
Fans of Punit Renjen Will Be Happy to Hear the Former Deloitte Global CEO Has Landed a Sweet Board Chairman Gig
This morning, SAP announced that it has picked former King of Deloitte Punit Renjen as designated supervisory board chairman. You’ll remember he was liberated from Deloitte last fall after many years and many billions of dollars together with the firm. Deloitte US CEO Joe Ucuzoglu succeeded Renjen as Deloitte Global CEO at that time and […]

Number of the Day: 75%
Ed. note: This article was originally published October 2020. That’s how many AICPA members are eligible for retirement this year, according to a 2015 exposure draft [PDF] put forward by the AICPA to add “retired” CPA status to the Uniform Accountancy Act. For several years, there has been discussion as to whether or not there […]

Deloitte Australia Is Going to Allow Partners to Work There Until They Become Old Geezers
We’re just chock full of news about Deloitte Australia today. Earlier on, Adrienne poked fun at the firm’s ridiculous career break program. Then we come to find out that Deloitte is going to allow its partners to work there until they are frail and barely breathing—as long as they are making a meaningful contribution to […]
Proposal Would Let Retired CPAs Take Their Three Letters Off Into the Sunset
My CPA license is inactive. Has been for years. Maybe I could use some discounted life insurance, but otherwise, I'm fine. CPAs who retire from the daily grind and don't keep up on their CPE are also inactive, however, some states (Arizona, Mississippi, Washington, among others) allow for a "CPA Retired" status with varying requirements. […]
Here’s The Real Reason Mid-Tier Firms Are Merger Mad
As we know, BDO and McGladrey have both been on a very busy acquisition streak lately. BDO picked up one of Ohio's biggest firms with SS&G and then grabbed UHY's Texas practice. McGladrey, meanwhile, gobbled up sub 100 firm Cole + Reed out of Oklahoma. We're talking apples and oranges when it comes to size, […]
Sadly, EY’s Farewell to Jim Turley Has No Mention of a Cake Party
I'm sure EY sent him off in style on Friday, which probably includes a gold watch, a gift card, or something, but there's no mention of any festivities in the internal message that was forwarded to us over the weekend: A special message to US and Canadian Ernst & Young alumni: We wanted to […]
(UPDATE) If Krista McMasters, co-CEO of CliftonLarsonAllen, Is Retiring Then There Would Be No Major Public Accounting Firms Led By Women
UPDATE — A couple of reports out of the Milwaukee press have confirmed our tips from yesterday. We've also received the text of two emails, one from Ms. McMasters and one from CLA's other CEO, Gordy Viere that communicate the decision to the firm's employees. They appear on the following pages.
A couple of tips came in earlier today that CliftonLarsonAllen's co-CEO Krista McMasters is retiring. If she were to step down then it stands to reason that Gordy Viere, the CEO of CLA Holdings would be the head of the firm. We're still trying to confirm that this is in fact the case but if true, that would mean all of the CEOs (managing partners, or whatever else they might be called) of the 25 largest firms would be led by men.
KPMG’s #2 in the U.S., Henry Keizer, Is Stepping Down
We've confirmed that Henry Keizer, KPMG's Deputy Chairman and Chief Operating Officer, is retiring later this year due to "personal reasons." A number of anonymous sources alerted us to the news and we were able to confirm it with a trusted source as well as obtain a screenshot of CEO John Veihmeyer's message to the […]
Wanted: Someone Who Cares Enough About Government Accounting to Run the GASB
After news broke last week that Leslie Seidman would be closing her spreadsheets at the FASB for good, the Financial Accounting Foundation has announced that its other little bundle of joy, the GASB, is also on the hunt for a new Chair. The chairman of the U.S. board that sets accounting standards for state and local […]
Jack Weisbaum to Step Down as BDO CEO
One last thing before you're off to make bad decisions this weekend…Oh, right! You're probably working this weekend and you probably don't get to make any decisions about that. ANYWAY, Captain Jack Weisbaum, the most interesting accounting firm CEO in the world will not seek reelection, and will retire effective October 31, 2012 when his current […]
Retired Accountant Who Took Up Bodybuilding Initially Not Comfortable with Skimpy Outfits, Manscaping, Teasing Women in the Crowd
Retirement. Unfortunately for most of you, you’re nowhere near it. And for those of you that are thinking about it, you’ve probably discovered that your savings aren’t quite what you imagined they would be at this stage in life and you’re doomed to a few years of recommending power tools at the local Home Depot. Once you finally do get to retire, you’ll be confined to the shuffleboard court and the senior tee boxes at your local municipal golf course.
This is not the retirement of one Don Ohmes of O’Fallon, Missouri. While most of you think of traveling the world stuff your pieholes on cruise ships, Don is getting ripped. And not just for fun. For competition.
[Ohmes] decided at age 64 that he wanted to compete in body building. This summer he shared that dream with his personal trainer, mentioning his long-time admiration of Arnold Schwarzenegger. To Maida, his wife of 43 years, this was a revelation: Body building? Arnold Schwarzenegger? “Getting on a stage in front of people? This is not really who he is,” she says. “He is a modest person and shy. You have to get up on stage and have a brief on, or whatever it is.”
It’s a “posing outfit” Mrs. Ohmes. And her husband discovered some things about bodybuilding that he hadn’t previously considered. For example, your business casual outfits may fit nicely in a JCPenney shopping bag but that sort of storage isn’t necessary for outfits required by Don’s new hobby:
“It came in an envelope,” Don recalls, burying his face in his hands. “That’s all it was in. I thought, ‘Holy cow!'” Posing costumes are so itsy bitsy that competitors must shave their bodies.
Right. The manscaping. Don eventually got more at ease with the nuances of his new obsession but there was one thing he couldn’t quite get comfortable with:
Don had to pick a song for his one-minute posing routine. He chose “Hurts So Good,” by John Mellencamp. He practiced at home, with [his trainer] and at Gold’s gym. But there was one thing Don just couldn’t do for [her]. She wanted him to point at a woman in the audience — any woman — at the song lyric, “With a girl like you.”
“I can’t act like some 20-year-old kid, because I’m not,” Don says.
So, despite his washboard abs Don isn’t so comfortable enticing the ladies. But considering he finished second in 50 and over division, it probably cost him the title. Which is fine with Don because this isn’t about fun for him, he’s trying to inspire you aging cube-dwellers out there:
“I felt a deep sense of accomplishment,” he says. “And maybe people will think — ‘This guy is 64 and he can do it. So maybe I can do it, too.'”
This means you, Tim Flynn.
Retired accountant morphs into body builder at 64 [St. Louis Today]
Sir David Tweedie’s Accounting Rock Star Status Is Safe Despite His Failure to Converge Standards
In case you forgot, Sir David Tweedie is retiring next week as the head of the IASB. It’s been quite a run for Tweeds and good money says his friends at the Board will send him off in style worthy of a knighted Scotsman (read: getting him blind drunk and some hooliganism). He’s had many accomplishments in his time running the IASB but there’s one goal that will ultimately elude him when he hangs up the eyeshade. That is the dream of converged accounting standards. It certainly has been a noble quest worthy of his accounting “rock star” status but you can’t help but imagine that you might happen across SDT in a pub muttering to himself over a pint about “the one that got away.”
Sir David’s biggest project has been convergence of IASB’s rules with those of America’s Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The two had set a June deadline, timed to coincide with Sir David’s retirement, to iron out their differences. That won’t be met.
Just because he won’t reach his ultimate goal that doesn’t mean Tweeds hasn’t tried. Or been BEEN INFINITELY FUCKING PATIENT with the Yanks.
But you can’t do it all. So now the task of accounting rule copulation will now fall to Dutchman Hans Hoogevorst but if Sir David is feeling a little like a failure, he should know that there are people out there still think he’s pretty badass since he got the SEC to come to the table:
Sir David should not be too disappointed that convergence is not complete. That the process has come as far as it has—and that America’s Securities and Exchange Commission might decide later this year to adopt IASB’s standards—is something no one could have predicted ten years ago, says Nigel Sleigh-Johnson of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.
So enjoy your retirement, oh knighted one. Your double-entry immortality is secure.
The balladeer of the balance-sheet [The Economist]
Sharon Allen Copes with Travel By Staying Hydrated, Listening to Kenny Chesney
Deloitte’s Sharon Allen recently had a little chat with our friends at FINS as part of their coverage of Women in the Workplace series over the next two weeks. Ms. Allen will be coasting into retirement as her second term as the firm’s Chairman (her preferred term) comes to end.
The Allen interview covers all kinds of fun stuff so let’s get to it, starting with those pesky regulators:
Some of us are still getting comfortable to having the PCAOB sticking their beak into audits:
The public accounting arena has indeed changed a lot. It’s now a regulated profession with oversight that’s provided through the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. We are still, both the regulator and the profession, trying to work through that, with the common objective of improving audit quality. We’re learning how to work within a regulated environment that some years ago we just didn’t live with.
None of the firms chose to be the “Big 4” it just sorta worked out that way:
Just last week, we were talking at our global board meeting about how the profession got narrowed down to this number to begin with. The last reduction wasn’t the choice of the profession with [Arthur] Andersen out of business.
And speaking of four, she’s pretty comfortable with that number:
You have to have concentration of enough business to service the clients properly. If you spread that across eight firms, there just isn’t enough that supports that kind of that activity. In some of the major countries, the additional number of firms make sense, but when you look at it across the world, it doesn’t work. We’re not opposed to the competition; there are next-tier firms that are very good, and we encourage them to be in the mix in terms of proposal opportunities. It’s healthy. But the reality is the concentration will and probably should continue.
Term limits have somewhat led to SA’s retirement but there’s at least one person who’s especially happy about her quitting early:
I’m approaching the end of my second four-year term as chairman. We have a limit of two terms. While I’m not at mandatory retirement age yet, I concluded that it’s a really good time to make this move. I’ve had a fabulous 38-year career. But I’m also very comfortable with the transition leadership and the state of the firm. It’s a good time for me to leave at the top of my game. My husband is looking forward to spending more time with me.
FINS went ahead and asked Allen about the leadership election process, even though they already knew how the process went down.
We have a nomination process that we undertake. We interview through a nominating committee chosen by the board. They interview about 1,300 partners for their input on the type of attributes they’d like to see in the chairman and CEO positions. Then the committee interviews some individuals who match up with those qualities and ultimately proposed the nominated person.
One of the biggest challenges Allen has faced as Chairman was dealing with this clusterfuck of an economy. Luckily for the Green Dots out there, Deloitte management saw this coming and was able to save a bunch of you:
We were a little ahead of the game in anticipating the downturn that allowed us to prepare well for the difficult times to come. We had some reductions in our workforce, but they were not as substantial as they might have been had we not appropriately planned for the downturn.
And as a high-flying executive, there has to be coping mechanisms:
[Julie Steinberg of FINS]: How do you handle all the travel you do?
[Sharon Allen]: I drink a whole lot of water. I’m also fortunate to be able to adjust to time zone changes relatively easily. I work on domestic flights, and I do take my iPod and my computer.
JS: What are you listening to these days on your iPod?
SA: I’m a country music fan.
Chesney just came to mind for some reason (FYI Sharon: I can get you into the sold-out Red Rocks show, so reach out if you’re interested). But maybe she’s more of Toby Keith person, I can’t possibly know not having had the pleasure of seeing what ended up on the cutting-room floor. You’re invited to speculate as to artists (I’m pulling for Willie Nelson myself) and react to anything else you see above.
Deloitte’s Sharon Allen on Big Four Domination, Self-Promotion and the Corporate Lattice [FINS]
Earlier: Deloitte’s Sharon Allen Never Misses Date Night, Discovered Early on That She Wasn’t Meant to be a Car Hop
Dave Scudder Resigning as McGladrey Managing Partner
McGladrey has announced that this busy season will be managing partner Dave Scudder’s last. Technically, Scudder is the MP of McGladrey & Pullen but honestly, we were confused about the whole situation after the rebranding.
The McGladrey & Pullen, LLP Board of Directors announced today that Dave Scudder, managing partner and member of the Board, has decided to resign as the managing partner of the Firm effective April 30, 2011.
“Dave is highly respected by the partners and has lead the Firm through significant change,” said Jerry Bourassa, Chairman of the McGladrey & Pullen Board of Directors. “He has contributed tremendously to the success of the Firm and has been an exemplary leader.”
The Board has commenced a selection process to ensure a smooth and timely succession and transition.
“I believe the Firm is well positioned to continue its success in serving our target markets including private equity groups and their portfolio companies along with our public and international companies practice,” said Scudder.
Scudder will continue to assist in the transition through at least June 30, 2011, and will continue to represent the Firm in various professional and industry organizations during this time.
So you could easily conclude that DS just figured it was time to move on after spending the last 24 years at the firm. You could also easily conclude that with all the excitement that has occurred at firms with various forms of “McGladrey” in the name may have taken its toll with Scuds or perhaps with the McGladrey board. Then again, they could be making room for another golfer that isn’t Natalie Gulbis.
Reactions and speculation are welcome at this time.
There’s at Least One Interesting Theory Out There About the Wells Fargo CFO’s Sudden Resignation
Last week, we told you about Wells Fargo’s announcement that their CFO gave himself an early birthday gift by throwing a retirement party for himself. As previously mentioned, Howard Atkins’s departure was a little mysterio and no one had any theories (crackpot or otherwise) on the Atkins’s march in. That all changed yesterday when Christopher Whalen, an analyst at Institutional Risk Analytics issued a report that stated that he, for one, wasn’t buying the “personal issues” story put out by the bank:
“The departure of Atkins, we are led to believe, was not merely the result of personal issues, but reflects an ongoing internal dispute within [Wells Fargo’s] executive suite regarding the bank’s disclosure,” he writes.
Whalen then goes on to argue that Wells Fargo’s “public behavior suggests significant problems in the bank’s internal systems and controls as defined by the Sarbanes-Oxley law. We further understand that some officials of [Wells Fargo], increasingly uncomfortable with the bank’s aggressive public disclosure regime, have reached out to regulators because of concerns regarding accounting issues.”
The Stagecoach Gang, for their part, is sticking to their story citing the “personal reasons” and their spokesman dismissed Whalen’s report with “pfffft” and a wave of the hand, saying, “I haven’t heard anything like that. It’s speculation. I’m not going to comment on it.”
Wells Fargo CFO Exit Tied to Disclosure: Analyst [The Street]
Wells Fargo CFO Celebrates Birthday Week by Retiring
Howard Atkins turns 60 this week but is calling it quits, citing “personal reasons”:
Wells Fargo & Company announced today that Timothy J. Sloan, the company’s current chief administrative officer and a senior executive vice president, has been named its new chief financial officer, effectively immediately. He succeeds Howard I. Atkins, who turns 60 this week and is retiring as CFO and senior EVP for personal reasons. Atkins’ retirement is unrelated to the company’s financial condition or financial reporting.
The retirement is effective in August but Atkins is taking “an unpaid leave of absence he will begin immediately,” according to reports. Maybe this is typical and we’re sure he’s not starving but that still kinda sucks, especially since we don’t see any cake – neither day of birth nor of the retirement variety – in his future. Theories about motives are welcome, especially from any Klynveldians on the audit team or others familiar with the sitch.