Trust remains the profession’s currency, even in an automated future.

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

Artificial intelligence is transforming accounting at breakneck speed. It writes reports, summarizes research, drafts client communications, and accelerates analysis. But when AI gets it wrong, it does not whisper. It declares falsehoods with confidence.

That is the warning at the center of a new episode of Accounting Voices, which pulls back the curtain on real-world AI failures that have already shaken the profession — and explains why no firm can afford to treat AI as a neutral back-office tool.

This is not about hypothetical risk. It is about documented failures, public apologies, reputational damage, and a hard truth every leader must confront: Technology does not absolve responsibility.

The question is: Do you know what it’s doing?

It's Not Just the Numbers

With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead

For CPA Trendlines

Artificial intelligence has arrived in accounting, but not in the way many expected. It’s not a single app or a single process. It’s everywhere, embedded in workflows, changing how firms scope engagements, price cleanup work, and train their people. 

In the latest episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin explore how AI reshapes the day-to-day work of accounting firms. Their conversation moves beyond theory to real-world examples of how AI is being used in client engagements, what it means for team development, and why critical thinking, not coding, is the skill every firm must cultivate next. 

Here's what it takes to grow a CPA firm from zero to the Top 100—without losing your soul.

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When Lou Grassi started his firm at age 24, he couldn’t afford to pay himself. There was no client base, no safety net, and no guarantee it would work.

More than four decades later, Grassi is the 56th largest accounting firm in the U.S., with $146.5 million in revenue, seven offices, 58 partners, and more than 560 employees. And yet, as Grassi tells host Jean Caragher on Gear Up for Growth, the most important lessons from that journey have very little to do with size.

They have everything to do with intention.

...And it has less to do with technical skills than firms expect.

Accounting ARC - Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani
Center for Accounting Transformation

As the accounting profession continues to grapple with talent shortages, shifting expectations, and generational change, one podcast is addressing those challenges from a rarely centered perspective: students themselves.

In an end-of-year episode of Student-Led Conversations, hosts Arpan Grewal and Harshita Multani reflect on a year of interviews alongside Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, founder and inspiration architect of the Center for Accounting Transformation. The episode serves as both a retrospective and a case study of what happens when students are entrusted with real platforms and real responsibility.

The idea for Student-Led Conversations emerged after Grewal appeared on an episode of Accounting ARC, where she interviewed seasoned professionals about their careers. What surprised her most was not the technical content, but the personal stories.

“I realized accounting isn’t just about numbers,” Grewal says during the episode. “It’s about people.”

That realization became the foundation for a student-hosted series that explores career paths, mental health, failure, advocacy, and professional identity — topics often absent from traditional recruiting or classroom discussions.

Real employee stories, not polished slogans, are winning the war for talent.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Ruszczyk sits down with Rob Brown, founder and host of the Accounting Voices podcast, to talk about what’s really driving change in the accounting profession. 

Speaking from the UK with deep experience across the U.S. and global markets, Brown shares what he’s seeing in firms of all sizes: pressure from talent shortages, shifting expectations from younger professionals, and the growing importance of a strong employer brand rooted in real stories, not slogans. 

Brown starts by outlining three major workplace trends. 

Firms built on heroics instead of systems eventually crack.

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Ashley Carroll thinks burnout is a design flaw, not a personal failing. 

“I’m a big believer that burnout is a business model flaw,” she says. In response, Carroll created Operations House to help founders reduce burnout and “step out of that role as the provider, the doer, the practitioner, and into an ownership level role.” 

According to Carroll, burnout stems not only from long hours but also from processes that lack four key qualities: reliability, efficiency, integration with existing systems, and psychological safety.

Firms that prioritize, listen, and align position themselves for better long-term outcomes.

By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Phil Whitman, President and CEO of Whitman Advisory, works with hundreds of CPA firms and more than 230 strategic investors across private equity, family offices, wealth management aggregators, and publicly traded consolidators. He sees a profession undergoing unprecedented transformation, and Whitman has a front-row seat. 

In this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, Whitman shares his observations with me from his unique vantage point.  

Transaction activity has since accelerated, creating unprecedented competition for deals and pushing accounting firm valuations into territory the profession has never seen before.

AI's already in the workflow. The question is: Do you know what it’s doing?

It's Not Just the Numbers

With Penny Breslin and Damien Greathead

For CPA Trendlines

Artificial intelligence has arrived in accounting, but not in the way many expected. It’s not a single app or a single process. It’s everywhere, embedded in workflows, changing how firms scope engagements, price cleanup work, and train their people. 

In the latest episode of It’s Not Just the Numbers, co-hosts Damien Greathead and Penny Breslin explore how AI reshapes the day-to-day work of accounting firms. Their conversation moves beyond theory to real-world examples of how AI is being used in client engagements, what it means for team development, and why critical thinking, not coding, is the skill every firm must cultivate next. 

Influence is becoming career insurance for professionals.

Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

The accounting profession does not suffer from a lack of technical expertise. What it faces instead is a growing relevance gap.

That tension sits at the center of Accounting Voices, the newly launched show formerly known as Accounting Influencers. Episode 1 opens a new season with a sharper focus and a clearer message: competence is assumed, but influence is what now protects careers.

This is not a podcast about tax codes, audit standards, or software features. It is a show about the forces reshaping accounting and finance—and what professionals must do to stay ahead as those forces accelerate.

Here's how to label, package, and price the value you already provide

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“With AI, we finally have the tools to free up time for advisory, and clients are asking for it,” says Megan Leesley, director of tax at Dark Horse CPAs, during her appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. 

“They want more than a tax return. They want strategic guidance, and they’re willing to pay for it.” 

Leesley, a member of the Intuit Tax Council, recently presented at DCPA25 on transitioning from compliance to advisory, sharing practical steps to transform a traditional tax practice while increasing revenue, improving client relationships, and enhancing work-life balance. 

Leesley shares how she intentionally reduced her client base and tripled fees to focus exclusively on advisory work. “I reduced my book of business from $350K ARR with a plan to bring it down to $50K,” she explains. 

“I raised prices significantly, required advisory as part of all engagements, and still ended up at over $100K ARR, double my target, even after losing more clients than expected.”