Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA, is no stranger to AICPA & CIMA, and now that he’s back as CEO, he has a message for its 500,000-plus members:
Don’t be a stranger.
Shortly after officially taking over as CEO of the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants and president and CEO of the AICPA in January, Koziel participated in a wide-ranging interview. During that conversation, he invited members to send emails to AskMark@aicpa-cima.com and “tell me how the Association can help you, your career, and the profession”.
“I want to hear from members,” Koziel said. “Listening to our members, hearing where we can help as the Association, [is] really important. We’re not always going to have the answers, but having those questions upfront can give us some additional strategic direction.”
Koziel’s request for member feedback is part of a listening tour that will help drive and develop his agenda as he looks to build upon what Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, accomplished as CEO of the Association and leading the AICPA over many years.
Koziel left AICPA & CIMA in 2020 to become president and CEO of Allinial Global, a global association of independent accounting firms based in the US outside Atlanta. During his five years at the helm, Allinial grew from about 250 firms to nearly 270 firms in 109 countries, representing $6 billion in total revenues.
Koziel understands that the accounting profession faces numerous challenges, and he wants AICPA and CIMA members to know that his 30 years of experience in accounting have prepared him for his new role. In addition to his stints at AICPA & CIMA and Allinial, Koziel spent 12 years in public accounting in his hometown of Buffalo, New York state, working first as an auditor before doing some advisory work. He then joined a client specialising in political media and public affairs. Instead of working as a controller, Koziel ran the 12-person shop’s division that bought TV and radio time for political campaigns and was also client lead in public affairs.
“When thinking about my journey to get me here today to run the largest member body in the world [for accountants], both AICPA and CIMA together, the stars aligned,” Koziel said. “I’ve had experience in public accounting. I’ve had experience in B&I [business and industry]. I have experience in politics and public affairs, which is absolutely necessary for this role. I feel, first of all, humbled and incredibly lucky to represent this great profession of ours, but I feel like I’m ready for the role.”
Following are highlights from FM’s interview with Koziel, which were edited for length and clarity. Listen to both parts of the conversation on the Journal of Accountancy podcast.
What would you say is the state of the accounting profession today? What are its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats?
Koziel: The strengths are definitely in the members that we have. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to meet so many in my journeys. Whether we’re talking about CPAs in public practice in the US or CGMAs around the world, our members are doing some incredible things for businesses.
The threats, I think, are the pipeline aspects that are talked about a lot. I’ve heard it first from the US side and from the firms that I’ve been dealing with, but then as I joined Allinial Global and spent the last five years with firms around the world, I figured out very quickly that it isn’t just a US problem. It is [also] a UK problem, it is a Germany problem, it is a Hong Kong problem, it is an Australian problem.
Markets in China and India are growing, but I do think having some semblance of a global perspective and what we need to do as a profession to try and increase those numbers globally is incredibly important.
Many people say artificial intelligence (AI) is a threat, that it’s going to put us out of business. I’ve heard that time and again. Excel was going to be the death of the accountant, and blockchain was going to be the death of the accountant, and we’re still here. We’re prospering more than ever. I also see AI as an opportunity to do things differently and interact with our clients differently, because they also have the challenges with AI and how to implement it and what it means and providing some level of assurance over AI that gets implemented.
Do you see the profession differently after being the head of Allinial Global?
Koziel: I don’t know if it’s changed as much as it’s been enhanced. We need to interact with our members differently and allow our members to interact with each other.
You can’t rely on a website. You can’t rely on LinkedIn to be your communication vehicle and your community. Creating community is going to be a focal point of mine, and it comes out of what we did at Allinial. I’d love to bring that into the Association.
Upon your appointment as CEO you said, “The profession is well positioned to expand and to continue to evolve.” Tell me more about that evolution, that expansion, what you mean by that.
Koziel: I think first and foremost, who’s going to provide some level of assurance over AI? We are in the assurance business. We have done assurance over financial information for 100-plus years. We got into assurance over controls, and the SOC [System and Organization Controls] reporting that we now have, and then assurance over cyber, which we have an even greater opportunity to expand.
Also, at Allinial we would talk about outsourcing. The minute I’d say “outsourcing”, some people would immediately have in their brain that I said “offshoring”. I didn’t. I said outsourcing.
Now outsourcing can include offshoring, but is outsourcing a threat to the profession? I think it’s helped firms grow and continue to grow and tackle challenges we’ve seen in the profession of those in public accounting and in business and industry trying to find people. This whole outsourcing concept — it helps firms grow and be able to fill capacity.
A great example of this was one of our Allinial member firms had a client that was a billion-dollar spinoff and they needed to be up in 24 countries in two weeks, SAP implementation and accounting support.
We made that happen. Now they’re in 56 countries. Of the 56 countries, the average sized firm that’s doing the work in those countries is probably about $5 to $10 million in revenues. In a number of those countries, 12 of the 56 countries … the Allinial firm is doing the outsourced accounting for this billion-dollar global company. They didn’t want to take the resource to have to set up an accounting department in [those particular countries].
More and more companies are doing this in a variety of markets. This is what makes the CGMA so important globally.
And it shows why bringing together AICPA and CIMA was the right strategic vision that happened back in 2016, because you have these opportunities around outsourcing and being able to make it happen.
Then when you look at the CGMA globally, more firms are out there that aren’t necessarily AICPA member firms because they’re in a [public accounting] member body in their particular country. The CGMA is going to be a great alignment for them to be able to differentiate themselves in the marketplace from other folks.
That expansion, I think, is going to be incredibly opportunistic, and it’s not going to go away anytime soon.
Imagine I was coming out of university or still in university and considering what business career I wanted to go into, but I was concerned about work/life balance and earnings and earning potential. What would you say to someone like me who is considering accounting, but also considering other options?
Koziel: Whether you take business and industry as your channel or public accounting, I think the opportunities are endless. I tell US students to get the CPA. It’s the one thing they can never take away from you, you will always have some level of work to do. I think we can say the same of CGMA as we continue to build that. The FLP [Finance Leadership Program], what we’re hearing from the Future of Finance and what CFOs are looking for, there are a lot of opportunities out there.
You can find organisations that you’re passionate about. Maybe it’s a technology around a particular passion project and you go to be CFO of that particular technology. I’ve encouraged people to get the credentials first and foremost. Have something behind your name that’s going to set you apart from others. I’m proud of the fact that I have the CPA and the CGMA, and I’m able to tout that globally.
As far as work/life balance, the balance isn’t just between the individual and the employer, the balance is with family, and it’s having the courage to say when you need help. I never liked the word “balance”, because I think you’re setting yourself up for failure to think that you’ll ever have balance in any way. But there’s work/life integration, there’s work/life management.
How does the accounting profession best adapt and work with, as opposed to fight, generative AI and other transformative technologies? Also, how can that explosion of technology help in the pipeline issue?
Koziel: People say, “Well, that’s a threat to our existence because we’re eliminating jobs for accountants,” but that’s actually not true. We have them doing different things. At that entry level, I think, is where part of the crunch has been on the profession. At that entry level, if you think back to what I did, when I entered into public accounting back 30 years ago, making copies of accounts receivable confirmations at the copier may not have been the highest, best use of my time, but that’s what I did as a staff accountant. That’s been eliminated.
When you think about the requirements on new entrants into firms, into companies doing financial analysis, they’re being asked to do higher-level work immediately rather than what was asked back 30 years ago. We haven’t eliminated what makes us talented as accountants. We’ve eliminated some of the mundane and routine tasks that people didn’t necessarily want to do.
Young people today talk a lot about how they want a higher purpose in what they do. What would you tell them the higher purpose of accounting is?
Koziel: It’s a language of business. All businesses that want to survive have to understand the language.
You can find higher purpose, whatever that higher purpose is. Some people just like to make money. Great. Well, go find those profitable companies, go help them. Or if it’s social related. There’s so many different organisations and companies you could be working for.
ESG [environmental, social, and governance] reporting is providing us great opportunity to better understand purpose inside of organisations and be able to read an ESG report and know what the social and governance aspects are of those companies. The more we’re involved in ESG, the better we can actually align ourselves with what the beliefs of the organisations are that we work for.
Jeff Drew is editor-in-chief for the Journal of Accountancy; Neil Amato is FM magazine’s senior manager of news and a host of the FM podcast. To comment on this article or to suggest an idea for another article, contact Oliver Rowe at Oliver.Rowe@aicpa-cima.com.
