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BKD Poaches Someone From FASB and Issues a Press Release

It’s fairly common for midtier accounting firms to raid the Big 4 to fill managing director, principal, and partner positions. We’ve seen it happen several times since May. Dixon Hughes Goodman did it, not once but twice. Blumshapiro did it. So too did Andersen and Mazars USA. Hell, even RSM and Grant Thornton have done it recently.

BKD, however, took a different route when it recently hired Rick Cole as its newest partner:

BKD CPAs & Advisors will add Rick Cole as a partner in the firm’s New York City office, effective October 1, 2019. Cole has more than 25 years of experience working to help higher education and not-for-profit (NFP) organizations succeed. He specializes in audits and advisory services for those industries.

“Rick’s expertise will allow us to continue to help NFP organizations pursue their mission of helping others. He’s an excellent asset to BKD,” said Tondeé Lutterman, national industry partner.

Before joining BKD, Cole worked at FASB, where he served as a supervising project manager. Cole was the project manager on Accounting Standards Update (ASU) 2016-14, Presentation of Financial Statements of Not-for-Profit Entities; ASU 2018-08, Clarifying the Scope and Accounting Guidance for Contributions Received and Contributions Made; ASU 2019-03, Updating the Definition of Collections; and the Financial Performance Reporting for business entities project. Cole also was the coordinator for FASB’s NFP Advisory Committee and the Private Company Council.

Rick Cole

An accounting firm poaching someone from FASB isn’t something you see every day. I’m sure it has happened before, and it’ll probably happen again. But bringing someone of Cole’s experience, especially on nonprofit accounting, within its partner ranks is a pretty good get for BKD.

I’m sure Cole got his fill of nonprofit financial reporting as vice president and controller at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, where he worked for more than seven years before joining FASB.

He is also a former Klynveldian, having started his professional career at KPMG, where he specialized in audits of nonprofit and higher education organizations.

And on occasion, Cole will photobomb you.