The Pulse and the Heartbeat

By Jamshed Behram Gandi, CPA

According to a new AICPA report, 2009 Trends in the Supply of Accounting Graduates and the Demand for Public Accounting Recruits, our profession seems to have turned another corner. More than 60,000 students obtained a bachelor’s and/or master’s degree in accounting, resulting in an increase of about 3.5 percent from June 2007. Let’s hope that this is the beginning of a trend that continues to allay some of the shortfalls of the past, the effects of which the profession is still feeling. At the same time, however, due to the vagaries of the economy, hiring seems to have slowed down considerably.

Not surprising also was the observation that 80 percent of the programs now offer courses in IFRS in anticipation of the globalization that I have discussed before.

And CPA Letter recently conducted a poll asking what aspects of an accounting career were most interesting to students. Topping the list of responses were job stability, career options and salaries. I think that these positive attributes are a welcome change from the past where they did not seem to influence entrants into the profession. Both the pulse and the heartbeat of the profession are very strong.

Closer to home, we had a sold-out golf event Sept. 22. It seems Harding Park is a favorite venue with the players, as this is our fourth year at this location (see photos below). This annual event is a major fund-raiser for our scholarship fund, and I request continued participation in the years to come.

Coming up Thursday, Oct. 22 will be our annual ABC Night. Given that we will be past the throes of the second filing season of the year, it would be encouraging to have a healthy turnout in getting these esteemed professionals together for a networking mixer, so please invite your attorney and banker colleagues.

We now have a plan for our resurgent tax committee under the leadership of board member Laura Ross who plans to hold the first meeting in early November. I sincerely request that firms consider lending support to this by having some of their staff attend this first meeting, as it will lay the foundation for the future of what I consider a very integral part of any chapter’s committee slate, the tax committee.

With the help of the MAP committee, I plan to put together a follow-up meeting to address some of the practical implications to succession planning. Our first meeting in May was well-attended, and this time around we hope to discuss some of the financial issues involved with internal buyouts and external mergers. As older CPAs reach retirement age, it can only help to tap into the successful experiences of others about how to pass the torch.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 1:33 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.