Today, our guest is Lisa Simpson. Lisa is probably very familiar to most of you, but I will give a quick introduction. Lisa is Vice President of Firm Services at, or for, the AICPA. At or for, you could say it either way, I suppose. Her team, and she leads many teams, they’re involved in many different aspects of doing things to help the profession, which is exciting to hear and talk about, some of it, which we will talk about today. A few things that I want to, and I’ll let her do a little further, in case I miss anything, but she is part of the Town Hall Series, probably many of you have heard that. It’s a great program that she’s a co-host of. In addition, she has been named one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for the last four years by Accounting Today. Lisa, welcome to The Unique CPA.

Thank you, Randy. I’m excited to be here. I remember when we met initially at a conference last year, I just felt like I’d met a kindred spirit and I’ve been waiting for this chance to get to talk to you.

I felt the same way. We had a great time, and it was like we had very similar views on, you know, both passionate about this profession and similar views on things that we need to do to make sure this profession is as good as it possibly could be. And that was, boy, that was last like June or July. It’s been longer than I expected.

Time’s a blur, Randy. Time’s a blur.

Yep. I remember it was in San Diego. I got that part of it, even if I don’t have the date. Okay. Alright, so I gave you an intro there. Anything you want to expand on? Maybe a little more about the Town Hall Series, because that’s such a great program that you do.

I’ll come back to the Town Hall Series. I’ll dig in a little bit to some of the work that my teams do. First of all, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are one of my teams, and that includes so many important aspects of the profession—ethnic minorities, keeping women engaged in the profession, LGBTQ community, trying to help them feel more welcome and included, and also emerging professionals. As we talk about demographics around the talent challenges, we know that we need to attract more people into the profession, but we have to keep them too. So my team will be working on additional resources to help support emerging professionals as they go on their career journey. 

We also have Firm Relationships, and that helps me keep a good sense of what’s really going on in the trenches with firm leaders of all sizes. I started my career with the AICPA in a team called PCPS, which is the Private Companies Practice Section. I refer to it as “The Home for Firm Practice Management Resources.” So that’s a few of the teams that I get the pleasure of being involved with.

Yeah, the list, I actually have the list here, and it’s a lot—a lot of programs that you’re involved with, which is great. So there’s a few things that we want to touch on today that we discussed touching on, but I think the most important thing, and it sounds like the thing that is the biggest project you’re working on, and maybe the most passionate project, is the transformation of the business model that AICPA and you personally are working on right now. Do you want to give us—first, let’s not assume everybody even knows what it means—”business model.” So when we say that, what are we talking about?

That’s a great question because we absolutely have some disagreement around what do we mean by business model. We try to frame it in terms of what are the things that are impacting the way that most traditional CPA firms are operating today that impact the culture. And by impacting the culture, are they having a positive impact on our ability to recruit into the talent pipeline, or are they having a negative impact on our ability to generate interest in the profession? So, I know that from a—you’ve studied for your MBA—they would not say that what I’m going to talk about is business model. But for me, these are aspects of the business model that are impacting people in the firms.

Okay, and so when we say transformation then, we’re seeing the old ways are not what we should continue under. So what is, let’s—I’m making an assumption. Is that accurate?

Yes, that’s right. We have to transform many of the aspects of how firms are running, because they were built for a hundred years ago—when systems were different, when people issues were different, when there was no technology. So what can they be looking at today to adapt to the current business environment and people environment, and then set themselves up for continued success in the future. That’s a big deal, right? That’s a lot. And so we tried to just break it down into five main categories. 

So we talk about it from the standpoint of, what’s your firm strategy? What does your firm governance structure look like? What service offerings are you providing now? And what do you intend to provide in the future? What’s your technology environment like? Are you doing the right things with technology, are you leveraging it to its fullest, et cetera. And then talent is one of the biggest components of that. So I could nerd out on governance for 30 minutes, but I’m going to save that one. 

I love that one though!

I nerd out on government. 

Yeah. And what we will do is, you know, I’m hoping at some point we can get on and do that one too, because that one is one I’m like, yes, that is pretty cool. So, do you want to give us like just a minute on that? What is governance, then?

So for me, when I think about governance, I challenge firms to think about is the way their firm sets up decision making really empowering the firm to make fast, agile, effective decisions that are for the long-term benefit of the firm? Or is it a—every partner has to vote and agree on the color of paint in the lobby? So we look at how decisions are made and what the corporate structure looks like too. So we’ve got the conversations about private equity and ESOP, and now we’ve got B Corps in the profession, and the partnership model that has existed for a hundred plus years, is it the right model for today, when we need to be thinking about how to transfer ownership, perhaps with a different lens? 

You can get into things like you can be a partnership, but run like a corporation. You can have an executive committee that’s empowered to make decisions on behalf of the firm and those kinds of things. So how decisions are made, what the structure looks like, how do you transfer in and out ownership, and is your corporate structure set up to get the capital that you need to invest in technology and talent and expanding service opportunities and those kinds of things?

I won’t ask any questions because we’re not going to concentrate on that one, but I think there’s so much there and that one is one you can unpack a lot. So, governance one, do you want to—I think we’ll leave talent to the last because I think that’s where we want to expand on a lot—but do you want to go through the next four and give us a little rundown?

Yeah. So with strategy, one of the things that I’ve come to realize over the last four years of being on the AICPA Town Hall, and getting to see all of the questions from our audience and getting to really feel their pain, especially through the pandemic, is that I think many firms really haven’t taken the time to set out their strategy, and create their vision, and understand what a successful future looks like for the firm and the people in the firm. So again, we asked some questions about, do you have a shared vision of success within the firm? Do you have an actionable plan for how you’re going to move forward over the next three months, six months, 12 months? And does everyone have the same talking points around what the future of the firm is supposed to look like and what the strategic imperatives are?

Yep. And I can’t help myself: Governance and strategy, both. You know, when you’re looking at the model of let’s say partnership or whatever, even subconsciously, the decisions might be made for what’s best for me because I’m going to retire in five years, rather than what’s best for the long-term health of this business. And it may not even be consciously, but there’s just going to be an unconscious bias there. So I think somehow being able to get past that would be extremely important.

Absolutely. I’ll come back—we’ll be building out resources around compensation structures for partners that create a one firm effect rather than a siloed book of business type of compensation. So I’m really excited to get those built out over the next six months or so probably, and just really looking forward to helping firm leaders think differently about how they’re compensating performance at the partner level.

Alright, let’s move on because I can sidetrack this a lot and I’m trying not to.

Yeah, it’s a podcast so you can’t see me zipping my lips, but I’m zipping my lips.

Alright, offerings and tech are the next two we need to touch on.

Yeah, so let’s talk about technology and the fast transformation that’s happening in that space and the ability of technology, when deployed effectively within a firm, to drive efficiency, to drive quality, and to drive up the value of the work that we’re doing and the services we’re providing. And, you know, it can be daunting. So when I’m talking with firm leaders about it, I’m asking them to think about, you don’t have to invent everything, you don’t have to throw out everything you’ve got. Your vendors should be working on ways that their technology is going to make your life better, and you need to be asking about their roadmap. Gen AI will absolutely have a substantial impact on the profession, and I think it’ll be in a positive way. 

I agree.

And so how can we help firms understand the opportunity and then implement it? Again, to drive quality, efficiency, and higher value work.

Yep. What concerns me there, and I agree with all that, what concerns me is just the mindset that too many people have now, and that mindset is time. And now I just became so much more efficient because I’m integrating the best technology possible. And so if my mindset is, well, I’m doing less time, I’m going to charge less, well, we haven’t changed anything, because we’re still going to be just pumping out more and more work and we’re going to charge less for it. And so we have to start having the mindset, and this is my opinion, of charging for the outcome and not what we put into it. And people forget when you put in the technology, we’re still investing time and money and effort into that as well.

This is why we’re kindred spirits, Randy. This is why. And that’s the perfect lead-in to service offerings, because when it comes to service offerings, you know, some of the questions I ask is what work are you going to perform? Do you know who your ideal client is? And then what services are you going to provide those clients? And how are you going to price them? Because if you’re investing in technology, if you’re driving efficiency, and you’re still billing by the hour, then you’re leaving money on the table. 

And it’s not just about leaving money on the table, it’s about recognizing the value of the work that you’re providing to your clients, and shifting that mindset around billing by the hour. I’ve seen CPAs have ethical issues about not billing by the hour, and I don’t understand, because you’ve built up a lifetime of experience and knowledge that you can then give to your client for the value that it’s worth, not based on the number of hours that you spent on that particular tax return, that particular financial modeling. It’s about so much more than what you’re doing on that particular engagement. 

And with service offerings too, I think as we talk about talent, we have so many opportunities to expand the services we offer. So, if you’re in audit and assurance, you know, ESG is a huge opportunity. It is making its way here, and it will trickle down. We’re not at the European level yet of adoption, but we believe that market forces will require assurance around ESG and CPAs are in a perfect position to own that space. And if we don’t own it, someone else will. So ESG, we’re seeing huge growth in SOC. Then you’ve got assurance opportunities around digital assets and Gen AI will present opportunities for assurance. What’s going into that black box and what’s coming out? So many ways that we can expand our assurance offerings that are super exciting and cool, and you know, can really entice people into the profession, I think.

Yep, agree. There’s so much more we can do than accounting and tax. 

Yeah, exactly. 

The opportunities are there. Alright, so those four areas, obviously, we can do a whole podcast on each one of those. Now I feel guilty because we stole probably some of the time from talent, the last one we want to talk about, but let’s get into talent and the importance and what we’re looking to do with this transformation of the business model.

Absolutely. I think talent is probably the most important piece, because without our people, we can’t really do much. This ties into a lot of the work that the AICPA is doing around researching the issues with recruiting into the pipeline and what impacts the decision of high school and college students to go into accounting. And they’ve been working with a group called the National Pipeline Advisory Group to look at the data and determine what some of those issues are. There is a negative perception of the profession that we have low starting salaries, that we’re going to, you know, overwork you, that the work’s going to be dull, that you’re going to sit in a cubicle for eight, nine, 10, 12 hours a day and not work with anyone else. And so all of those negative perceptions play out in social media, play out at the kitchen table when, you know, a young professional goes back home for Thanksgiving and is talking to their brother or sister about how hard they’re working. And then that filters into high school. And all of that impacts our ability to be seen as a profession of choice. 

So, we’ve kind of framed this as how can we help the profession, how can we help firms within the profession become focused on the success of individuals in the firm that will make the firm more successful and that will make the profession more successful and make us more attractive. There are many factors that influence whether a person is interested in coming into the accounting profession, but the perception of the work, and the perception of their employee experience is part of the problem. 

So I frame it as becoming an employer of choice and many firms already are. So this is designed to help firms think about, where am I—on this employer of choice continuum, are there topics that I probably need to be digging into, and then how am I going to get resources to support me in that? And, you know, quite frankly, it starts with our compensation structure in the profession. So when we talk about the compensation structure in the profession, we have a reputation in the market as having really low starting salaries, and our research would show that, I think that’s probably true, and it’s not just about whether or not it’s a good starting salary, it’s also in relation to other career opportunities. Because students today have so many more opportunities to go into technology or finance and so many other areas that really weren’t options for me when I came out of college, I’m not going to tell you how many years ago.

Less than the years it took me when I got it. I can’t even say it right. I’ve been out of college longer than you have. I’ll say that.

We can do some math. We’ll figure it out. But, you know, I think it’s just important to recognize that, like, if you come out with a degree that’s in a STEM area, your starting salary could be $20,000 to $30,000 to $50,000 more than a starting accounting salary on average. This is all averages. And when I think about it, I think about my two sons. And they’re both grown and on their own, but you know, they’re facing rising housing costs, they’re facing student debt, they’re facing, you know, the possibility of living in their parents’ basement. Not my kids, because I don’t have a basement. But, you know, in general, we know that the cost of living your life is going up, and are those starting salaries reflective of it?

Yep. And that’s for sure. And I think the same thing. So neither of my kids went in and I said I wasn’t going to interrupt you, but I still do. That’s just what I do. It’s my, I was gonna say, it’s my podcast. It’s not, it’s your podcast. Thanks for letting me be here today. But I have two boys as well, or my wife and I have two boys as well. And neither of them went into accounting. I never like forced them to, I never talked about it, but I think part of it was, and I’m getting on a tangent here—I think part of it was my fault, you know, not that necessarily they wanted to, but when I started my firm, I didn’t do it the right way. And so that’s the other thing. That’s why we’re talking about this transformation, because there are so many better ways to do this. And so when we want to get the talent in, you know, showing, you know, you said there’s a perception problem, and I was a culprit of that years ago, and I’m the complete opposite now, but I was a culprit of that. So then, the talent, let’s keep going.

Yeah, so compensation structure, and then does the firm culture promote balance? Does it promote hours, I mean, mental health, physical health, and are the partners walking the talk? Now, that last bit was given to me by a former managing partner of a very large firm, who said, “Lisa, that’s great. It’s great if you get summer Fridays off. But if the partners are back in the office and they’re continuing to send emails at 7 p.m. on Friday, they’re not walking the talk, they’re not really buying in, and that doesn’t provide the balance that we’re looking for.”

Okay, so. I won’t say it I guess now, but I think I know who you’re talking about. Top 10 firm?

Well, this was a long time ago.

Oh, okay. Alright. I just had a discussion with somebody. 

The main partner left, I’ll say that.

Oh, okay. So I just talked to a managing partner of a top 10 firm who recently retired, and he was basically saying the same thing, that we just have to change this. We can’t be modeling bad behavior. And he was also a top 10 firm, and I was so surprised. He was talking about how the billable hour has to change, and we have to figure out how to do that. And so it’s not, you know, I can see this happening at the smaller firm level already. I don’t know if it is as much as at the larger firm, but at least I see a change happening. I see this starting to happen from that billing time aspect. So alright, let’s continue. I can’t help myself. I told you.

I love it. I love it. It’s what makes talking to you so fun. And then another factor in, is your firm being an employer of choice is, do your people know that they’re going to be invested in? Do they know that the coaching and mentoring efforts are really meaningful, or is it just, “Yeah, I checked off that I met with Johnny for 30 minutes, you know, every two weeks for the last six months. So I’ve met my mentoring and coaching obligation,” or is it real? Is it in-depth and is it helpful?

So, you know, I know that there are examples of firms who have brought in outside career coaches and brought them into the firm as full-time employees to give their people that opportunity to get real, meaningful, deliberate career coaching, because I’m not sure that CPAs are always the best equipped to be that coach and to be that mentor. So if you recognize that in your firm, can you either outsource it and, you know, bring in someone part-time or, if you’re a larger firm and you’ve got the investment available, do you bring them on staff and make them available to everyone in the firm?

Yep. And all of this stuff, a lot of what you’re saying, it all revolves around the culture in my mind. We’re creating this culture of a place where people feel valued, they feel they’re being supported, they feel they can be themselves, they feel like what they have to share matters. That is, I think, my simplistic thought of this, that’s the way you become an employer of choice.

And that’s exactly right. Our research shows that people want to be valued; they want flexibility, and we’ll talk about that. They want to know that they’re going to be invested in, and they want to know that they belong. They want to know that there are going to be opportunities for growth. That’s not unreasonable.

No. 

I don’t think any of that is unreasonable.

No. And I think another thing that you’ve already discussed too, but diversity within a workforce is so important as well. I don’t even think people realize how important that is. And we’ve gone through different programs at our business to show, you know, what’s actually to highlight the fact of how diverse we are and how important it is that we each are there, because we can’t be successful without each other. We all have different skills and roles and backgrounds and whatever, and diversity is, you know, years ago I wasn’t even thinking of that as being important, but it is so extremely important as well.

It absolutely is, and diversity has so many elements. Some you can see, some you can’t.

Correct.

So how can we create a culture within firms where everyone feels like they have a voice and where they belong? 

We also—the feedback from people coming into the profession is that they want and need that flexibility. So is it remote work? Is it hybrid work? Is it work for your day? Is it work from anywhere, and it’s a results-only environment? And I cannot stress enough how important that flexibility is to be able to live your life and your work, it’s not always going to be balanced, right? It can be unbalanced at times. There can be heavy work periods. There can be heavy life, you know, times where you’ve got kids in summer camps, and you’ve got to balance everything. But overall, do people feel empowered to make the decisions about what’s going to help them live their life and integrate their work as well?

Yep. I’m a big proponent of allowing people to be involved with the decision-making aspect of what’s going to affect them.

Right. Yeah. And the work still has to get done on time, accurately, with high quality and efficiency, but are there opportunities to provide flexibility around where that work gets done and when?

Yep. ConvergenceCoaching, Anytime, Anywhere Work Survey.

Exactly.

Yeah, that’s a great example of what people are looking at out there.

Absolutely. Great example of it. 

Then we talked a little bit about new service lines. I think that if we, as a profession, want to move the needle on drawing people into the pipeline, we have to show that we’re not just ticking and tying a balance sheet and an income statement and putting dead numbers in the financial statements. So looking at ESG, looking at opportunities around cybersecurity advisory, looking at client advisory and accounting services, the fastest, you know, one of the perennial fastest growing service lines, and, you know, just other advisory services so that we can show how much more we do. Forensics I think is super cool. Data analytics, financial planning, and analysis. So much we can do. And you want to be able to show to people coming into the profession that you’re open to these new opportunities.

Yeah, that’s what’s so cool about this profession. We have these long-term relationships where we see so many milestones within a business, within a family, within, you know, a group of employees, that it’s just such an exciting place to be.

That’s a perfect lead-in to another aspect of being an employer of choice: It’s helping your team understand that their work has meaning and purpose, and letting them play out that meaning and letting them tie into the purpose. I think so many CPAs I meet, we want to help. That’s why we’ve stayed in the profession—because we want to help other people. And, you know, helping a start-up get to a successful buyout or whatever is next, helping a small business owner keep their business running to support the 30 people that they’re paying and paying their healthcare for, you know, just the investment in the community. All of that is embedded in what we do. 

And during the pandemic we saw that, right? Because we were, I call them the economic first responders for our clients during the pandemic. We were just right in tune with our purpose during that time. I don’t want to go back to that. So how can we embed that into our everyday work? And I think there are opportunities with audit, you know, if you think about audit and you’re wondering to yourself, why am I checking out a bank statement reconciliation for, you know, 50 different bank accounts every single day for three months? But if you think about it, that really, you’re helping ensure that the financial statements are accurate without material misstatement. You’re providing confidence in those numbers that the lender is going to use, that an investor is going to use, that the business owner is going to use to make decisions. So there’s more to it than just checking a balance sheet.

Yep, for sure. 

And then I think another aspect of being an employer of choice, and again, with the design of attracting people into the profession and retaining them for the long term, is talking about how a career in public accounting can be very rewarding in the long term. Now, the caveat to that is, we need to figure out how to make some of that reward profitable earlier in the career so that it’s not “work for this firm and buy into the partnership in 20 years and then in another 20, we’re going to pay you out over 10 years.” That model probably isn’t going to be very attractive in the near future or the far future.

No. Correct.

So we want to talk about that, it kind of ties back into the governance structure and the corporate structure and how you can incentivize behavior and move some of that reward earlier into the career through interesting compensation methods.

Yeah, and I have a question about this because I’ve thought about that as well. That needs to happen. But in the long run, I think it evens out—in the short term, are we going to be taking from the current partner base, to drop their salaries a little so we can increase the others? And if we look at the lifetime of these new employees, yeah, they’re at the same spot. But now if we look at the current partners, is somehow that going to have to be affected to get to that point? I just, I don’t know how it works. Have you guys studied that and figured it out?

It’s one of the things I want to really dig into, but from my perspective, if you are looking at all of the other components that we’ve talked about, what are your service offerings and how are you going to price it? What are you going to do to use technology to drive efficiency and quality?  Then can you make up for that through other ways? 

Yep.  Just increase the whole, everything goes up. We don’t have to have someone suffer to be successful; we can all be successful. 

I don’t want to make it sound like there’s never going to be a dip in owner comp to front-load more of this opportunity, because I think in some circumstances there will. And we’re in an environment where, you know, the firm owners do have to figure out how to invest in technology. They do have to figure out how to invest in talent. They have to figure out what their M&A strategy is. There are capital needs in the profession. It’s about figuring out what your levers are because you’ve got more than one, and then balancing them to get to the long-term and short-term goals of the firm and your people. That’s the way I think about it.

Do you think that’s part of the reason that private equity is getting so prevalent then? Because we have this capital need, and we just don’t have it anywhere else, and this is a way to get it? I just don’t see—I don’t know what the long-term effects of that are going to be. 

You know, I think private equity is coming into the profession because they see opportunity. We are a very dispersed profession, and they see an opportunity through combinations and rolling up smaller firms into a larger firm and therefore expanding opportunity. I don’t know what the flips are going to look like, and, you know, I don’t think any of us know. So that’s the implication that we’ve got to consider. Are there benefits from a PE model that maybe you can work into your plan without doing PE? Are there alternative compensation structures that tie your younger talent to the firm because they feel more invested, they feel loyal, they feel like an owner, even if they don’t necessarily have a true ownership piece? So there are things we can, you know, we can learn.

Great points. Let’s get back then to the—there’s probably another thing or two on talent that you want to touch on?

Well, I think when I talk to firms, they’re like, you know, Lisa, all of this sounds great, but who’s doing it, really, and how are they doing it? We’ve been really focusing on talking to firm owners and leaders who are making these changes, and so, not to compete with your podcast, but I have a series of podcasts with people who have made these changes. I’ve got a small firm owner who called a substantial portion of her tax practice, and is now making more money, and is much healthier, and is much happier, and so much more. 

You can promote that podcast too; we’re not competing at all.

I really want to amplify these messages that you can make changes in your firm, and that will contribute to everyone’s mental wellbeing, physical wellbeing, make more money, increase your ability to recruit and retain talent because it can be done. And that’s part of what our project is about. It’s about amplifying the positive stories and then providing resources to help. So we have a compensation toolkit that we worked on with ConvergenceCoaching that helps you look at your strategy and compare your compensation to the market, both in public accounting and other careers. We have another toolkit that Convergence worked with us on to help firm owners and leaders understand how to utilize professional non-CPAs in the firm to take some of the client-facing work off of the CPA, lighten workloads, drive efficiency, give roles and responsibilities to people that are eager to take on those roles. So those are some of the practical ways we’re trying to help firm owners and leaders get into the, how can I make these changes.

So the work you’re doing sounds amazing. I mean, I’ve thought for a while, and it’s become more and more of a hot topic that I like discussing, but that business model transformation, I think, is so important. It’s just, as you said at the beginning, we’ve pretty much been doing the same thing for the last hundred-plus years. And it’s probably our personality. It is—consistency is important. This is what’s driven into us. And the businesses that are very financially sound, for the most part, and doing well, and so why make changes? But if we don’t, we’re going to have a problem. 

So of those five, obviously, we highlighted talent today the most. I’d love to have an opportunity to talk about the others down the road. But before we wrap up, why don’t you give us a wrap on talent and whatever you want to tell us about your final thoughts on talent.

Here’s my wrap-up on talent: Again, I came out of college in a period where accounting students fell from the sky, so firms didn’t really have an incentive to have to change compensation structure or work hours or the work that was being done or anything like that. And demographically, we’re going to be hard-pressed to be back in a position where accounting students fall from the sky. So what can we do? We all have a role in influencing the attractiveness of the profession. And if you’re in a public accounting firm, these are things you can control. These are things you can model, and these are things you can, in fact, change around to lift your ability to be seen as a firm of choice, an employer of choice, and then to help the entire profession elevate back into that position of being a profession of choice.

Yep, that’s good. And then, like I said, we do need to do this again. So you and I will work on this because this is such an interesting topic, and the work you’re doing, like I said before, is pretty cool because it is highly needed. So before we finish off today, the final two questions everybody gets: The first one is—and apparently, you’ve listened to the podcast because you’re shaking your head yes—you know what’s coming, but besides obviously doing all that amazing work with the AICPA and helping the profession and being passionate for change for the profession, when you’re not doing that, what are your outside-of-work passions? What do you love doing when you’re not working?

My husband and I are getting into the travel phase of our life, or let me be cool, our travel era; we’re in our travel era, so we are, you know, we’re trying to do things that have been on our bucket list for a long time and we hadn’t done. So, last year it was Italy, this year I’m going glamping in Yellowstone.

Oh, awesome.

Glamping, not camping. 

I heard glamping! Yeah, I should have highlighted that, but yes, still, you’re out there. 

And we’re already plotting. We’re plotting next year’s adventures. So, I’m really getting excited about that ability to just go explore.

Yeah, it’s fun. We’ve been, our whole adult life, we’ve been pretty good at doing the travel thing, probably more so, well, when the kids were young, but even now, Europe has become a big thing for us. So we just got back from Europe a few weeks ago. Yeah, travel is so important, seeing so many cool things. And which highlight the fact that part of the talent issue is making sure that we do have this work-life balance where we have time to go out and travel. So travel, I love that as a passion. 

And then lastly, if people want to hear more, see what you’re doing, see what the AICPA is doing, Town Hall, all these things, what’s the best place for people to go and find out more information?

I’m on LinkedIn, and I’m on Twitter @LisaTSimpsonCPA. Excuse me, it’s X now. If you just look for Lisa Simpson on Twitter, you’re probably going to get a blonde cartoon character wearing a red dress. That is not me. So, it’s important to get that @LisaTSimpsonCPA in there.

Got it.

And would love to connect on LinkedIn or there. The AICPA Town Hall is twice a month, generally on Thursdays, and you can find out all about that at AICPA.org and just search for Town Hall. It is free for AICPA members and does come with CPE. So that’s exciting. And then PCPS, you can send us a note at PCPS@AICPA.org, and we can walk you through some of the amazing resources that our team is developing. And it is a team. I come up with crazy ideas, and then a lot of people behind me, are like, “Okay, let’s go do that.”

 

See, we are very similar. That’s the same thing I do. And luckily, everybody else does it for me. So, alright, well, Lisa, this did not disappoint, a great conversation, great work you’re doing. And thanks again for being a guest on The Unique CPA.

I look forward to the next one!