Just Shy of His 30th Anniversary, Barry Melancon is Retiring as AICPA CEO

AICPA President, CEO, and chihuahua juggling fan Barry Melancon is retiring at the end of this year.

Reports Journal of Accountancy:

Barry Melancon, CPA, CGMA, who guided the accounting profession in the United States into the digital age and led the transformation of the AICPA and CIMA into the world’s largest accounting membership body, announced Wednesday that he is retiring at the end of this year.

Melancon, the longest-serving CEO in AICPA history, will be remembered for promoting the value of the profession to the business world and for reshaping and uplifting the image of accountants. After being named, in 1995, as the youngest CEO of the AICPA — appointed at age 36, officially starting at 37 — he guided the profession through a time of transformative changes.

Let’s take this opportunity to drag out old shit as we are wont to do. Such as 2015’s TBT: Barry Melancon, The Most Hated Man in Accounting (“I think the AICPA under Melancon’s leadership has been the least effective, most backward, most obstructionist group that I encountered in my eight years running the SEC,” says Arthur Levitt, former Securities & Exchange Commission chairman. Lynn Turner, former SEC chief accountant, agrees. “If Melancon were a CEO of a company, he’d be fired by now.”) and 2021’s The Profession Is Well-Positioned For Change Says Guy Who Has Held the Same Position Since 1995. Honorable mention: Last year’s This Accountant Shortage Nonsense Reeks of Deja Vu which covers the AICPA’s failed attempt at crapping out a new credential temporarily called XYZ.

In our humble opinion, this was long overdue. Not to say anything of Barry’s leadership — it’s not for us to judge, really, though we generally do anyway — but 29 years is a long time for one guy who was already pushing 40 when he took over to be steering the ship. In 1995, only 39 percent of US households had computers and even fewer (14 percent) had access to the internet. Things have changed. A LOT. The profession is finally at that crossroads of disruption The Powers That Be have been rambling about for years and it will take someone who they themself is disruptive to guide it through the stormy waters ahead. Them’s just facts.

This might be the last opportunity we ever get to use this image so for the final time…SMITHERS, FETCH ME THE CGMAs.

We’ll leave you with this quote.

“My belief system in this role was that the profession was critically important to the business world and the public,” Melancon said in a recent interview with JofA. “And that the talent of the men and women in this profession is extraordinary. And we had to be an organization that helped to unleash that, so that the profession could have even more impact. And if you look back on those 30 years, I think that is the story. I think that is the track record, that the importance of the trust factor of our profession, the importance of the skill set of the people in our profession — we have been about creating an environment in which people can deploy that knowledge and that capability in a broader set of ways than the profession was traditionally defined.

“And I think the men and women in our profession have stepped up to that. We have been an enabler of that. We have been an encourager of that. And as a result, I think the profession has been significantly successful, both as a profession and in achieving that outcome to be more important to society.”

Happy trails, Barry. We’ve given you a lot of crap over the years but ya ain’t so bad.