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Leaders of the Ledger from CPA Practice Advisor in partnership with Rightworks spotlights the people and ideas shaping the future of the accounting profession.
Each episode host Rob Brown interviews influential firm leaders, innovators and rising stars to uncover how they are tackling today’s biggest challenges whether it is client advisory services, AI and technology, talent strategy or firm growth through M&A.
Built on CPA Practice Advisor’s trusted recognition lists like the 40 Under 40 Influencers in Accounting and other collections of prominent professionals, this show goes beyond the headlines to share practical insights, personal stories and proven strategies from those moving the profession forward.
If you are a firm owner, leader or ambitious professional who wants to stay ahead of the curve Leaders of the Ledger is your inside track to the conversations and connections that matter most in accounting.
Subscribe now to hear from the voices redefining what it means to lead in the profession.
Speaker 1 (00:01.048)
This is the Leaders of the Ledger podcast with me, your host Rob Brown. On behalf of CPA Practice Advisor, we are continuing with our series of interviewing influential CPAs. And what does it take to be influential? We're going to find out because there's a million different ways to do it. And certainly we know that in accounting, we need influential people. We need people that are passionate, that will shine a light on the profession, that are doing something a little bit different and more than just the technical requirements of the job. I'm thrilled to have with me today from South Carolina, Mark Lillard. Good day, sir.
Yeah, thank you for having me on Rob. forward to the conversation.
Mac, how does it feel being called an influencer? Does that hat wear well with you?
honestly, not something I ever really thought I would, I would be called in my life in terms of, and being an influencer. but no excited, you know, for the recognition by CPA practice advisor, haven't had an opportunity to, you know, get the chance to connect and have conversations with some, some very influential people with, you know, Initiatives and great insights into the profession and where it's going and how things are changing with artificial intelligence, you know, during,
pretty tumultuous time within the industry. So it's been great, not something I was very surprised to be recognized for, but I'm very excited about the opportunity and extremely grateful for the recognition.
Speaker 1 (01:20.28)
So, Mac Lillard, what makes him influential? What makes him famous?
yeah, again, using the word famous, I think, is kind of funny in this context.
You're not down there in the trenches just head down doing a good job because there are millions of accountants that do that Mac so for one reason or another you've been recognized you put your head above the parapet you are out there a little bit more you're a bit more vocal a bit more visible and maybe trying to shake things up move things around does that take us in the right direction
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think really what it comes down to is just being an advocate for the profession, you know, which I am very much so. You know, I'm a huge believer in the accounting degree, you know, what it can provide for you. I know that, you know, when I was in my undergrad and graduate programs, you know, the accounting degree was really looked at, you know, as kind of your pathway into audit or tax or, you know, bookkeeping services.
But I think the accounting degree is so much more than that. It can provide such a strong foundation for so many different career paths. And that's something I'm really passionate about, you know, trying to educate people on, know, particularly younger students all the way, you know, from college to high school, you know, letting them know what an accounting degree can do for them. And it's not just about audit, tax and bookkeeping. Well, those are great professions and you can provide a lot of value to.
Speaker 2 (02:42.86)
the world to your community, to your clients. know, there's so much more you can do with that. You can be the CFO of a company. You can, you know, that helps build a foundation for entrepreneurship, you know, understanding the ins and outs of your finances and your accounting processes, you know, understanding what sort of metrics to track, how you gauge your success and your key performance indicators and everything. All of this, the accounting degree and the accounting profession just lays such a great foundation for.
So that's something I'm particularly passionate about in terms of communicating and trying to influence people. And I think that kind of leads into the overall just professional development. I started out as a financial statement auditor because I wanted to go into public practice. I did the five-year program at my university, got my master's, had my CPA by the time, or had passed the four portions of the CPA by the time I started my first job.
And as I just kind of explored other areas of interest like fraud and IT and risk management and had some great mentorship and some great advisors along the way who encouraged me to pursue my passions, I was able to sort of pivot my career and move in the direction that I wanted to, which is more so as an advisory role, focusing on those areas like risk management, fraud and forensic auditing.
information technology, digital transformation and financial optimization. So it's provided me such an amazing career path. And again, that's part of the reason I'm so passionate about just trying to educate people on what an accounting degree can do for you and what you can really do with three to four to five years of experience within public accounting, providing whether it's audit, tax or bookkeeping services.
I'm just smiling Mac because that's three four minutes straight just oozing advocacy for accounting without taking a breath without any filler words or anything else it's clear that this is close to your heart you love talking about it I can see the passion coming out of your eyes answer me this why does the accounting profession need advocacy isn't it popular isn't it doing well for itself what's going on with the brand of accounting
Speaker 2 (04:59.432)
Yeah, you know, in some ways it is and others it isn't. I think this is the first year in a few years where we were actually happy to see an uptick in the number of students declaring accounting as a major, entering the workforce in some sort of accounting related role. So in that sense, it is moving or trending in a positive direction. But the few years before that, it was looking pretty dire and there were some big concerns over the overall talent pipeline.
just younger professionals or college age students kind of looking at accounting as maybe being a little bit more of a boring industry. So we're just trying to kind of change that reputation. So yeah, just again, help educate people on the value it provides and the fact that it can be a very interesting and engaging career path.
But did it become boring overnight? Double entry bookkeeping has been ever thus, hasn't it, Max? So did something change to make it boring? Did the shine come off accounting? What did happen to tip the balance and turn these young people to alternatives?
Yeah, I think it's just the overall perception of the profession. It used to have this reputation of being sort of a white collar, suit and tie type of profession and young college age students, they see sort of the influencer lifestyle and gets...
Yeah, you know, get enticed by large starting salaries, whereas I think the accounting profession for a long time has had sort of a reputation of, yeah, it can provide a really lucrative career path, but you got to put in your time, you got to put in your five years. So trying to, again, changing that perception that it's a great place to start and finish your career. And, know, again, also provides all sorts of different areas that you can specialize and different pathways that you can take your career.
Speaker 2 (06:55.806)
So again, yeah, just trying to change the perception of what it means to be an accountant in your first year out of college to your 10th year out of college.
That's good. Tell us a bit about your role in your firm right now, Mark.
Yeah, so right now I'm a senior manager in our risk and advisory services practice. So GRF as a firm has been around for about 40 or over 40 years. think we're actually in our 45th year right now. Started as you know, your traditional accounting firm providing audit and tax services expanded into bookkeeping services, client accounting services. And in the past, I guess, seven to 10 years or so we've
spun off our risk and advisory services group as well as accounting technology solutions group to provide more consulting or advisory based services. So our risk advisory group comprises four pillars, which center around internal audit, IT and cybersecurity, forensics and valuation, and just general enterprise risk management. So I am heavily involved in all four pillars, but I really...
own the forensic evaluation practice as well as lead all of our internal audit engagements with the assistance of all of the other team members within our risk advisory group. So we just kind of keep our ear to the ground to identify what it is that our clients need assistance with most, what we're hearing within the industries that we serve, which is primarily nonprofits, INGOs, government contractors, as well as the
Speaker 2 (08:29.046)
a wide mix of different types of for-profit entities. So trying to stay ahead of kind what our clients' needs are and develop service offerings and just ways that we can support them in their strategic initiatives. staying abreast with everything that's being put out by the AICPA, the Institute of Internal Auditors, Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, ISACA, and all sorts of other leading professional associations.
to just understand where our profession is going, what these new changes in technology and AI mean for us as accountants and how we can leverage those types of solutions to best support our clients.
It's exhausting just listening to all the different ways you need to stay current, Mac, but that's an important facet of accounting. You need to stay modern and up to date, but there is so much going on. That's part of the contributor to the overwhelm and the overload that we sometimes hear from accounting professionals, isn't it?
Absolutely. There's always change going on in every industry, but right now with the advancements in technology, think the pace of change is so much faster. It feels like if you're not keeping up with it, every week you're getting slowly, slowly behind. If you're not figuring out how you can incorporate artificial intelligence or how you can digitally transform and capitalize on all these new changes with automation.
and just these new technology solutions that are constantly evolving and hitting the market. Yeah, it's a lot to try to keep up with.
Speaker 1 (10:09.474)
You mentioned you're a manager, so you're not at partner level yet. I'm sure that's on track. But do the firm give you license to go out there and talk about stuff and have maybe a digital platform and get out to conferences? Is that part of your remit or have you forged that for yourself?
Yeah, absolutely. That's a large component of what we do. You know, again, just in the spirit of trying to educate our clients as much as we possibly can. We are always putting out content, whether it be webinars, articles, white papers, presenting at different events. We are always trying to share our information, share our research with the public, with our clients. So yeah, definitely something that we engage in.
You you learn so much from being able to attend events that the AICPA hosts or that the Institute of Internal Auditor hosts, not only for the content and being able to learn from other professionals, but from the conversations you have and the relationships you build at those types of events, know, being able to talk to a firm that is similar in size to you, larger, smaller understanding, you know, where they've had their successes and failures and sharing these types of stories, you know, with one another just helps.
every firm be successful and helps carry the profession forward.
Yeah I applaud that for sure there's a lot of good things going on and building a network in person attending these events is really worthwhile but you can also influence from your chair with an internet connection can't you? Tell us a little bit about what the term thought leadership or I don't know opinion pieces that the LinkedIn the online stuff what does that look like for Mac Lillard?
Speaker 2 (11:50.412)
Yeah, you know, trying to do things like this, you joining you on your podcast and joining other professionals, you know, just any platform really that we can leverage to, again, share the information and all the research that we're doing on a continuous basis.
It's funny to write about and talk about.
yeah, absolutely. mean, too much these days. Sometimes I feel like I need to kind of focus in and find the particular topic that I want to focus on that week or that month and try to share that information. And the next month, it's probably going to be something different. So being able to pivot and just stay ahead of what people are most interested in hearing about and what's kind of causing them the most confusion or unease as we continue on in this tumultuous time.
How regimented are you in that? Do you set topics for the next few months? Does something come up and you think, well, I want to write about that because this thought leadership stuff, the personal branding, it's not chargeable. You're not paid to do it. You may be paid on the results of it if things happen, but you've got to be intentional about it.
Yeah, absolutely. And we do, we work very closely with our marketing team to try to schedule out recurring events.
Speaker 1 (13:03.342)
Do ask you for things? they? Or you volunteer ideas to them? How does that work?
Yeah, a little bit of both. know, they also are keeping their ear to the ground as to what other firms and professional associations are talking about. So they provide us suggestions. We more so, I think, drive the ship just kind of based on, you know, the conversations we have with our clients as to what they're most interested in. So now, you know, we have four recurring events each year, one focused on IT and cybersecurity, one focused on ESG initiatives.
one on enterprise risk management and one on fraud and forensic auditing. Because those seem to be, if you look at a lot of the risk reports that come out on an annual basis, those are four of the areas that have been in the top 10 for the past five, 10 years and are consistently within those top 10 risks. So yeah, again, just trying to schedule out as much recurring information as we can and then mix in some more niche or industry specific topics as we can.
Have you had mentors or people you've looked up to to say, yeah, I see you being an advocate for accounting. I want to do the same.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, I've been at the same firm for 10 and a half years since I finished my master's program at Clemson University. So a lot of those mentors have been at GRF. Melissa Musser, the partner and director of our risk and advisory services group has been my mentor since essentially I got out of external audit and she has.
Speaker 2 (14:35.062)
Encourage me to pursue any of those passion areas that I want or that I feel are necessary or helpful to our clients. So, you know, I've had the opportunity over my tenure at GRF to pursue my CFE credential, a few different IT-related credentials. Most recently, my accredited business valuation credential to help our clients in doing detailed financial analysis and helping them in preparing for...
sales or exits or, know, gift and estate planning purposes to get a value of their business. So she has been an awesome mentor, super encouraging along with various other people within the firm who again, you know, are also staying at kind of the forefront of what's important in the industry. So I remember in my first like four years at GRF, I had gotten my CFE and somebody had identified the fact that like, okay, you know, this
This guy doesn't mind putting in a little extra work to study after class. So we had a sit down. His name was Ricardo Trujillo. He advised me, said, know, IT I think is going to be a huge area for us. This is going to change kind of the way we audit. This is going to change different testing procedures. You know, we need people to champion this initiative within our firm to understand what this means for our financial statement audits, what this means for us as a firm. So, you know, if you're interested, I would recommend going after this credential.
how I ended up getting my CITP through the AICPA and then ultimately that rolled into getting my CISA and my C-Risk through ISACA. So yeah, I've had a lot of great mentors. Another thing I'm very passionate about is mentorship. If you are someone who's a younger professional, finding that person within your firm or even outside your firm that you're comfortable talking to, comfortable sharing, you know, maybe things that are.
uncomfortable to talk about in terms of your career aspirations and maybe potential changes in your career or things that you don't feel that you're as strong in that you need support or guidance or advice over. And then also from the other perspective is finding a mentor, somebody that you can provide that sort of training, advice, guidance to share your experiences with and just help develop the next generation of accountants.
Speaker 1 (16:48.898)
This is wonderful Mark, a couple more questions. When you're mentoring younger people, a lot of them might say, well it's okay for you Mark, you're very eloquent, you're passionate, you're pretty outgoing, you're okay being on camera or being on the stage. I'm not like that. What would you say to them?
I would say neither was I when I first started out. And I think a lot of people are in that boat. I was not comfortable even speaking in a small group of five to six people. But when you surround yourself at a firm where people are extremely encouraging and supportive, the more and more you do it, the more comfortable you get and the more natural it feels to you. So it's one of those things that unfortunately it's like a craft. You get better as you do more of it.
So something that I would, I know it's for most people, it's stepping outside their comfort zone, but I would just highly encourage people to kind of take that leap. And one of the initiatives that we did, you know, early on when I was probably only in my third or fourth year at GRF is we held just peer groups to simply sit around and present, you know, a financial statement audit report, because that was when I was still in our audit group. We did it with a group of our peers, people who were at the same level as us, you know, many people in the room.
we're all uncomfortable with public speaking, even in a small group of six to seven people that you know and work with on a daily basis. So having that opportunity to provide meaningful feedback to one another that, said a few too many times, or maybe you spent a little bit too much time here, or you could have spent more time here, but you did this, this, and this great, and just providing that meaningful feedback in a low pressure situation to get people.
comfortable speaking, comfortable with sort of the cadence of a conversation like that and having the opportunity to provide meaningful feedback to one another in just a controlled environment was extremely helpful for me in just kind of building my confidence in public speaking. then from there, you slowly build and started doing some firm presentations, again, with people I know and respect and feel comfortable speaking in front of and then that.
Speaker 2 (18:55.01)
that leads into doing a presentation in front of a small group of people or maybe a client group and then that's led to doing presentations for groups of three to five hundred people at some of these larger conferences. I know it can be a daunting task and I've definitely been there so I just try to let people know that it's something I can easily relate to but you'll get there eventually if you just make yourself uncomfortable.
And having a personal brand, a public profile, being a bit more vocal and visible, that benefits accounting professionals both for the good of the firm but for the good of their own career too, doesn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, as I mentioned, you know, when you go to these conferences and you get the opportunity to talk to other people at larger firms, smaller firms, people who are very influential in the industry, it's extremely helpful for your professional development, building your network. And, know, this also just helps you in being a trusted advisor to your clients because while we all think we're, you know, we're the best.
We can't answer every single question that comes to us, right? We have our areas where we are subject matter experts, but there are plenty of other people out there who are subject matter experts in other areas. So the larger of a network you have, the more poised you are to be able to respond to any of the questions that your clients or if you're an internal practitioner that your company presents to you, you can say, you know what? I don't know much about this topic, but I meant that.
person brought back conference on the fall of the ten to get his thoughts and see it maybe he'd be open to having a thirty minute meeting with me or with one of my clients to to share their insights and expertise so yet there there's so many benefits to you know just putting yourself out there and having these types of conversations
Speaker 1 (20:46.092)
Mac, let's wrap this up. What are two or three tips you would give to the accountants watching, listening, that do you to be more of an influencer? They want more of a voice, they want more authority, they want more recognition, they want to be more useful, maybe to the profession, maybe to the firm, maybe leaning into their own career. What two or three tips would you give them?
Yeah, that's tough to say. guess I would start with never stop learning, never stop researching. All the different associations I've mentioned from the AICPA to the IAA, ACF, EISACA, they're always putting out free information, free content on industry trends and hot topics. So would always recommend trying to stay abreast of everything that they're putting out.
not maybe not everything, but the areas that are most interesting to you, because obviously that's a lot to keep up with. And I'll kind of approach this separately, but I think sort of builds on the first item, but is just continue upskilling. It's great to have a couple of areas where you truly are your firm expert, but it's always great to have well-rounded insight. So whatever you can do to increase your...
Base of knowledge over fraud or forensic auditing, IT and cybersecurity, digital transformation, whether that's attending a class or a workshop or obtaining another certification, always just continue to build on your base of knowledge and how you can support your company or your clients. And then lastly, kind of vague, but kind of builds on the conversation we had just about public speaking is,
Get comfortable being uncomfortable, putting yourself out there and doing presentations, branding yourself as a firm expert. A lot of times people can even just be a little hesitant to speak up in their firm even when they have good ideas. So again, making yourself uncomfortable can be really beneficial just to, yeah, again, helping to kind of build that level of confidence, get the support or buy in from your firm or your mentors and just
Speaker 2 (22:59.052)
Yeah, not being afraid to ask tough questions or to ask for help from people that you trust. yeah, just continuing to find new ways to innovate and support your clients, your firm, and those, the next generation of accountants.
Well, Mac Lallard, you're definitely doing that. We really appreciate your passion and your insights today. This is Leaders of the Ledger, the CPA Practice Advisor podcast where we're interviewing some of the most influential people in this game to shine a light on accounting and the great things that are happening. Mac, thank you so much for your time today.
Yeah, thank you, Rob. Really appreciate you having me on.