The skills that get you into public accounting are not the skills that keep you whole once you're inside. Ellen Sulistio spent a decade at a Big 4 firm and figured out the difference between surviving and actually thriving — then built those principles into an entire organization.

Nobody puts "survived seven busy seasons without losing myself" on their resume. But maybe they should.

In Episode 3 of Qualified Opinions, Drew Carrick (The Rapping CPA) and co-host Chris Vanover sit down with Ellen Sulistio, Senior Vice President at CPA Club. Ellen spent a decade at a Big 4 firm — not just grinding through it, but actually learning how to sustain herself inside it. And then she took those lessons and built them into the culture of an entire organization: four-day work weeks, no billable hour pressure, and real structural choices around wellbeing that aren't just perks on a careers page.

This episode covers the human side of the profession that never makes it into the recruiting pitch:

• What it looks like to build a nonlinear career inside Big 4 — from audit to national office learning & development
• Why your best performers aren't always your best teachers, and what that costs the people below them
• How a PwC senior retreat became a turning point — and what a high energy score in a room of 95% burned-out peers actually signals
• The burnout checklist the AICPA released — and what it says about the state of the profession
• Why the 4-day work week is structurally incompatible with the billable hour model
• How CPA Club eliminated 40–60 hours of manual work per project through automation — and why that's a people decision as much as an efficiency one
• Work-life integration vs. work-life balance: the distinction that actually matters
• The newly coined concept of "career creep" — and how to stop it before it takes over
• Mentorship as transportation: how to get someone from Point A to Point B without defining either one for them
• What to say to someone who's two years into the profession and already running on fumes

Earn CPE credit for this episode by taking the quiz on the Earmark app. New episodes every first and third Wednesday of the month.

Qualified Opinions is powered by CPA Club https://cpaclub.cpa/ — transforming accounting firms and professionals to create a better future for the entire industry.

Ellen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esulistio/

Drew's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewcarrick/

Chris' LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisvcpa/