From micromanagement to missed promotions, hosts get real about bad bosses—and when the problem is you.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a candid, unfiltered episode of Accounting ARC, Liz Mason, CPA, CEO of High Rock Accounting, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, senior product manager at Karbon and co-founder of TB Academy, confront one of the profession’s most relatable—and uncomfortable—topics: bad bosses.

But the conversation goes further than workplace horror stories. Mason and Patrick explore a more nuanced reality: sometimes the boss is the problem—and sometimes it's the employee.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |

“We wanted to talk about this topic because it’s really important to understand when you’re the problem, when your boss is the problem, and what acceptable boundaries are,” Mason says early in the episode.

Unpack real stories about bad bosses, miscommunication, and the career lessons that come with both. This episode challenges how accountants think about leadership, accountability, and growth.

Adapt to changing workforce expectations without losing performance or accountability.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk talks with Kristi Epp, tax partner, and Amber Schrock, advisory partner and Las Vegas market leader at Frazier & Deeter, about one of the profession’s most urgent challenges: retention. Their message is clear — firms that still believe compensation alone drives loyalty may already be falling behind.

The conversation explores how accounting has changed dramatically over the last several years. Remote work, automation, talent shortages, mergers, acquisitions, and increasing regulatory complexity have reshaped both firm operations and employee expectations. Epp and Schrock explain that younger professionals are not rejecting hard work; they are rejecting environments that fail to provide meaning, transparency, mentorship, and sustainability.

Rather than focusing solely on hours worked, Frazier & Deeter has worked to build a culture centered on effectiveness, growth, and long-term engagement. The firm’s leaders recognize that retention is deeply connected to whether people feel seen, supported, and included in the future of the organization.

Originally published 1/14/2026.

"Audit" and "transformation" shouldn't contradict each other.
Full show notes here

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

The words “audit” and “transformation” don’t often appear together. Some might say they contradict each other. But for Tyler Anderson, Director of A&A Innovation at Accountability Plus, audit transformation is something that has been needed for many years.

MORE Tyler Anderson: Re-Inventing Accounting with Tyler Anderson

MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Anderson, along with his colleagues Corey Schmidt and Alan Anderson from Accountability Plus, served as subject matter experts for the 2025 Audit Benchmark Survey conducted by CPA.com, which sought to understand the current state of audit transformation. The CPA.com team included Emily Remington (Director of Audit Product Management), Amy Bridges (Senior Manager of Practice Development), and survey methodologist Katherine Blackburn. The resulting report, The Audit Transformation Report, was released at Digital CPA in December 2025. Liz Farr, host of The Disruptors, served as the report writer.

Audit transformation is often misunderstood as a destination or a future state reserved for large firms with deep pockets and advanced technology. But according to Anderson, transformation is far more practical and accessible. “I see it as the process, not really like it's an end state or anything, but it's really the evolution of audit,” he explains.

READ MORE > > >

When leaders neglect to delegate, chaos reigns.
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Full show notes here

The Disrupters
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

Chase Damiano, founder of Human at Scale, says that operations are the missing piece for many firms. “It’s sort of this bridge or glue that allows a business and a team to function well together,” he tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disrupters.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time

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“I see it as the intersection of people, process, technology and culture.” What that looks like in practice, he says, is a firm where the team is happy, clients are satisfied, work is delivered on time and at high quality, and the owner has the freedom to focus on strategy and growth and has the time to spend on non-work things like family.

READ MORE >>>

Networking, timing, and intentional career planning help candidates stand out in competitive hiring processes.

Accounting Conversations
With Chayton Farlee
Center for Accounting Transformation

For many accounting students, the profession can seem narrowly defined by tax returns, audit rooms, and busy season deadlines. But according to Mike Manalac, CPA, accounting can also become a pathway into some of the world’s most innovative companies and industries.

In a recent episode of Accounting Conversations, host Chayton Farlee speaks with Manalac about how young accounting professionals can strategically leverage public accounting experience to build careers at companies like Google, Tesla, Uber, and Salesforce.

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Manalac, an accounting manager at Google, currently leads a distributed team working on Google Search and YouTube advertising contracts. His role involves collaborating with engineering, legal, sales, finance, and compliance teams across the organization.

Farlee, an assurance associate at CliftonLarsonAllen, says conversations like these are important because many students are not exposed to the full range of accounting career opportunities.

And why that’s not always a bad thing.

Full show notes here

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher

“Success doesn’t have to look like going up and to the right,” says Ian Vacin, co-founder and director of partnership relationships at Karbon, in this episode of Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing. “You have to understand what you want as a firm owner, align your revenue with your resources, and build the scaffolding to support that complexity. Otherwise, profitability falls, and you may not recover.”

Vacin, along with Jason Blumer, founder and CEO of Thriveal and Blumer & Associates CPAs, wrote the new book, Scale with Purpose: The Service Entrepreneur’s Guide to Intentional Growth. Drawing from research involving hundreds of firms worldwide, Blumer and Vacin reveal that only about 5% of firms successfully navigate their first major growth phase without setbacks. The authors say that organizational design must precede capacity planning. Without thoughtful structure, firms hit predictable scaling plateaus, particularly between 8 and 20 employees.

READ MORE > > >

Connections create career opportunities, resilience, and leadership growth.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason and Byron Patrick
Center for Accounting Transformation

In the accounting profession, technical excellence is expected. However, according to the latest episode of Accounting ARC, relationships — not just work product — often determine who grows, who leads, and who thrives.

In a candid and deeply personal conversation, Liz Mason, CPA, and Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP, explore how relationship-building shapes careers, creates opportunity, and provides stability in an unpredictable profession.

• MORE Accounting ARC: The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting

Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, opens the discussion by reflecting on how little emphasis the profession places on teaching interpersonal skills.

Patrick, senior product manager for Karbon and co-founder and part-time educator for TB Academy, agrees. “You don’t learn it in college,” he says. “There’s no course on building relationships.”

That gap, they argue, becomes especially obvious early in a professional’s career.

“We’re expecting engagement without creating an environment people actually want to engage in.”

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Megan Robinson, founder and CEO of E Leader Experience, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to talk about one of the most common and costly mistakes firms make: assuming strong performers will naturally become strong leaders.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

At the center of the conversation is a clear distinction. Technical excellence and leadership effectiveness are not the same skill set. Yet in many firms, top producers are promoted into management roles without the training or support needed to succeed. The result is frustration on both sides: leaders who feel unprepared and teams that don’t feel supported.