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Forbes
02-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Getting To Know You Tuesday: Nicole Davis, CPA
Nicole Davis, CPA Nicole Davis When you think about tax professionals, you may assume that they are simply number crunchers. Nicole Davis, CPA, explains that her job entails much more. 'I help businesses, medium and small, redesign their business processes by reducing or automating non-value added tasks and focusing on improving productivity and quality,' she explains. Put another way, she advises business owners on operations and accounting. Davis leads Conscious Accounting and Delite Payroll with the expertise that earned her a place on the Forbes Top 200 CPAs in America. Away from the office, she trades spreadsheets for saucepans and reality TV (a guilty pleasure), and proves her motto that it doesn't cost to have a good accountant, it pays. Here's what else Nicole had to say: Where are you now? Currently, I am in transition. We purchased two firms last fall so merging and integrating the two into our larger firm has not come without its challenges. We are also rebranding from Butler-Davis to Conscious Accounting. What's your job title, and what does it mean? I'm the CEO and, yes, Chief Hello Officer at Conscious Accounting. The CHO badge fits because my focus now is building client relationships, so every day kicks off with a friendly 'hello' that sets the tone for everything that follows. Tax, law, and accounting are such broad topics. What's your area of special interest? My heart is in accounting since I spent most of my corporate career in this field. Yet, I've become known as a tax expert but that's because I didn't start in tax and had a lot of catching up to do. I had to get up to speed fairly quickly with tax laws, preparing returns, and offering tax advice as a service. What's the first thing you typically do while at work? The first thing I typically do at work is take off my heels or flats and slip on my compression socks and fuzzy slippers. I get really comfortable. If you had an extra couple of hours open up in your day—outside of work—what would you do? If I had an extra couple of hours in my day, I would probably take more ME time. More walks, more massages, more doing something that is not work related. What's one tool or resource that you couldn't live without at work? I could not work without my cell phone. I can practically run my firm from my cell phone. This is why it's always glued to my hands. If you weren't working in the tax profession, what would your dream job be? I'd probably be a chef at an international restaurant. I love Italian food, so I'd study how to make hand rolled pasta in Bologna and open a restaurant focusing on that. What's the best tax or financial advice that anyone ever gave you? The best money advice anyone has ever given me was to don't loan money to anyone unless you are OK not getting it back. It saved so many relationships with friends and family. What books or magazines are on your nightstand? I don't have any on my nightstand. However, on my desk are 'Think Like a Monk' and 'Praying the Names of God for 52 Weeks.' Who has been the biggest influence on your career? Oh, this is a hard one. I would say it was my manager at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta. My time there was extraordinary. My boss was a Black CPA and before meeting her, I had no intention of becoming a CPA or working in a public accounting firm. That encounter changed everything. What would I be surprised to know about you? My first name isn't Nicole. It's Laphilia (LUH-FEEL-YUH) and it's as unique as me. I dare you find some other person alive with that name. If you had the opportunity to make one change in the tax code tomorrow—an extra credit, a disallowed deduction, whatever—what would it be and why? I'd create a refundable credit for healthcare that covers out of pocket expense for healthcare, childcare, or eldercare. What was the best tax conference, continuing education (CE), or continuing legal education (CLE) event that you ever attended? AICPA ENGAGE but I may be a bit biased since I am on one of the planning committees responsible for programming. What has been the biggest change that you've seen in the tax profession in the last five years? The biggest change has been how compliance is pretty much a tech product now. We are no longer chained to keyboard cranking out returns. Our job now is reading the story behind the numbers, then translating that into action steps on cash flow, entity tweaks, deal timing, and wealth plays. Firms that buddy-up with the bots and lean harder into human smarts? They're sprinting past the pack. What are you most concerned about or excited about with respect to the profession moving forward? I am most excited about the possibilities in this profession. There are so many people that see a path to career expansion without being a part of Big 4. Generative AI will speed this up for many since we don't have reinvent the wheel. If Uncle Sam handed you a huge refund check right now, what would you do with it? I'd probably spend it on grocery shopping and have a big dinner party. I love to shop for food and cook. You can find Nicole on LinkedIn—you can also find her on our Forbes Best in State Top CPAs List. This article is part of our Getting To Know You Tuesday series—a chance to get to know all kinds of tax professionals and understand that the field of tax is bigger than April 15. If you'd like to nominate tax professional to be featured, send your suggestion to kerb@ with the subject: Getting To Know You Tuesday. Forbes Getting To Know You Tuesday: Arielle Tucker By Kelly Phillips Erb
Forbes
15-04-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Meet America's Best-In-State CPAs 2025 Saving the world through truth and integrity
getty What would happen to the world economy if financial records became unreliable? What would happen to you or your business? Is America prepared to go back 96 years to a world in which unreliable data helped usher in a 12-year Great Depression—when the stock market fell 81 percent before the Truth in Securities Act required audited financials? These questions might be less hypothetical than you imagine, given the headwinds facing accounting today. From regulatory hurdles to a broken talent pipeline, the profession is fighting a war on many fronts. And still, there has never been a greater need to have a top CPA in your trenches, verifying the credibility of your financial statements, and diagnosing the health of businesses and not-for-profits small and large. Indeed, when it comes to defending the integrity of financial reporting, as Oklahoma University accounting professor and CPA Jonathan Kern says, "If we can hold people accountable we can save the world. If we run out of CPAs, everything falls apart; society as we know it, is doomed." With that in mind, the Forbes editorial team has devoted the past year to recognizing our first-ever Forbes Best-In-State CPAs. Our sequel to last year's inaugural Forbes Top 200 CPAs list, this Best-In-State List identifies 1,000 of the finest CPAs from across all 50 states. And while our aim was to offer Forbes readers a resource for their personal and business accounting needs, in building the list we gleaned insights—as well as warning signs. As listmaker CPA Steve Morrison, National Director of Audit at Florida-based firm CohnReznick, says, the challenges for the profession involve nothing less than 'laying the groundwork for the CPA profession to continue serving the public interest in the coming decades.' It's no easy feat to determine who should appear on a list of America's top 1,000 Best-In-State CPAs. The challenge is to recognize the body of work of those who rise to meet the calling again and again. To do so, our review team identified thousands of eligible candidates through interviews with industry insiders, outside nominations, editorial research, and an independent advisory board of accomplished CPAs. Candidates from a variety of backgrounds, specializations and locations were considered. Throughout that year of research, in interviews with these inaugural Best-In-State CPAs, we heard one refrain time and again: There is a talent shortage in the profession, and simply not as many accounting students as needed to fill the ranks of CPAs retiring in droves. Ironically enough, the very profession the global economy relies on to account for economic activity appears to have lacked foresight into the inventory management of its own accounting professionals. It's a trend our listmakers are eager to reverse—like Kendra LaFleur, a Georgia-based CPA at Forvis Mazars. LaFleur, an advocate for recruiting students to accounting as early as high school, enjoys puncturing the stereotypes of CPA work, declaring herself, 'passionate to blow it up, to expand the narrow view of the profession.' To her, the argument is simple: 'Do you like sports? Be a CPA there. Like animals? Be a CPA. There is no industry that does not involve the language of business.' Or consider listmaker Tayiika Dennis, recently chair of the California Society of CPAs and principal at LA-based CLA, has coined—in her own effort to increase the ranks of future CPAs—a now-trademarked acronym for CPA: Coolest Profession Around. Or as CPA Ken Udenze, managing partner at Deloitte's Arizona practice, says: 'Accountants sell the profession. Accounting doesn't sell itself.' For each of them, the motivation is clear: The talent pipeline is broken at both ends and in the middle. From a shortage of accounting students, to a lack of accounting graduates becoming CPAs, to a dearth of CPAs continuing to do CPA work, to an excess of CPAs exiting the profession and retiring in droves. Astonishingly enough: almost 75% of the CPA workforce met the retirement age in 2020, as estimated by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). But it's not just a lack of new talent that's vexing the industry. Many on our list say regulatory hurdles are handcuffing them as well, especially in regard to performing audits. New Jersey CPA Martin Shenkman—listmaker and author of 42 books on accounting—says government policy is wreaking havoc on small CPA firms by making regulatory guidance too daunting: 'The Corporate Transparency Act is a prime example of the insane uncertainty of the profession. The idea of the government needing information to better identify fraud, abuse, money laundering—maybe they do… [But] they took this concept and went nuts. Five hundred pages of guidance. This was designed to get small businesses to report. What small business has time for that?' For Larry Autrey, a Texas listmaker and Executive Chair at Whitley Penn, the problem resides in another regulation, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, whose goal, he says, is to 'beat up the profession, not to make it look better… We ask every month, should we be doing public work?' This is another question less hypothetical than you might expect, given the wide array of work conducted by CPAs today. Think 'CPA' and you likely think 'tax prep.' In truth, CPAs possess exclusive domain over issuing opinions on the fairness of financial statements and offer a dizzying and expanding menu of services beyond taxes—representing businesses and taxpayers before the IRS; preparing tax strategies, financial plans, and valuations; as well as management consulting on everything from manufacturing to blockchain and AI. Case in point: With CPA firms evolving into one-stop Swiss army knives for all things financial, KPMG gained permission from the Arizona Supreme Court in February to enter the legal profession in Arizona. Although the smallest of the 'big four' CPA firms, with $38.4 billion in global revenue for fiscal 2024, KPMG already practices law in 80 countries. Expect PwC, Deloitte and EY to follow. It is clearly a heady time for CPAs—and a time of great change. As North Carolina listmaker and Partner at EY, Jamila Abston Mayfield notes, 'This is one of the most dynamic regulatory environments we have seen in a long time,' adding that, 'AI is here and alive. Most CPA firms and small individual CPAs are trying to figure out the balance of what can and should I automate to allow my CPAs to be more creative, dynamic and engaging. We need the credibility that CPAs can bring.' Indeed, as businesses innovate, the complexity of financial reporting, revenue recognition and SEC requirements will, as well. Which creates, in turn, a greater need for CPAs. More than anyone, CPAs are fluent in the language of business—including a broad understanding of the principles of accounting and tax reporting, as well as an assessment of each firm's or individual's unique financial condition. It's the kind of work that requires the discipline and tenacity you'll find throughout our Best-In-State list. You'll find it in Connecticut CPA Darin Offerdahl, who ascended to partner with Offerdahl Emerson & Company after spending eight years in the United States Navy—while serving as treasurer of both The Multicultural Leadership Institute and 818 Ministries International. You'll also find it in New York CPA Lara Abrash, who rose at 4 a.m. to catch the train to New York City to attend Baruch College, before rising through the ranks to become Chair of Deloitte, and ultimately named by CPA Practice Advisor as one of the Most Powerful Women in Accounting. There is a reason, after all, why CPAs consistently top surveys of the most trusted business advisors. And there is a reason why misleading financial statements are mitigated by one profession alone; auditing is their unique skill set, which only Certified Public Accountants are licensed to perform. As Oregon CPA at Ashland Partners & Company and listmaker Matthew Bowers says, 'From a young age I recognized the CPA credential as the gold standard in the accounting profession, representing expertise, professionalism and ethics. I enjoy my role as a trusted advisor to my clients and believe the credential behind my name helps solidify their trust.' Such trust remains an essential function upon which the economic fabric of America relies. 'Figures don't lie, but liars do figure,' is a sentiment often attributed to Mark Twain. In truth, it could as easily have been coined by a CPA—which is why you want the best of the best on your side. And together, you might just save the world. For the full list of America's Best-In-State Top 1000 CPAs 2025, click here. Editor's Note: Andrea Bergeron Paul contributed to this article. To create our inaugural list of America's Top 200 CPAs, Forbes assembled an editorial team with broad experience in CPA practice, coverage of accounting news, and knowledge of CPA practice. The team then identified a wide array of eligible candidates through thousands of interviews with industry insiders, outside nominations, editorial research, and an independent advisory board of experts. To qualify for consideration, CPAs were required to be active and licensed. Several thousand CPAs from a variety of backgrounds, specializations and locations were ultimately considered. Candidates were rated in ten weighted categories, including achievements, professional honors, influence on the profession, thought leadership, and community service. Although their lifetime achievements were considered, emphasis was placed on their most recent accomplishments. The CPAs with the highest scores made our final list. For more information on the selection process see Forbes Top 200 Methodology. As with all Forbes lists, candidates do not pay any fee to be considered or selected. For questions about this list, please email cpalist [at]
