Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

Tag: Retirement

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.


From the press release:

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.

Deloitte’s Sharon Allen Will Be Having a ‘Big Party’ to Celebrate Her Retirement

Sharon Allen has spent 38 years at Deloitte. Doing the math on that, it probably feels more like a millennia. Accordingly, Ms. Allen has decided to hang up her green dot and chillax in Pasadena (Q&A with Accounting Today and we’ve picked out some of the highlights, including yes, a par-tay.


For starters, Sharon is a closer!

It’s a good time to leave when you’re on a high. I feel very confident in future leadership and the direction of our organization, and I think it’s just absolutely the right time to turn the reins over to others and proudly watch them continue to lead the firm in a good direction.

There will be a retirement rager, natch.

I’m going to have a big party. Yes.

Retirement will involve quality time with the hubby (but not so much that he goes nuts) and leading the Village People.

First of all I plan to spend a lot more time with my husband, family and friends, but of course there will probably be a limit on how much togetherness he can stand.[…] I have already committed to becoming the chairman of the board of the national YMCA board, which is an organization I’ve been involved with for over 25 years. I’m sure I will find ways to keep productively busy.

In case you weren’t aware, she doesn’t have a Y chromosome.

I am proud of many firsts that are in front of the titles I have carried. I was fortunate to be the first woman to become an office managing partner, the first woman to become a regional managing partner, the first woman to be elected to the board at Deloitte, and that’s been some years ago now. But I have to say my proudest accomplishment, I believe, was to have been elected as the first independent chairman of Deloitte’s board of directors. We separated our chairman and CEO role and created a full-time independent executive chairman of the board. It is an elected position by our partners, and I was very proud to be elected to that role. I always say, “Oh, by the way, I’m a woman.” It’s a very important distinction for me.

She’s more like you than you think – she got passed up for a manager promotion because her supervisor was clueless!

[P]erhaps one of the most important challenges that I had as I was coming up through my career also turned out to be one of my best lessons. That was when I was about four years into the firm and I expected an early promotion to manager, and I was passed over for that promotion. Interestingly, as I walked into my supervisor’s office and clicked off all the reasons why I thought I should have had the promotion and had earned it, he kind of sat back in his chair and looked at me and said, “I didn’t even know you did all those things.”

What about this boys club mentality?

I do think that there still is an underrepresentation of women in senior leadership in business generally and certainly in the board room of corporate organizations today. I do believe that organizations need to examine how they are recruiting, how they assure women are proportionally given the best assignments.

You know, back in the day, we basically had to come to work in drag.

There is a very big difference between today’s women and women of my era when I started in the profession because, in those days, honestly, you almost had to pretend there were no differences. I came up in the business world of wearing a suit and a little bow tie and trying to dress like the men and, of course, fortunately, men and women both can acknowledge the difference and benefit from that.

Leave Sharon your well wishes (or food and entertainment requests) below and if you get invited to this party, email us the pictures.

Bob Herz Retiring as FASB Chair

Eight “successful” years is a helluva run, Bob. Not sure if he’s upstaging Tweedie’s exit next year or what. They’re buds and all. So now the speculation should probably start as to who will replace Roberto. Leslie Seidman will be running things as the “Acting” Chair and if you take the PCAOB’s as example, that “Acting” Chair can sit tight for awhile. Dan Goelzer has been “acting” as the Chair for over at the Board for over a year now.

So the important question is, who’s next to fly this ship? Taking shit from bank lobbiesenerally being known as being the biggest double-entry nerd in a gray suit this side of the pond is not an easy gig. We’d suggest a deputy accountant but there’s probably some silly qualifications that she will disqualify her. Does Tim Flynn put down the bag at KPMG? Do we finally get serious and get a knight to run this thing? Suggestions welcome.

NORWALK, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Board of Trustees of the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) today announced that the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) will grow from five to seven members. The FASB previously operated with seven board members from its inception in 1973 until 2008. In addition, Chairman Robert Herz has decided to retire from the FASB after more than eight years leading the standard-setting board. FASB member Leslie Seidman has been appointed Acting Chairman, effective October 1, 2010.

“Returning the Board to the seven-member structure will enhance the FASB’s investment in the convergence agenda with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), while addressing the unprecedented challenges facing the American capital markets in the months and years ahead”

“Returning the Board to the seven-member structure will enhance the FASB’s investment in the convergence agenda with the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), while addressing the unprecedented challenges facing the American capital markets in the months and years ahead,” said FAF Chairman Jack Brennan. “The FAF Trustees believe this is the right investment in the standard-setting process at the right time that will enable it to accomplish the many duties that are so critical to the organization’s constituents.” The transition to a seven-member board will occur as soon as the process to recruit and evaluate candidates is complete, which is expected in early 2011.

Mr. Brennan added: “On behalf of the Board of Trustees and, especially, all investors and others affected by the FASB’s work, I want to offer my sincere thanks to Bob Herz for his strong leadership of the FASB in, arguably, the most challenging period in its history. We greatly appreciate his service and congratulate him for a job well done. Moving forward, we are very fortunate to have a highly respected, experienced leader like Leslie Seidman to assume the duties of Acting Chairman.”

Robert Herz, Chairman of the FASB, said: “My more than eight years as Chairman of the FASB have been among the most professionally challenging and personally satisfying of my career. There are hundreds of people I need to thank for their strong support and invaluable contributions to our standard-setting activities. First and foremost, I offer my deep appreciation to my fellow board members and our dedicated and talented staff. I’m very proud of our accomplishments, and I’m confident the board will continue to successfully meet the challenges ahead.”

Ms. Seidman has been a FASB member since July 2003. She has also served the FASB in various staff roles. Prior to joining the board, Ms. Seidman managed her own firm, providing consulting services to major corporations, accounting firms and other concerns, and previously served as vice president of accounting policy at J.P. Morgan & Company. Ms. Seidman started her career as an auditor in the New York office of Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young LLP) and is a certified public accountant.

Automatic IRA Act Will Be a Boon for Financial Services Companies; Small Business…Not So Much

This story is republished from CFOZone, where you’ll find news, analysis and professional networking tools for finance executives.

There’s pending legislation in the Senate to require even tiny businesses that don’t already have a retirement plan to create an IRA for employees. Whether or not it will do much to help people save for their retirement in a meaningful way is debatable.

The bill, the Automatic IRA Act of 2010, introduced by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) mandates that businesses establish individual IRA accounts for all employees. Contributions would come from payroll deductions, so employers wouldn’t have to cough up any money themselves, and employees would be able to opt out. Accounts would be managed by banks, mutual funds, and insurance companies that already manage this type of account.


Also employers would have no ERISA fiduciary liability as long as they used a provider on a government-approved list. And there’s a default investment structure: a principal preservation fund for balances of less than $5,000 and a lifecycle fund for bigger accounts.

Seems reasonable, until you drill down further. First there’s the infinitesimal default deferral rate. That’s 3 percent. As a result, since employers aren’t even allowed a match, it’s unlikely employees will be able to save a whole lot. Also employers get a measly $250 tax credit to cover administrative costs.

Mostly this bill will be a potential goldmine for financial services companies, at least those on the official government list of approved providers. While each account will be small in aggregate, the amount will come to quite an attractive proposition for these businesses.

If there were any doubt about just what a windfall this could be, consider the provision for a gradual phase-in of the law. For example, in the first year, the bill will apply only to businesses with 100 or more employees. It won’t cover companies with less than 10 employees until year four.

But that provision wasn’t put there with the company owner in mind. Instead it’s all about the retirement services providers to help them “prepare for a significant expansion in the number of IRA accounts.”

To be sure, something needs to be done to boost the retirement savings rate in this country. With this bill, however, the real beneficiaries will be the usual suspects–big financial services companies.

Sir David Tweedie’s New Promise: To Retire in 2011

Every knight lays down his sword at some point and Tweeds is no exception. The IASB Chairman will hang up his 10-key when his current term ends in June 2011.

According to Emily Chasan at Reuters, DT thought about calling it quits last year after the pols torpedoed mark-to-market in the name of bank lobbyists. Sensing that the true Holy Grail was within reach, Tweedie stayed on:

[H]e has said he stayed because he wanted to continue the convergence process, which is beginning to reach its goal of having a single set of high quality accounting standards used around the globe. The U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board and the IASB have redoubled efforts to complete their major convergence projects by a June 2011 deadline set by the G20 group of leading countries.

Now the International Accounting Standards Committee Foundation, which oversees the board, is on the search for the next bean counter in shining armor. Since Tweeds gave plenty of notice, it won’t likely be the shitshow search like Bank of America has on its hands (until very recently perhaps) but the IASCF is searching all the corners of the world for the replacement and they need to come up with somebody good.
If they put some empty suit in there, the likes of Silvio Berlusconi will be writing the revised contingent liabilities standard. Lord knows we don’t need that. We need someone that doesn’t mind telling pols to BTFO of accounting biznass. Pols like Eddy “If you had just involved us in the monitoring of the IASB we wouldn’t be in this mess” Wymeersch, who probably couldn’t tell the difference between his ass and the basic accounting equation. Feel me, IASCF?
Now since that’s clear, if you’ve got any suggestions or purely want to speculate on who you will be in the big chair next (Tim Flynn? Mary Schapiro? Phil Mickelson? that smug guy in the cube next to you that got a 98 on FARE?) drop them in the comments.
IASB’s Tweedie to retire when term ends in 2011 [Emily Chasan/Reuters]
Trustees seek nominations for Chairman of the IASB from 2011 [Press Release]
See also: Kroeker Stresses Importance of Investors in IFRS Decision; Search Is On For Next Chairman Of IASB When Tweedie Retires in 2011 [FEI Financial Reporting Blog]