Center for Accounting Transformation, Author at CPA Trendlines

Leadership Starts Earlier: Students Help Shape Accounting’s Future

Center for Accounting Transformation expands Student Ambassador Program nationwide with nonprofit fiscal sponsorship.

Support future accounting leaders! Make tax-deductible contributions through FSA, with funds restricted to support the Center’s student initiatives

By Center for Accounting Transformation

The Center for Accounting Transformation announced today that its student initiatives are now fiscally sponsored by Fiscal Sponsorship Allies (FSA), a 501(c)(3) public charity. The milestone provides the nonprofit governance, financial stewardship, and fundraising infrastructure needed to expand the Center’s student-led programs nationwide.

The Center is currently inviting educators, firms, professional organizations, and individuals to participate through partnership, mentorship, and philanthropic support.
Organizations and individuals can now make tax-deductible contributions through FSA, with funds restricted to support the Center’s student initiatives.
To learn more and hear directly from one of the student leaders, visit https://www.fundraisegenius.com/ca3677.

While the fiscal sponsorship establishes operational support, the announcement represents something larger: an investment in a new, student-driven model for professional engagement and career readiness. READ MORE →

ACCOUNTING ARC

Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | ARC

Understanding a company’s history, leadership, and future matters as much as financial statements.

Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

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Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

???Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, opens a recent episode of Accounting ARC with a simple question: How do you value a business when the numbers tell only part of the story?

His guest, Baria Jaroudi, a Houston-based director in BDO’s business valuation and advisory practice, says valuation work requires more than reviewing financial statements. It requires understanding how owners built the business, where cash flow comes from, and what risks and assumptions shape a credible and defensible value — especially in family law and divorce matters, where the stakes can run high.

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“I like to think of myself as someone who brings clarity and calm in moments that can otherwise feel overwhelming,” Jaroudi says.

Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, says that role reflects a core purpose of the profession: accountants deliver peace of mind. In Jaroudi’s work, that means translating complex analysis into conclusions clients can understand — and conclusions that can withstand scrutiny.

ACCOUNTING ARC

Why the Next Generation May Be Accounting’s Greatest Competitive Advantage | SLC

Young professionals bring adaptability and media literacy that firms need in an AI-driven era.

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Student-Led Conversations
With Arpan Grewal
Center for Accounting Transformation

???Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Student-Led Conversations opens its second season with a conversation that reflects a larger shift underway in the accounting profession: rapid technology change, accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence tools, and an increasing push to bring younger voices into the discussion.

Arpan Grewal, a Center for Accounting Transformation intern and business student in Indiana, welcomes Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, as the first guest of Season 2. Grewal describes the discussion as “full circle,” noting Mason is among the first professionals she interviewed when Student-Led Conversations launched last year.

MORE Accounting ARC: Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC | Free Speech Is a Right; Respect Is a Responsibility | Cash Bags, Casinos & Audits: How First Jobs Shape Us | Gen Z Redefines Careers | Bootleggers, Baptitsts & CPAs: Rethinking Licensure

Mason, a co-host of Accounting ARC, argues the profession is no longer talking about incremental change. It is, she says, in the early stages of something much larger.

The word that continues to surface for her is “revolution.”

ACCOUNTING ARC

Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | ARC

Rural communities offer meaningful work — and a chance to build a practice on purpose.

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Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

???Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

In an era when private equity rollups and “bigger is better” narratives dominate accounting headlines, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, returns to a quieter question: What does it look like to build a firm — and a career — around serving the places that rarely get the spotlight?

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In this episode of Accounting ARC, Shimamoto sits down with two practitioners who live that reality every day: Shayna Chapman, who runs a practice rooted in a small Ohio community, and Mohan Chirumamilla, who serves clients across Omaha, Nebraska, and Columbia, Missouri. Their conversation is part practical playbook, part gut-check — and it lands on a message that feels increasingly urgent for the profession: small towns still need sophisticated accounting, and accountants still need work that feels meaningful.

ACCOUNTING ARC

Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers| ARC

Learn how easily pros tie well-being to success—and how fear of failure can distort self-worth.

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Accounting ARC
With Byron Patrick and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

???Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

Busy season may still be a days out, but the stress response already starts to hum for a lot of accounting professionals — the calendar fills, the inbox tightens, and the margin for error feels like it shrinks to a sliver. In the latest Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, take that reality head-on with a surprisingly practical lens: modern stoicism.

MORE Accounting ARC: The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC

They start by naming the misconception most people bring to the word “stoic” — that it means emotionless, rigid, “stone-faced.” Shimamoto, founder and managing director of IntrapriseTechKnowlogies LLC and founder and inspiration architect for the Center for Accounting Transformation, admits that’s how he learned it, too: a kind of unfeeling resilience.

But the article that sparks the episode — a Psychology Today piece on the science of stoicism — reframes it as something more useful (and more human): a set of attitudes and behaviors linked with resilience, lower anger and higher life satisfaction.