Region Managing Partner
Grant Thornton
Discusses hot trends in the accounting.
What is the key to your personal success?
There are five things I attribute to my success, including:
• Positive attitude
• Ability to deal with career set-backs
• Maintaining a distinctive professional competence
• Respect for others
• Ambition with commitment
Can you detail a hot trend in the industry and how young professionals might use this to their advantage?
Although there has been some tapering off with the financial crisis, a trend in the profession has been to provide advice from either the sell side or the buy side in merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions. To leverage this trend requires building a strong competency base in accounting, tax, analytics, and modeling, where all of these competencies are present in a major public accounting firm.
What are the biggest changes you have seen in the industry over the past decade?
There are five that I can name, including:• Consolidation of firms
• Increase in regulation for public companies
• Improvement in governance processes (Board of Directors, Committee Structures, and Management)
• Change in scope of services permitted to be provided to public audit clients
• Increase in oversight of the profession from the state level through to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB)
What is the biggest issue firms will face in implementing Statement 157, and what is your recommendation on how they overcome this?
The greatest challenge for our clients will be the actual implementation of SFAS 157. The biggest issue may be finding appropriate fair value inputs of the Level 2 and 3 variety for the assets and liabilities that need valuation using such inputs.For accounting firms in the audits of clients that have implemented SFAS 157, the biggest issue may be training of auditors. We have tackled the issue through written guidance, Web-based and other training. We have had and continue to hold national and regional conference calls to discuss implementation issues our clients are facing, and we all stay current in reading on the subject. To further support audit engagement teams, we have in-house valuation specialists around the country, and we have a long standing relationship with an external valuation firm that provides timely and useful reports for audit consideration.
What truly sets Grant Thornton apart from the competition?
• Empowerment of our partners and personnel
• Actions aligned with guiding principles
• Ability of each person to “make a difference”
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