for the designations to get the letters after your name. Do it for the professional you will become in the process." Darren’s story of failed entrepreneur to budding comedian and eventually world renowned public speaker is an incredible journey, full...
Dec 09, 2019•52 min•Season 2Ep. 43
Ken "Mr. Biz" Wentworth is the host of a successful radio show, B2B Radio, which focuses on helping business owners. He’s developed expertise during 20 plus years in leadership positions while rising to the top 3% at a Fortune 15 company, and is the bestselling author of two business books. Ken works with small to medium-sized businesses that are really good at what they provide, but need some help on the financial side to run their business a little more profitably. He’s an on-demand CFO. Peopl...
Nov 25, 2019•39 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Dr. Mihaela Jekic is a money coach, author and TedX Speaker. Mihaela helps professionals and entrepreneurs transform their money mindset, help them get unstuck financially, and build a business and life they love. Her story of how she went from war-torn Bosnia, attending a school where she didn’t speak the language, and discover improv as a way to get her over her fear of public speaking and shatter the negative beliefs she had about herself is truly fascinating. To learn more, and for the compl...
Nov 11, 2019•32 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Tara Clancy is a speaker, author, and sleep expert. Tara is also a member of the National Speakers Association and currently serves as the President of the Connecticut Chapter. Tara has a lot of great tips and advice for us to think about during our day as it relates to our daytime and our nighttime breathing in order to get a good night's sleep. She discusses the long-term ramifications of nighttime breathing issues and the effect it has on our bodies and on our brains. To learn more, and for t...
Oct 28, 2019•34 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Eileen Kahana is the Founder and CEO of a Chicago nonprofit, Room to Improv, a non-profit dedicated to raising the self-esteem of students, veterans, and seniors, and, ultimately, empowering them to enrich their lives. Improv had always been a part of Eileen, but it was only recently that she discovered its name and process. After retiring from an accomplished career as a teacher and mentor from the Chicago Public School System, Eileen challenged herself to take an improv class at the Second Cit...
Oct 14, 2019•43 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Chrissie Powers is the Founder of Powers Forensic Accounting LLC. Chrissie's experience includes investigations involving diversion of corporate assets, fraud examination and investigation, forensic accounting and record reconstruction, damaging claims analysis and documentation, and providing valuation of closely held businesses for purposes of divorce, estate, and purchase, or sale. Chrissie started her career in the traditional public accounting world doing tax and audit work. Early in her ca...
Sep 30, 2019•38 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Ralph Picano is the CFO and a member of the board of directors for Wade Trim, an almost 100 year old engineering firm. As a CFO, the thoughts that keep Ralph up at night are the ones related to his company’s largest expense: It’s employees. The engineering industry bills hourly. They provide talented people to perform services for clients, and they charge their clients to create value and give them a reason to pay them. The fact that their largest expense in the company itself is payroll means t...
Sep 16, 2019•42 min•Season 2Ep. 37
My guest today is Kevin McCarthy, author of the bestselling book, Blind Spots: Why Good People Make Bad Choices. Kevin works globally with industry leaders to reveal blind spots to unleash the potential in organizations and teams. Kevin spent 33 months in a federal prison for a crime he didn't knowingly commit. His boss at the time was committing stock fraud, and when Kevin discovered this, he realized he had these severe blind spots. How did he wind up working for this boss, and how could he ha...
Sep 02, 2019•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 36
My guest today is Dave Caperton. Dave is an author, speaker and thought leader on ways that joy drives success. Dave uses humor to teach corporations, associations, individuals, and groups how living and working with intentional joy is an act of leadership and a disciplined will. He has 20 years of real-world experience speaking, coaching, and writing about the benefits of a joyful mindset in a business context, including how to unleash creativity, improve health, increase engagement, supercharg...
Aug 19, 2019•50 min•Season 2Ep. 35
My guests today are Bill and Don Tomoff, who are both CPAs who like to say they aren’t your typical accountants. Bill Tomoff is currently a CFO for InstallNET International and a consultant with Invenio Advisors, focusing on training and professional development. Bill volunteers with and is on the board of directors of Special Love, an organization serving children and families fighting childhood cancer. Don is the founder of Invenio Advisors LLC, a consulting firm specializing in information ma...
Aug 05, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Jay Sukow believes that the world will be a better place if everyone takes just one improv class - and I agree! Jay is trying to make that world a reality as the founder of Today Improv, where he teaches improv to actors, businesses, and everyone else around the world. He is currently on faculty at The Second City Hollywood and former faculty member at The Second City Chicago. Some of those he has trained with include Stephen Colbert, Stephen Carell, Dave Razowsky, Keith Johnstone, and Del Close...
Jul 22, 2019•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky is a disaster avoidance expert with over 20 years of experience dramatically empowering leaders and organizations to avoid business disasters by addressing potential threats, maximizing unexpected opportunities, and resolving persistent personnel problems. Gleb serves as the CEO of a boutique consulting and training firm, Disaster Avoidance Experts, whose clients range from Fortune 500 companies to mid-sized businesses and nonprofits. He's also the author of a national bestsel...
Jul 08, 2019•39 min
My guest today is Brian Wagner, Founder and CEO of A Radical Vision, an organization with a powerful mission statement: "It took a crippling disease for us to understand that we have no vision. Losing our sight allowed us to gain vision. That was the greatest gift that's ever been given. We can't hide from our adversity. Our goal is to help others recognize their adversity, go blind, and gain vision. This happened to us. And now, we want to help others have that same focus.” A Radical Vision Whe...
Jun 24, 2019•48 min•Season 2Ep. 31
My guest today is Robin Thieme, the Founder of KBS CFO, which is an outsourced CFO and accounting department solution for growing sustainable and profitable businesses. She has over 30 years of financial and accounting experience, a passion for the efficiencies that new technologies enable, and a dedication to small businesses. One of the things that really impresses me about Robin and KBS is that she was creating a virtual organization long before cloud computing was a mainstream term – and she...
Jun 10, 2019•57 min•Season 2Ep. 30
My guest today is Phillip Lovegrove, who's a partner in the personal financial planning firm of Vorisek Financial Corporation. Now, many of the financial planners that I've interacted with in the past could not or would not adapt their conversation to meet the needs of their clients. Instead, many only seem to be serving their own needs and, at times, come across condescending. Phil is just the opposite. Phil believes in taking a needs-based approach and providing hands-on personal service for h...
May 27, 2019•43 min•Season 2Ep. 29
My guest today is Amy Franko, who is a strategic sales expert, author, and keynote speaker. Amy had a successful business-to-business sales career with global technology companies like IBM and Lenovo before, in 2007, she pivoted into entrepreneurship and launched the training firm Impact Instruction Group. Now, Amy works with professional service firms, helping them grow business development results and build firm leaders. Amy also recently released a book, The Modern Seller, which is not a book...
May 13, 2019•44 min•Season 2Ep. 28
My guest today is Samantha Bowling, who's an Audit Partner at the accounting firm of Garbelman Winslow in Maryland and the current Chair of the Executive Board of the Maryland Association of CPAs. This episode is focused on public accounting, but it also has great implications to business and industry accounting professionals. So, I encourage anyone in accounting – or just interested in how AI is going to change the nature of work – to listen to the interview and decide how these technologies mi...
Apr 29, 2019•50 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Today I have the pleasure of introducing you to Kimberly Ellison-Taylor, a powerhouse in the accounting profession whose drive, energy, and passion is unparallelled. Kimberly is currently a Global Strategy Leader at Oracle, and she has held positions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Motorola, KPMG, as well as having a role in government in Prince George's County, Maryland. On top of that, from 2016 to 2018, Kimberly served as 104th Chairman of the American Institute of CPAs, where she rece...
Apr 15, 2019•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Cara North is a learning experience designer at THE Ohio State University and the President of the Central Ohio Chapter of the Association for Talent Development. However, I did not invite her to be a guest on this podcast because of her day job. I invited her to be a guest because, as she says, "I love connecting others to people and opportunities." She loves networking, making connections, and creating opportunities – and I know that is a big fear for a lot of people, but it’s also a necessary...
Apr 01, 2019•49 min•Season 2Ep. 25
I've been out of public accounting for a number of years, but one thing I remember vividly was the busy season 10: the additional 10 pounds I gained because of all the pizza, the fast food, and the lack of exercise. So today, I asked licensed and registered dietitian and nutritionist Lucy Hayhurst to be our guest and provide us with some strategic tips on how to avoid the busy season 10. Lucy is co-founder of Well Balanced Nutrition, where their goal is to help people worry less, love what they ...
Mar 18, 2019•43 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Jennifer Elder works with financial leaders to become more strategic, stay ahead of the competition, and be more successful. As a consultant and keynote speaker, Jennifer is known for being energetic and enthusiastic, and she has the natural talent for taking complicated topics and making them simple, practical, and immediately implementable. CPA Practice Advisor named Jennifer one of the Top 25 Women in Accounting in 2018. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Maryland ...
Mar 04, 2019•50 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Bill Sheridan is the Chief Communications Officer at the Maryland Association of CPAs and the host of Future-Proof, a podcast in which Bill has interviewed a wide variety of leading thought leaders in the accounting profession and in corporate America. We discuss whether the profession is moving in the direction of becoming more future-proof, or future-ready, through the lens of the conversations he’s been having with his guests for nearly a year. So, let’s get right to it: is the profession fut...
Feb 18, 2019•54 min•Season 2Ep. 2
We would like your feedback on today's podcast by answering this quick two-minute survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/MS2T6P6. Thank you so much for your support. My guest today is a gentleman who knows more about fraud than just about anyone else in the accounting and finance profession: Gary Zeune, CPA, Managing Director of The Pros & The Cons. The Pros & The Cons is the only speaker bureau in the country specializing in white-collar criminals. His 40 plus ex-con speakers tell the s...
Feb 04, 2019•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 21
Jennifer Briggs is the CEO of the Indiana CPA Society, and we talked about a year ago about the State of Indiana’s House Bill 1467, which allows competency-based learning through professional development opportunities to qualify accountants for accountant certificate renewal. Today, we follow up on that conversation to check in on the progress that they have made, learn about any unforeseen challenges that they may have faced, and how they handle these challenges. To recap, in 2010, the Indiana ...
Jan 21, 2019•55 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Happy New Year, everyone! As I thought about 2019, I wanted to get off on the right foot – and I wanted to try something a little different. So today, I interview three wonderful guests at the same time. And you know what? It was a blast! Our guests are Allen Lloyd, CEO of the Montana Society of CPAs; Boyd Search, CEO of the Georgia Society of CPAs; and Chris Jenkins, CEO of the South Carolina Association of CPAs. All three are CEOs who used to work for the Ohio Society and are now running other...
Jan 07, 2019•1 hr 27 min•Season 2Ep. 19
We, as humans, are not wired to multitask – but we’re also addicted to it! So today, we’re going to learn about why multitasking doesn’t work and then some strategies we can use to be more productive. I thought this would be a perfect episode to end the year, as the accounting community’s busy season is lingering on the horizon. We’re joined by third-time guest Karl Ahlrichs, a human capitalist consultant who knows a thing or two about how individuals and teams really get things done. Why can’t ...
Dec 24, 2018•46 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Stephanie Feger is a passionate communicator who believes that a shift in perspective can help people live truly fulfilling lives. After working in the public relations and marketing industry for over 15 years, she realized that happiness isn't found in what society deems important and felt a calling to help others reach their fullest potential while embracing all that life has to offer. Now an author, professional speaker, motivational blogger, book publicist, and home decor business owner, Ste...
Dec 10, 2018•45 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Carrie Sechel is an entrepreneurial business consultant, speaker, and the bestselling author of BASE Jump: Finding Yourself in an Unfulfilling Professional World. Before creating her business, Carrie spent 18 years in public accounting, including seven years as a partner with Deloitte. Carrie always knew she wanted to start a business at some point, but she struggled, and her fear of leaving Deloitte was so great that she nearly broke down before finally deciding to move on. It was hard work to ...
Nov 26, 2018•53 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Sean Kenny is the Co-Founder of PrepLink, a platform that allows accounting firms to work with freelance CPAs remotely, flexibly, and on demand. He is on a mission to transform the landscape of public accounting, and as you’ll hear in this episode, he is extremely passionate about this mission (and, personally, I think PrepLink is going to evolve into something very special). Before founding PrepLink, Sean worked as a CPA for several firms in their tax departments, and the idea was born out his ...
Nov 12, 2018•50 min•Season 2Ep. 18
Have you ever laughed out loud at a tax seminar? Do you wish that you could understand complex tax law in simple terms? Would you like to make more money with great tax planning strategies? You may not believe it’s possible – mostly the laughing part – but today’s guest, David Krebs, is here to prove you wrong. David is an author, speaker, Thomson Reuters Gear Up Tax Class teacher, silver-certified bowling instructor, and Olympic Calculator Edition champion, and he is unique in the tax space for...
Oct 29, 2018•51 min•Season 2Ep. 14
