Young and Emerging Professionals: Our Future

By Michael A. Thompson, CPA

I ask local CPA firms to scour their employee ranks for CPAs with up to five years’ experience, CPA candidates and college students pursuing accounting education. These are our young and emerging professionals (YEPs), the future of our profession. I encourage you to get them involved in our chapter’s YEP groups. Alison Proctor and Anthony Rozenvasser co-chair our chapter’s Emerging Professionals Committee, and they have had fantastic success. Below are some of the events sponsored by their committee:

Getting Certified: More than 30 students and CPA candidates, who nearly overflowed the conference room provided by a local CPA firm, attended this July meeting. Alison and Anthony put out the word, and they also worked with our local colleges to publicize the program. There’s still a positive buzz from the event.

San Mateo County Bar Association: Chapter YEPs and the young professionals of the San Mateo County Bar Association will co-host an evening social at Burlingame’s Broadway Grill Oct. 21. The event is modeled after our annual attorney, bankers and CPA social. Connections made at these types of events are the kinds of relationships that can last a lifetime.

CalCPA Council: The council’s November meeting will focus heavily on what we are doing for YEPs and the importance of nurturing our profession’s future leaders. The council is where CalCPA’s Board and chapter representatives meet to discuss what’s important to CalCPA and the profession.

Our young and emerging professionals are so critical to our profession that both CalCPA and the AICPA are dedicating significant resources to their success. If these organizations are so focused on this generation’s success, then surely our local CPA firms should also promote the success of their younger employees. It may take more than 10 years for YEPs to be seasoned enough to enter the ranks of firm leadership, so supporting them early makes sense. YEP success is CPA success.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 3:58 pm and is filed under President's Message. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.