STAFFING & RECRUITING

Lexy Kessler: Your Future Depends on These Three Questions | Gear Up for Growth

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At stake: Growth, relevance and survival.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher

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CPA firm leaders must act decisively on technology, talent strategy and long-term identity or risk falling behind in a rapidly evolving marketplace, Lexy Kessler, Chair of the AICPA and a partner at Aprio, tells JJean Caragher in a new episode of Gear Up for Growth.

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In a wide-ranging discussion, Kessler focuses on three urgent priorities for firm leaders.  

    • AI Adoption Is No Longer Optional 
    • The Talent Pipeline Is Showing Real Progress, and 
    • Firm Leaders Must Recalibrate Who They Want to Be 

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Sarah Petrone: Responsible Growth Starts with People | MOVE Like This

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“We’re growing in a way that is strategic, and that we’re preparing our people to meet the demands of that growth.”

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 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 sits down with Sarah Petrone, chief human resources officer at Clark Nuber, for a conversation about responsible growth, leadership pipelines, belonging, and what it truly means to build a firm where people want to stay for the long haul.

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With more than 20 years in human resources across eight industries, Petrone joined Clark Nuber after leading HR in a startup environment, intentionally seeking a stable yet innovative professional services firm. What she found was an organization that understands a fundamental truth of accounting: in professional services, people are the product. That reality shapes everything from growth strategy to succession planning. READ MORE →

Tax Season Leaves Accountants Drained, Disappointed

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The 30-point swing: Accountants close the season feeling slightly negative, at minus 1.8, a collapse of more than 30 points.

The Busy Season Barometer Shows Exactly When—and Why.

By CPA Trendlines

After starting near historic highs, sentiment among tax professionals fell more than 30 points by April, as workload, client behavior and system failures overwhelmed expectations.

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The 2026 tax season began with confidence.

By December, sentiment among tax professionals had climbed to a positive 29.8—the strongest reading in the CPA Trendlines Busy Season Barometer cycle. A majority expected better conditions. Few anticipated what came next.

By April, that optimism had vanished.

Accountant attitudes closed the season slightly negative, around -1 to -1.8, marking a swing of more than 30 points in four months.

It was one of the sharpest same-season reversals in the Barometer’s 24-year history, and it followed a pattern practitioners have seen before: expectations rising in the fall, then breaking under the weight of the season itself.

The difference in 2026 was the speed—and the causes.

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Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | ARC

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The 2026 MOVE Project aims to turn caregiving challenges into actionable insights for firms.

 

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Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Donny Shimamoto, and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

As accounting firms continue to grapple with talent shortages, retention challenges, and evolving workforce expectations, a growing segment of professionals is quietly carrying an additional burden — one that rarely shows up on a balance sheet. 

They are caregivers. 

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MORE Accounting ARC: Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | 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 

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, turn their attention to the 2026 Accounting MOVE Project — and the professionals it aims to better understand and support.This year’s emphasis: the “sandwich generation” and others balancing careers with caregiving responsibilities. The topic reflects a broader shift in how the profession defines talent, productivity, and success — and raises questions about whether traditional firm structures are keeping pace with reality.

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Who Gets the Credit? Why Attribution Deserves a Closer Look

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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,

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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.

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