AJ Johnson: New CPA Licensure Pathway Opens Doors to Talent | Gear Up for Growth
Expanding access while maintaining rigorous standards.
Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines
PODCAST
The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | ARC
Label intent, clarify tone and choose the right channel so feedback lands as coaching, not conflict.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
Leaders in accounting do not need to choose between being “nice” and being effective.
In this ARC episode, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, make the case that the best bosses aim for something tougher — kindness with clarity.
The conversation starts with a story familiar to anyone who has ever hovered over the “Send” button on a difficult message.
MORE Accounting ARC: 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
Mason, founder and CEO of High Rock Accounting, recalls proposing a conference talk with a deliberately provocative title — a reminder that most professionals feel the tension between holding the line and keeping the peace. The point, she says, is not to sanitize reality. It is to learn how to hold people accountable without turning it into a personal attack.
Nick Pasquarosa: From Door-to-Door Bookkeeping to a 1,000-Client Cloud Firm | Holistic Guide
Advisory at Scale Requires Systems, Not Heroics. Plus 5 More Takeaways.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS
With Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines
When firms talk about innovation in accounting, they often start with technology. But in my conversation with Nick Pasquarosa, founder and CEO of Bookkeeper360, it became clear that technology was never the starting point for his firm. It was the result of listening closely to small business owners and building systems to solve their most persistent problems.
MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide | BOLT: Bookkeeper360 Launches Mobile and Web App Featuring AI-Powered Virtual CFO
Pasquarosa founded Bookkeeper360 in 2012, long before cloud accounting was the norm. What began as a door-to-door side hustle helping local businesses reconcile their checking accounts evolved into a nationwide cloud accounting firm serving nearly 1,000 small business clients with a team of more than 75 professionals across 26 states.
“I started this in high school,” Pasquarosa tells me. “It really started with an interest in helping small businesses stop running their business off their bank account balance and [instead] giving them timely, accurate books so they could make real-time decisions.”
Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency
Why equity is the new standard for talent retention.
This is a preview. The complete 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 podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines
Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based, private-equity-backed Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.
MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation
Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on Big 4 Transparency to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.
Quotables
“The demand for accounting services is greater than it ever has been. The challenge is providing the service at a high level in a labor-constrained environment.”
“AI in and of itself is not right now the solution to solve all our problems. Using automation and offshoring gives us the operational leverage to create that capacity.”
“I recognize that my people are being attempted to be poached every single day of the year.”
“Why have a stock price if you don’t disclose what it is?”
“‘’If I worked that 80-hour week, you should too.’ Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore.”
Dubow argues the profession has shifted from a demand constraint to a capacity constraint. Client needs continue to expand, but firms increasingly struggle to staff and deliver services proactively at scale.
Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal. | ARC
Decode your energy signals, redesign your calendar, and stay sharp even when you’re running low.
Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer
Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS.
Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
As the calendar flips and the pace of work accelerates, many accounting professionals find themselves running on fumes. The holidays are over. Travel lingers in the body. Busy season looms. And yet, expectations snap back to full speed almost overnight.
In this Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, and Liz Mason, CPA, take on a topic many professionals quietly struggle with but rarely discuss openly: how to work through fatigue without burning out—or dialing down performance.
MORE Accounting ARC: 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
Their conversation is refreshingly candid, practical, and grounded in lived experience. And it challenges one of the profession’s most persistent myths: that being tired means you’re doing something wrong.
Both hosts open the episode admitting they are exhausted—but not from overwork. Shimamoto is coming off a stretch of nonstop weekends filled with visitors, events, and travel. Mason is freshly jet-lagged after nearly two weeks in London, balancing client work with museums, family time, and international flights.
The point lands quickly: fatigue doesn’t only come from too much work. It comes from full lives.
And pretending otherwise, they argue, is where professionals get stuck—pushing through exhaustion with guilt instead of strategy.