Here’s what you’re looking for: Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk

LEADERSHIP

Lisa Fitzgerald: Belonging’s No Longer an Option in Accounting | MOVE Like This

Effective leaders create connection, recognizing that human-centered leadership is critical.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines Research podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
 Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Bonnie Ruszczyk is joined by Lisa Fitzgerald, Chief Human Resources Officer at Eide Bailly, for a conversation about talent, leadership, and what it takes to build workplaces where people actually want to stay. With nearly two decades at the firm and a career spanning manufacturing, technology, and professional services, Fitzgerald brings a practical, people-centered lens to some of the profession’s biggest challenges.

MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

One issue keeping Fitzgerald up at night is the accelerating impact of AI on the accounting workforce. While Eide Bailly is approaching AI adoption thoughtfully and seeing real productivity gains, Fitzgerald is just as focused on the downstream effects, particularly how the conversation around AI may influence students deciding whether accounting feels like a “safe” career choice. With firms still recovering from talent shortages, she sees a real risk that fear and uncertainty could deter future professionals before they even enter the pipeline. READ MORE →

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Who Gets the Credit? Why Attribution Deserves a Closer Look

The Matilda Effect offers a lens for understanding how recognition shapes advancement in accounting firms.

Where does your firm stack up?

By Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
Accounting MOVE Project

The accounting profession has spent years grappling with a persistent and uncomfortable reality: women enter the field in strong numbers, perform at a high level, and yet remain underrepresented in leadership.

That gap has been measured repeatedly through industry research, like the Accounting MOVE Project. The harder question is why it keeps showing up. The answer may lie in something more fundamental than policy or pipeline: how work is recognized, attributed, and ultimately rewarded,

MORE Accounting MOVE Project: 2026 Research – Caregiving and the Sandwich Generation | Register for MOVE 2026 | Get a Firm Benchmarking Report

That’s where the Matilda Effect comes in.

The Matilda Effect is about attribution, not participation.
First defined by historian Margaret Rossiter in Social Studies of Science, the Matilda Effect describes the systematic tendency for women’s contributions to be overlooked — or credited to men.

When contributions are not accurately recognized, firms are not just creating internal inequities; they are undermining leadership development, pushing experienced professionals out the door, and losing people who can easily take their talent elsewhere.

It is not simply about exclusion from opportunity. It is about who gets recognized as the source of ideas, innovation, and results. Participation without recognition does not build careers, particularly in a profession where visibility drives opportunity.

History shows the pattern clearly.
Long before anyone had a name for it, the Matilda Effect was quietly reshaping the scientific record.

READ MORE →

LEADERSHIP

Carrie Steffen: The Staffing Problem Nobody Talks About | MOVE Like This

The profession talks too much about deadlines and not enough about impact. Students are listening.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines Research podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
 Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA profession has only itself to blame for a talent shortage.

Firms have spent years talking about the grind of deadlines and busy season, instead of selling the career’s impact, stability, and range of opportunities, according to Carrie Steffen, CEO of the Iowa Society of CPAs.

MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

In the new episode of MOVE Like This, Steffen tells Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk the profession must rethink its narrative, strengthen cultures of belonging, and bring younger professionals into leadership conversations if it hopes to rebuild the CPA pipeline.

READ MORE →

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Change Fails in Silence | MOVE Like This

Firms that treat communication as strategy—not admin—move faster, scale smarter, and keep trust intact.

This is a preview. The complete 1-hour video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by 4impactdata: Start delivering scalable advisory in weeks–not months: See Today’s Special Offer

Click to subscribe anywhere: Apple, Google/Youtube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music and Audible, Player FM, Audacy, Gaana (India), Boomplay (Africa), or RSS

4ImpactData: 10X Your Advisory.
Not Your Headcount

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

On this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk explores a deceptively simple question with Alice Grey Harrison, founder of AGH Consulting: Why do so many firm transformations stall—not because of strategy, but because of communication?

With more than 30 years of experience in strategic communications and change management within the accounting profession, Harrison has seen firms navigate mergers, private equity investments, leadership transitions, system implementations, and cultural shifts.

The difference between momentum and misery, she argues, is rarely technical. It’s human.

MORE MOVE

Her core insight is that culture becomes a growth engine only when people understand how their work connects to the firm’s mission, vision, and values. That clarity unlocks what she calls “discretionary energy”—the extra effort people put in when they believe in the firm’s direction. READ MORE →

PODCAST

Brown: Employer Brands Talk | MOVE Like This

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

Sponsored by CPA Trendlines Go PRO – Get More! Go PRO!  See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS
Get free gits, exclusive access, and more! Get more! Go PRO! 

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 Accounting Voices and previous host of Accounting Influencers, 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. 

MORE MOVE

Brown starts by outlining three major workplace trends. 
READ MORE →