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Association of International Certified Professional Accountants Poaches Someone From the Maryland Association of CPAs and Issues a Press Release, Part I

Posted on by Jason Bramwell

OK, as many of you know by now it’s not just someone, it’s our good friend Tom Hood, the longtime president and CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs.

Tom Hood

Hood will be joining the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (which for the purposes of this article we’ll call AICPA 2.0) as executive vice president, business growth and engagement. He will report to AICPA 2.0 CEO and Megadeth roadie Barry Melancon.

Jackie Brown, who has spent the past 40 years at MACPA, the last 23 as its chief operating officer, will succeed Hood as CEO.

Hood’s departure is a big loss for MACPA as he has been the face of the CPA profession in Maryland since joining the association in January 1997. Longtime MACPA Chief Communications Officer Bill Sheridan wrote an excellent article yesterday about what Hood has done for the profession in Maryland and the association’s members during his 24-year tenure:

Hood’s efforts on behalf of the MACPA and its members will be missed. Almost from the start, he worked tirelessly to expand the MACPA’s profile and brand and advance the mission of accounting and finance professionals throughout the world.

After being named the MACPA’s president and CEO in January 1997, Hood immediately volunteered to help lead the CPA Vision Project, a nationwide grassroots effort to map the future of the profession and the skills CPAs would need to thrive going forward. The final Vision Project, published in 2011, identified those future-ready skills as communications and leadership; strategic and critical thinking; a focus on customers, clients, and markets; interpretation of converging information; and technology-related competencies.

Hood studied that list of competencies and asked himself, “If these are the skills CPAs will need to thrive in the future, shouldn’t the MACPA be teaching those skills?”

His solution was the Business Learning Institute, a training affiliate whose mission would be to provide higher-level, future-ready learning to accounting and finance professionals and CPAs in Maryland and across the country. The BLI was formed in 1999 and incorporated on Jan. 7, 2002.

Hood’s focus, however, went well beyond the future of learning.

  • He has helped the MACPA to not just survive but thrive in the wake of numerous economic downturns, including those that followed the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the 2002 Enron and WorldCom scandals, the 2008 housing crisis and the recession that followed, and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
  • He has helped build the next generation of CPA leaders as the principal instructor for the MACPA and AICPA Leadership Academies.
  • He has been focused solely on leading our profession, Maryland first, in transforming the world and making a positive impact.
  • He has been driven to Connect members, Protect their interests, and help a CPA-led profession Achieve success.

The BLI is following Hood to AICPA 2.0, as it was acquired by Melancon & Co., according to the press release announcing Hood’s hiring, which also explains what he will be doing in his new role:

The acquisition of BLI’s many learning programs will enhance the Association’s offerings to corporate employers in upskilling and reskilling their employees so they continue to meet ever-changing marketplace demands. Together, the Association and BLI will accelerate the introduction of new, innovative content for accounting and finance professionals globally. Founded in 1999 by MACPA, BLI is a highly respected source for human intelligence skill development and a strategic learning partner and talent management consultancy for businesses and CPA firms worldwide. Hood will continue to provide leadership in supporting BLI’s clients, products and services throughout BLI’s integration with the Association.

Hood will use his extensive connections, influence, experience and passion for the accounting and finance profession to engage with businesses, their leaders and their global networks. Hood will convert those insights into actions that support the profession and work across the Association to grow its understanding of their challenges and opportunities.

Another focus of Hood’s role will be partnering with Andrew Harding, FCMA, CGMA, the Association’s chief executive of management accounting, to further professionalize management accounting and support professionals in Charter Global Management Accountant (CGMA credential). This includes the digital-first Finance Leadership Program, an online learning program that teaches candidates the finance, business, people and leadership skills needed to succeed in finance teams of the future.

And no doubt Hood will be doing all this while bringing a strong sock game to his new job.

Congrats, Tom.

[Association of International Certified Professional Accountants]
Maryland takes global stage as Tom Hood, BLI join AICPA team [MACPA]

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Does Hollywood Always Portray Accountants as ‘Pathetic’ or ‘Despicable’?

That’s the question put forth by a reader across the pond to the group and since the Academy Awards have come and gone with nothing more than the cliché PwC jokes, it seems worth discussing.

But first, the Brit with the beef:

I watched the brillant [sic] Untouchables yesterday. This triggered the point about portryal [sic] of accountants by Holloywood [sic]. It is very poor in comparision [sic] to other professions.

Most accountants in the movies are either pathetic (think Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters) or despicable (Ed Begley Jr. as the sleazeball accountant who crosses a vengeful Roseanne Barr in She-Devil).

Other professions like, firefighters, doctors, and lawyers (Julia Roberts in the Oscar-winning Erin Brockovich), get their fair share of heroic roles. But when it comes to accountants we are pushed aside.

Well, for starters, comparing the work of firefighters and doctors to accountants makes as much sense as sending a team of interns into an audit committee meeting. If you’re looking for heroics, there are few opportunities for accountants in Hollywood; even a crook-turned-crime-fighter like Sam Antar would be a anti-hero at best. One exception would be Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern in Schindler’s List.

As for Morris in Ghostbusters, he scores with Annie Potts in Ghostbusters 2, so that hardly qualifies as pathetic. As for motive behind the unflattering portrayals, maybe enough people working in Hollywood have been ripped off by their own accountants that a slight vein of villainy is always written into their characters. The most recent muse being Ken Starr.

Despite that possibility, there are plenty of accountants in film that we like:

• Thandie Newton as Stella in RocknRolla

• Leo Bloom in The Producers (Wilder or Broderick, take your pick)

• Danny Glover as Henry Sherman in The Royal Tenenbaums

• It’s on the small screen but George Wendt as Norm Peterson on Cheers

Whether you see these characters as flattering or not, is your call but their awesomeness is not in question (I’m partial to Stella, frankly). We’re missing some, surely, so feel free to chime in with others.

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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.

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One thought on “Association of International Certified Professional Accountants Poaches Someone From the Maryland Association of CPAs and Issues a Press Release, Part I”

  1. Jason,

    Thank you for your encouraging thoughts. I am excited to be joining Barry and team and hope to accelerate the work of helping the Profession be even more #FutureReady.

    Cheers!

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