Ernest Almonte has been Rhode Island’s auditor general for the last 15 years, and he also spent the last 12 months as the chairman of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a trade group that represents 350,000 CPAs nationwide.
It’s a part-time volunteer role, but now his year-long tenure is up. Almonte answered a few questions about his time as chairman of the AICPA.
PBN: Your year-long tenure as chairman of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants has ended. How do you think it went?
ALMONTE: My year as chairman was an incredible experience. Although a member of the profession for over 30 years, I grew both personally and professionally.
We accomplished so many things that will make our profession stronger and better prepared to succeed in the future. In January 2009, we launched the Economic Crisis Recovery Center, which can be found at www.aicpa.org. We developed the Center to help CPAs, their clients, public policy officials and the general public to succeed in this unrelenting economic downturn. You can find many resources on the ECRC, from payroll regulations and COBRA provisions, to a pension plan relief whitepaper, to content specifically created for business and industry professionals or private company practices or tax professionals. The site has attracted more than 70,000 unique visitors and garnered more than 175,000 page views. In addition to the Economic Center, the AICPA focused resources on its various member segments and areas of practice. For example, the Government Performance and Accountability Committee educated CPAs in government, business and industry, as well as audit committee members, about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The committee’s publications emphasized the CPA’s role in ensuring that stimulus money is used and accounted for correctly and that businesses are aware of the tax implications of the [federal economic stimulus funding].
We celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Minority Initiatives Committee having developed scholarships, fellowships, leadership conferences and strategic partnerships. We developed and strengthened international ties with the global community including Canada, Mexico, the European Union and India. We established a Leadership Academy to develop the next generation of CPAs to exercise leadership within our profession.
In the words of Jim Collins, the author of “Built to Last”, we did “Preserve the core and stimulate progress. We proved that we are a truly visionary organization which embraces both ends of a continuum: continuity and change, conservatism and progressiveness, stability and revolution, predictability and chaos, heritage and renewal.”
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PBN: Was there any additional pressure on you being the first chairman in the organization’s 121-year history to come from the public sector?
ALMONTE: I did not feel any additional pressure being the first chairman to come from the public sector. I was extremely proud of this fact. I hope I proved that government employees have high-quality skills and possess a strong work ethic. Government officials have skills that can easily be transferred to the business and nonprofit arena.
PBN: Can you identify two of your proudest accomplishments?
ALMONTE: A major highlight was the establishment of the Leadership Academy, which was a vision that I had for this profession. While we acquire a great technical education, we must strengthen leadership skills. We should develop a holistic approach to attract students to the profession. We should teach not only technical skills, but prepare them to exercise leadership and pass on this knowledge to the next generation. We developed this academy, which will be ongoing, by selecting 28 CPAs with three to eight years experience. We made sure that this group was diverse in many aspects: geographic, gender, minority representation, and professional diversification (government, public accounting, private accounting, education, and business and industry). One of my Harvard professors, Marty Linsky, taught the first two days on exercising leadership, having courageous conversations, and much more. We taught them about exercising leadership in our profession. A unique aspect of this program is that all graduates were named to a national AICPA committee. In addition they are all being mentored by a past chairperson or director of the AICPA. The mentors will provide them with access to the informal network which exists in all organizations. The establishment of the Leadership Academy will clearly position our profession for future success.
Another highlight is the international component of our profession. I was invited as a keynote speaker at the Diamond Jubilee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in India. This is the first time that a chairman of the AICPA traveled to India to meet with the leadership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. I delivered several speeches, dedicated buildings, spoke with young and seasoned chartered accountants, students and high ranking government officials of India. For example, I met with the comptroller general of India, the secretary of commerce, secretary of labor and many other government and business officials. These were meetings of substance at which we spoke of strategic partnerships with the United States and India and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India. India is one the fastest growing countries in the world and would be a tremendous strategic global partner for our profession in the future.
PBN: How did the economic downturn affect your chairmanship? Did you find that you were dealing with economic issues that you didn’t expect?
ALMONTE: Unprecedented challenges in extraordinary times. There is no other way to describe the past year. No one predicted that so many aspects of the economy could collapse all at once – and worldwide. If anything, this recession has heightened our awareness of how interconnected we are, as individuals, companies and nations. Because of the economic downturn the AICPA developed new tools to assist our CPA members and the public at large because we do not forget that the P in CPA stands for public.
This economic downturn also provided a stage for me to focus on spreading my core values of integrity, reliability, independence and reliability. It provided me with an opportunity to speak on leadership and the role of trust and integrity.
As I told many CPAs around the world, this is what we went to school to learn. Finance is our area of expertise. This is the worst recession since the depression. When stories are written about this economic downturn, people should be able to say that they made it through this time with the help of their CPA. We have the feedthepig.org site to provide financial literacy for 25 to 35 year olds. We created this site to help that age group, who will graduate from college, get their first fulltime job, may get married, have children and buy their first home. These are major lifetime events and if we can help their generation succeed through these turbulent times, we can set them on a pathway to success. We have another great site called “360 degrees of financial literacy,” which provides advice for all age groups to improve their financial skills and develop excellent financial habits.
PBN: How about some challenges or goals that you might have had at the outset that you didn’t check off your to-do list when your time was up?
ALMONTE: Given the relatively short tenure as chairman, I am more than satisfied that we accomplished our goals.
We live in a complex world that requires complex solutions. Our world is constantly changing. New issues arise every day. We did not give up on any of our goals but fully understand that to be successful we have to look at our lives and our profession in the context of this volatile environment.
I still remain on the board for one more year as immediate past chairman under our new chairman, Robert R. Harris. By virtue of completing my year as chairman I will have a lifetime appointment to the governing council of the 360,000 member American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. This will allow me to remain active in our national organization and to provide input on the complex issues that will impact our country. My work and passion for this profession is not finished. It is my greatest hope that all my involvement over the last year will result in tangible benefits to the state of Rhode Island. The contacts that I have made and the knowledge that I acquired will bring great value to the Office of the auditor general and the citizens of the state of Rhode Island.
