TALENT & CAREER DEVELOPMENT

Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | ARC

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Connections create career opportunities, resilience, and leadership growth.

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The step-by-step operating guide for firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In the accounting profession, technical excellence is expected. However, according to the latest episode of Accounting ARC, relationships — not just work product — often determine who grows, who leads, and who thrives. 

In a candid and deeply personal conversation, Liz Mason, CPA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, explore how relationship-building shapes careers, creates opportunity, and provides stability in an unpredictable profession.  

MORE Accounting ARC: The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | 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 |

Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, opens the discussion by reflecting on how little emphasis the profession places on teaching interpersonal skills. Patrick, senior product manager for Karbon and co-founder and part-time educator for TB Academy, agrees. “You don’t learn it in college,” he says. “There’s no course on building relationships.”

That gap, they argue, becomes especially obvious early in a professional’s career. 

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Megan Robinson: Leadership Isn’t a Promotion; It’s a Skill Firms Need to Build | MOVE Like This

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“We’re expecting engagement without creating an environment people actually want to engage in.”

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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, Megan Robinson, founder and CEO of E Leader Experience, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about one of the most common and costly mistakes firms make: assuming strong performers will naturally become strong leaders.

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At the center of the conversation is a clear distinction. Technical excellence and leadership effectiveness are not the same skill set. Yet in many firms, top producers are promoted into management roles without the training or support needed to succeed. The result is frustration on both sides: leaders who feel unprepared and teams that don’t feel supported. READ MORE →

The Seven C’s of Assessing Partner Potential

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Competence and culture are just the beginning.

By Martin Bissett
Passport to Partnership

Staffers aspiring to be partners must learn the key characteristics of successful partners. They also must learn how to develop their own personal plans to achieve partnership. Firms and staffers alike need a clear set of procedures, processes and milestones for turning top talent into the next generation of firm leadership.

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There are seven critically important criteria by which partners assess partners-to-be. I call them:

The Seven C’s
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Why CPAs Quit Public Accounting

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Midsection of businessman moving out with cardboard box from office

Ten reasons, including bosses.

By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting

As I have written about CPAs who leave public accounting, there has been widespread interest. There is a lot more to say so I’ll address many of those questions.

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General Comment

Generally speaking, many bosses do not listen to staff concerns. At many firms, there is a lack of serious mentoring and little help for staff people in managing their careers. In many practices, there is an appearance of a lack of growth, or if there is growth, then staff people are often left behind. In most instances, these problems are exacerbated by staff people not being clear about what they want. They are hesitant to speak up, share their concerns with their bosses or venture beyond their comfort zone. Both are culpable, but I place greater blame on the bosses, who should know better.
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Trisha Daho: What Firms Are Missing on Talent | MOVE Like This

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“They are requiring us to be the leaders that we deserved and didn’t get.”

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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Trisha Daho joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about what’s really happening inside accounting firms when it comes to talent, leadership, and growth. Drawing on her experience as a former Big Four partner turned fractional chief people officer, Daho offers a clear-eyed view of where firms are getting it right, and where they’re falling short.

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At the core of the conversation is a simple but often overlooked point: the firms that are succeeding aren’t just focused on growth, they’re intentional about how they grow. That starts with having a defined talent strategy. Firms that prioritize development, align values with their people, and create consistent leadership experiences tend to see stronger retention, better performance, and more engaged teams. In contrast, firms that treat talent as secondary or assume people will simply “figure it out” often struggle to keep their best performers.  READ MORE →