The Bean Counter Interview
PwC interview
Tim Ryan is the U.S. Markets, Strategies, and Stakeholders Leader for PwC. Late last year PwC had me come to the headquarters in New York to meet with Tim and discuss his experience at PwC and PwC's view on global "mega-trends."
He is one of the top partners at one of the largest public accounting firms in the world. He has worked on large clients such as AIG and was the U.S. Audit Leader for PwC.
To listen to the entire interview, click here!
Read full interview transcript here.
Collapse
-
Intro: Do you have a job in accounting? Are you looking? Whether you’re starting from ground zero in university or are crashing it with your full-time career, The Bean Counter is the show for you. Here’s your host Andrew Argue.
Andrew Argue: Good morning everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today. We’re in a very special place. As you can see, this is in Manhattan, New York City. I’m at the PWC Headquarters and I’m joined today by a very special guest Tim Ryan who’s part of the US leadership team. Thank you so much for coming on The Bean Counter podcast.
Tim Ryan: Thanks for coming to Manhattan and great to see you.
Andrew Argue: Yeah, absolutely. So tell us a little bit, you know, my viewers aren’t just for PWC, they’re from all over, so tell us a little bit about your background for those of us that don’t overly know you.
Tim Ryan: Sure. So maybe, I’ve been in the firm for 25 years. So I grew up in a small town Dedham, Massachusetts, very working class town. I went to Dobson College. To be clear, I went to Dobson, the only one who would take me at that point in time. I can remember my first day showing up in campus thinking I didn’t really belong here. It was a very different crowd than what I grown up with.
I had the opportunity to kind of me and my parents a little bit, those first couple of months and I made a bunch of really nice friends, and so when I was at Dobson, I majored in accounting and communications and little did I know communications would help in a lot of career progress but I did major in communication as well as accounting.
I joined the firm in 1988 and have had a number of different experiences throughout my career. So I started in the pure auto type, had the ability to gain consulting for the first really what I call years 3 to 18 of my career, both what I call consulting as well as auditing which is pretty interesting and maybe talk about that a little bit later, and then from that point had a number of experiences on larger clients than a number of leadership divisions out of the firm.
Andrew Argue: Now, tell us a little bit about what you’re currently doing; now your current role and what that is at the firm for those of us who don’t know.
Tim Ryan: Sure. So my current role is strategy markets and stakeholders. So when you break that down, a big part of the response go to the strategy for our firm and for our profession when think about the future. So as you know the world is changing very rapidly when you look at some of the major forces that are driving not only our world but our clients’ worlds, society’s world and where do we fit in from a strategic perspective, that’s myself and they’re also working with the number of people globally in terms of how we think about the future of our firm.
Another big part of that is how do we work with our sectors and markets across the country. So when you think about it, we have offices in over 20 different parts of the country here and a number of different sectors ranging from financial services to utilities, to industrial products and laying out a strategy from that perspective, and then lastly, I brought a group of stakeholders.
Clearly, we focus a lot on our people, we focus a lot on our clients, but the reality is we have a number of the stakeholders, the least of which is society, regulators, investors, boards and a number of the people we interact with everyday and how do we think about the value proposition for them.
Andrew Argue: Perfect, I think that gives us a good baseline to continue on. So the first question I always ask is you, in particular had a very long, very coloured career, so tell us about one point in your career where you were so surprised or so excited that you were doing something and that you are so grateful that you have the opportunity to do it and it got you excited about working at PWC.
Tim Ryan: Yeah. So there’s been a lot. I mean one of the things, piece of advice I always give people is the best part about this profession is you can have career within a career without ever leaving the institution and I’ve been very lucky from that perspective. So maybe I’ll start with some of the early days in terms of my career from that perspective.
So as I mentioned, I started in 1988. In 1991, the New England banking crisis hit and that at the time was a really big deal for the nation and so on region, and at a very early age of my career, so at the time I was a senior accountant, I had the chance to go up in the Hampshire and see things that frankly someone who is 25 years old doesn’t typically get to see. So I saw people hanging in there keys because they couldn’t afford their homes, I saw people going bankrupt, I saw businesses going bankrupt and we had the opportunity as a professional services firm to be a real big part of that solution, and what I learned during that moment of my career is I learned a couple of things.
I learned number one that if you wanted to take the time to really understand a problem, the detail, the very detail and nature of those problems, you then had the ability to really make a difference. If you want to invest your time and your energy, do that, and that could be exciting, and what we were able to do, myself and a couple of other people from that experience, we saw that there was some really unique details in mortgage banking because a lot of the banking crisis out there was people relating to their homes and we took that detail to our knowledge and with some mentorship from people in the firm, we built a national practice across the United States around mortgage banking and there was nothing to get in our way like as long as we had the initiative, we want to spend the time, we have the ability to build the practice that over time became the industry leader around mortgage banking, and that for me was very exciting and it wasn’t just the opportunity to help companies, it was the opportunity to grow business within a very larger organization.
Andrew Argue: Now, tell me a little bit about that, that’s an interesting story because when you think about when you’re 25 years old as a senior accountant going through that, and now looking at 2008 and that time period you’re still at the firm, did you feel like wow, what an interesting experience to see something like that twice in your career? What was that like for you?
Tim Ryan: Yeah, so interesting. So the reference is 2008, so clearly when you get to the point 20 years later, the nation has a financial crisis and it’s funny because I hearken back to those lessons learned, very, very often going to the 2008 crisis and even leading up to the crisis because what I learned during that period was a couple of things.
I learned, first of all, there’s some very basic things we’re dealing with the crisis and that you’ve really got to focus on and the first thing is you don’t ever go with it alone, and when you think about somebody’s really hard times that whether it be our nation or a client or a firm has, you leverage people within the organization and even outside the organization to assess the problem, putting the best resources and then ultimately try to solve that problem.
And so, whether it was 1991 or 2008, very similar set of what I call skill sets that you bring to there and I felt that that actually prepared me very well, and in fact I worked on some clients in 2008 time frame where they were much, much larger, and from my perspective it just void zeros in the balance sheet, it was the same lessons I learned in the community banking environment.
The other thing and that I would say is one of the things that’s important to point out in my career was in the 2001-2002 time frame, myself and a couple of other people, we saw some things relating to subprime mortgage in landing at that point in time and to be clear we didn’t see the crisis coming in 2008, but we saw some things that didn’t make sense for our firm we felt, and at that point in time, I was a relatively young partner, so still relatively young in the firm in terms of what I call 10 year in where I sat in the organization, but myself and a couple of people went to then firm leadership and we said you know what, there are some things about this business that we’re not sure make sense for our firm.
In particular, we saw two things; one was the reputation risk of lending people at very high interest, lending to people at very high interest, and the other thing that we saw was what I call lack of fundamental wrong cash flows as companies securities these assets and then waited years and years in some cases, they get cash flow for those assets and we raised that issue and after a lot of debate over 6 to 12 month time period with firm leadership, we made the decision to exit, stand along some prime measure.
So it’s differently, if a company has pure business with subprime landing, we exited that business. That was tens and millions of dollars of business at the time, but what it taught me is that every person and voice within an organization, no matter how large or how small needs to be heard, and if you have the right mindset as leadership, it should be heard and then you can actually have a real big impact on the organization.
Andrew Argue: No, I think that’s a great story to gone to that twice and leveraging the knowledge, I appreciate that. Now, we spoke about something right before the show that I wanted to make sure we cover because I thought it was so great. Now, tell me what is the golden rule in your eyes and how is that important to people that are out there just starting in their career? What does it mean for them?
Tim Ryan: So to give you that context, I need to go back for our listeners to have in context. So technically, I’ve had two jobs in my career, right. So my first one is I worked 10 years at a supermarket which I love to this day, it was a great experience, and then I also been at the firm for 25 years
What I learned at the supermarket was the basic golden rule which is you treat people the way you would want to be treated and as simple as that sounds, that lessons provides in my view a guiding light for all of us in terms of how we lead, how we interact with people, how we interact with other stakeholders, and at the end of the day, we all want to be treated with respect, we all want to understand what people are thinking, we all want to have our voices heard, we all want to know that we can make an impact.
And so, that has without a doubt affected my leadership style, but because there’s some very important lessons I learned back in the supermarket and with the owners of the supermarket, the two brothers who owned, they always taught us that look at it from the view point of the customer, look at it from the view point of how they would want to be treated and we look at our world in this professional services business, we have a number of stakeholders, our people are usually important, and so as the leader, the most important thing that I could do and then all of us as leaders can do is listen to our people on what’s on their minds and it take action where appropriate and be honest if we’re not going to take action, be honest about the fact that we don’t think we’re going to take an action and here’s why. You’re part of that same land still looking at investors that we worked with. Investors want to know certain things and if we’re willing to look at it from their perspective and willing to meet them halfway around important topics, I find that that golden rule is just a great guiding light.
Andrew Argue: Yeah, absolutely. I think that that’s good. I thought that was great. Now, to clarify to sort of give in into a little bit more, does that all stand forth things like confrontation, you know, if you’re someone you think it’s great when people confront you, they give you great feedback, do you think that’s also something that plays in the golden rule that you should be doing that for others if you would demand that yourself or you want that yourself?
Tim Ryan: So it comes back to again, treat people the way you wanted to be respected. Most of us have a very strong desire to get better and better at what we do, most of us want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to get to the top of our game no matter what it is and the only way you get to the top of your game is that you get constructive feedback, you get real time development and you have people who really tell you like it is and I think that, so my short answer is absolutely applies, but let me go a little deeper.
The best lessons that I’ve had in life have come on people who’ve given me honest skin feedback. In fact, I try to make sure that I’m working with people day in and day out who are going to give me honest, constructive feedback. My advice to people who are listening to this session that we’re having here today is seek feedback that isn’t just a platitude, make sure you open yourself out as a professional to hear the good, the bad and the ugly because it’s only by hearing that you’re going to get better and better and I think that’s a response that we have taught our people because it ultimately makes it more valuable on the market place and as they pursue their careers.
Andrew Argue: Absolutely, now I think of that helps. Now, another thing we ask everyone that comes on the show is, you know, although you’re very successful, you’ve done a lot of great things, tell me about a time where you failed at something, everybody’s got a story when they just felt like uh, I’ve hit back button or I’ve sunk right, just try to do this and it didn’t work out. Tell us something that you did.
Tim Ryan: Sorry. How much time do we have? So there’s been many mistakes.
Andrew Argue: We’ll stick to one, huh.
Tim Ryan: First thing I would say broadly speaking and one of the things that I did learn on my career is that failure is an important lesion in terms of any of our development and I would sit there and say if we hold ourselves a standard we’re not going to make mistakes then we run the risk of cheating ourselves the opportunity to really develop and as you know as an entrepreneur, you’re always going to make mistakes and failures and it’s not how many times you failed, it’s what you learn from those failures to make yourselves better and that’s an important philosophy that I have even as when I ran the auto practice here or my current role. We’re going to try things and make mistakes.
Now, let me get to my maybe one of the ones that’s most memorable. When I was in the early days that I consume a finance practice, we often had a lot of consulting or business [0:11:51-52] practices. So for example, a company would say to us, we want to be able to close the loan quicker, it takes us 45 days to close the loan, we want to get it to 30 days because that improves cash flows, improve cost management, improves the customer experience.
I remember some of those and what we did is we try to come in and solve the problem and we’d be sitting as a team either in the conference room or walking the floor, but we weren’t doing is we weren’t listening, and when you sat down with the person who was maybe the fulltime employee who is doing it 8 hours a day and maybe didn’t have the college education we have or the experience we’ve had, but you know what, if you listen to them, 80% of the time they had the answer, and what I realized is that as business advisers, the most important thing we can do is listen and that goes to whether solving a consulting problem, a complex auto problem or an internal firm problem
If we’re willing to listen to people then accumulate data points and put together like data points, we can then ultimately make a recommendation. But, I learned that most of the time, the people who are on the floor, the people who are closest to the action, they see things better and more clearly than we often do and the best leaders, the best consultants are the ones who are willing to listen and then aggregate those data points and then present it in a way that makes sense.
Andrew Argue: Now, I think that that’s a great principle and I appreciate that. Now, looking back over your career, tell us about one of the big challenges or hurdles that you face and how you were able to get ahead of that, how are you able to punch through and make it to the other side?
Tim Ryan: Sure, maybe I’ll give you an example where there was one client I worked on and it’s not unique to this client, but there was one client that I have responsibility for where you have multiple stakeholders as an auto part right, you have, ultimately you’re working for the board and that’s important but you’ve got to interact with management day in and day out, and then you have to get your team, and there were a number of situations where this company had some challenges around their internal controls and the company was trying like they wanted to get it right.
They’re working hard, they were investing, there was the right leadership, but at times they just couldn’t get it quite right, and our challenge was to make sure ultimately that the board knew the facts, they knew the balance facts both in terms of what I call good but also the things that weren’t going so good, so they could carry out their oversight of responsibilities and in many cases we had to kind of empty up and say that management wasn’t quite getting it done.
Now, again, not to lack of effort, not to lack of investment, but couldn’t quite get it done and that was hard sometimes. That was hard for as a leader of a team because you wanted management to do well, you wanted the company to do well, but by the end of the day you had a responsibility to deliver some really hard messages and that’s where the golden rule really comes, kind of what I call challenge it because the golden rule to management is you need to treat them respectfully the way you would want to be treated, but you also have to treat the board in terms of how they want to be treated.
So what I try to do there is a, make sure our team on a constant basis, we understood what our responsibility was and our ultimate responsibility was to the board, but I also made sure that our team understood we had a responsibility to management which is to get them a chance to understand our point of view, to give them a chance in terms of what we think needed to be done and give them the chance to go do that, and then if they succeeded then that’s great, but if they didn’t then we had a responsibility to raise it up and to make sure they knew what were going to say every step in the way.
So again, the way I would want to be treated in there is that I want the chance to get it done right. I don’t want the time to get it done, but if I could I’d at least want to know what the message is going to be to the board, so that’s where the [0:15:17] comes in to play there.
Andrew Argue: And how did it end out playing out?
Tim Ryan: It ended up playing, you know, the board understood it and the board was able to allocate more resources and more management expertise to the company where they ultimately did improve it, it’s for the benefit of all the stakeholders, but the company just needed a little hope from the board to get more investment and more time and more oversight to get the problem done.
Andrew Argue: Cool. Perfect. That’s great. Now, if I’ve got three questions that are going to sort of play in together, so I’m going to lay them out and then we’ll get right into it.
Tim Ryan: Okay, go ahead.
Andrew Argue: The first one I want to talk about is PWC released a report recently, the global annual review which talks about five mega trend, I want you to talk about that, and then you also wrote an article recently for Accounting Today which talks about why now is a great time to join the accounting profession, so sort of give us the big level detail, talk about why are you saying it’s a great time to join, and then what is you single biggest piece of advice for someone out there that’s just starting?
Tim Ryan: Yeah, sure. So let me start with the mega trend, so for everybody’d benefit. So first of all what is a mega trend, right. A mega trend is a macroeconomic force that is driving changes in our world. A megatrend inner proprietor to term to PWC and many businesses build their strategies around megatrend with the world it’s going. You often hear the term sports go where the balls going outward as today.
So the megatrend is telling us which shift to take in place today around where the world is going to be. A mega trend is scientific so it’s not a gut feeling, it’s based upon facts, it’s based upon data and it’s a certainty and while a megatrend, you don’t know every detail around when and where and what or what I call the second order effect of what’s effect. The megatrend itself is certainty.
So we’ve noticed over the last couple years as we look at our strategy is we realize these things that are happening today in the global economy and they’re not random, they’re being driven by these five megatrends. So we are now organizing our strategy like many businesses both what I’ll call small and larger like around this megatrend, so maybe what are they right, can I just go through them?
Andrew Argue: Yeah, absolutely.
Tim Ryan: The first one is accelerating rates of urbanization. So like at one hand, we kind of all nod our head and say yeah, that makes sense but let’s get underneath a bit. So today, half of our world 1 out of 2 people, they live in an urban area. That’s the most ever by long shot. What even more pointy to know is that in the next 20 years, that number will go to the 75%, that’s a billion and a half people. So just put that contrast, you have a billion and a half people moving from rural areas to urban areas over the next 25 years and that is stagnant when you think about it.
Then, you think about okay, what does that mean. That means we’re going to see new cities built up overnight, it’s not just going to be New York, it’s going to be places in Africa, it’s going to be places in India, South East Asia, Russia, Brazil and the like where we’re going to see massive growth of cities, some of which are places we can even name today.
Then, you think about okay, the incredible infrastructure needs that have taken place like how do you care for that many people, how do you build the infrastructure, how do you get clean water there, how do you make sure you have medical care, they’re on the light. So that is a megatrend we are seeing rapidly and we’re thinking about how do we make sure we’re there to serve our stakeholders in that environment and there’s incredible opportunity there.
The reality is there’s lessons learned, we look back to massive what I call civil projects in the past around how to do them, how not to do them, so we expect for example that a major buying centre will be the mayor or the equivalent of the mayor, it won’t necessarily be the State government, it won’t necessarily be the national government.
In many cases, it will be the local government who’s constructing and competing on how smart their city is versus how smart somebody else’s city, and so we see massive changes taking place there and we see our clients organizing their strategy around that urbanization. So it’s very exciting and it leads for opportunities for us and that will get to the journal of accounting on a second but it’s tremendous opportunity so people do really make a difference.
Andrew Argue: Yeah, absolutely, and that was the first one.
Tim Ryan: Yeah. So that’s the first megatrend. The next one is changing demographics, and so that is very interesting because 40% of our world is seeing population decline. So 40% of our world today, so we think about who’s in the leading into that is Japan, the country such as Italy, Russia, they’re also seeing population decline, so it’s a mean, the current birth rate isn’t sufficient to keep population flat, in fact it’s going down. That leads for significant social challenges when you think about caring for elderly, when you think about how you deal with shortage of skilled workers to generate future DGP and the like. So there’s tremendous opportunity there.
Now, the converse is that is 60% of the world seen population growth, and so that means you have growing middle classes, that’s what filling that urbanization, so you see this dichotomy in the globe, and the question gets out once we see population decline, you’re going to see more active involvement in the private sector, you’ll see technology and health care converge as a developed innovation to deal with how do you care for elderly, how do you deal with shortage of skilled workers. And then, on the other side, you see each men as opportunity for career advancement and the like.
Andrew Argue: Now, with that in mind, does that mean that we’re going to be seeing somebody sees in the none western countries or even European countries and Russia and the United States, it’s going to be in other places like Brazil or is that the trend that you’re seeing?
Tim Ryan: Yeah. It’s a great point. So maybe the obvious one is of course we’re going to see growth in the emerging markets and what we are and that’s where we’ll see a lot of these new cities, but it’s important to point out you’re also going to see massive investment in what I would call older cities as a work to catch up and compete in a new environment. So big part of the infrastructure spend the innovation will happen in some of these Western cities or more Northern cities when you think about New York and the like as they compete to get their infrastructure on a place where it’s adapting to their changing population and they make sure they’re competitive in a world stage.
One of the things that our people often asks us is when you think about that urbanization megatrend, does it mean that the US is relevant anymore, and we believe that in the same part of Europe, the answer is absolutely yes. They’re still incredibly attractive markets, they drive a lot of innovation when you think about what’s happening, what’s happened so far in history, what happens going forward when you think about Silicon Valley, when you think about the ability to innovate so which is a different type of relevance and so we see that.
Andrew Argue: Right. Okay. That’s a good clarification and then now onto the third one.
Tim Ryan: The third one is climate change and resource scarcity, so talk about this. so the reality is what companies I’ve seen across the globe is their cost to going up and their cost of going up because when you look at what’s happening with climate change and resource scarcity, commodity pricing is, in many cases going up or the minimum, it’s more volatile when you think about disruption that happen globally and then you’re also seeing global regulations.
So forget politically what your view is around climate change and I’m well aware that there’s many political views around whether it’s happening or just natural part of the world’s evolution. The fact of the matter is these companies are investing heavily to reduce the cost of their supply chain. Companies are investing heavily to when they realize that they’re operating in a very competitive and global environment that if they don’t drive efficiency around supply chain, clean resources of energy, deal with rising regulation and deal with commodity pricing that is generally going up but certainly spiky and volatile, then they won’t be able to compete.
Andrew Argue: Right and you’re saying not only from a PR perspective of the public but also cost and running the business.
Tim Ryan: Yeah. So you think about any company that has their main resource or whether it be to produce their product or actually in their product like water. I mean water is becoming scarce and scarcer. Companies are sitting there today saying okay how do I reduce that alliance on water, how do I secure more supplies, how do I get it more sufficient, how do I look at alternative ways to produce that product because the reality is if they’re not controlling that, they are potentially eroding shareholder value in the future as cost is going up so sure with that, you go with the same thing around iron or aluminium or oranges or any type of product that you use, companies are sitting there and saying how do I get that cheaper and how do I make sure I’m more resilient if that cost goes up, so I don’t disrupt my business.
And then, the other aspect we have on climate change and resource scarcity is you are seeing increase regulation, so companies are adapting to that as different countries put in different kind of ways, incentives to intent what they believe are more responsible business, so you see more on that.
Andrew Argue: Absolutely. Okay. So that’s number three, the climate change and number four?
Tim Ryan: The next one we kind of touch on a little bit but it’s the shift of economic power from the West to the East. So when you study history, in many cases, the shift of the economic power was in the East many, many years ago. With this temporary when you look at the world in terms of thousands of years, you’re seeing the last couple of hundred years, it’s been in the West, but now you see it kind of revert back to historical norms where it was on the East when you think back a couple of thousand years ago.
So you see, you look at the GDP today of the global, the G7 countries and you look at the GDP diversity margin market 7 countries, it’s estimated that in less than 40 years. The GDP of the East 7 will be doubled at of the G7, so just think about that for a second. So the GDP of the emerging market 7 countries will be more than double of where we are today for the G7 countries.
That’s why today, we’re seeing global companies invest in emerging markets. They are thinking about their future, they’re thinking about how do we secure our access to the customers that even if they don’t exist today, we’re just beginning to grow and that’s where the rate of urbanization kicks in and converges with this megatrend. That’s why we’re seeing companies decide where do you want to put plants, where do you want to produce your product.
That’s why we’re seeing companies invest in new sources and talent today which is not just a that you get from European or US universities, but how do you secure access to talent in these emerging talents in these emerging talents in the seven countries and on their terms.
That’s also why we’re seeing the investment power of the East 7 countries increase, so we’re seeing massive inbound investment in the US, we’re seeing massive investment, inbound investment in Europe by these emerging market 7 countries as they a.) Look to diversify the new found capital they have and b.) They want to make sure they have access to other global markets outside of just the East 7 and the US is an attracted market, Europe is an attractive market for those companies.
Andrew Argue: So now let’s talk about the fifth megatrend.
Tim Ryan: Yeah. So the fifth one is a little different because when you think about the first four, they can actually be scary, when you think about caring for elderly, when you think about shortage in skilled workers, you think about rising prices of commodities as we deplete the words resources. Those are pretty heavy issues. Technology in many respects, so the fifth one is rapid advancements of technology and technology in many respects is part of the answer, a big part of the answer.
So we’ve already seen what technology can do. We’ve seen data analytics drive events and artificial intelligence that we never dream possible. We’ve seen the cloud change in the way people do business and enabling the alternative sort of communication and collaboration that we never dream possible. We look at what mobile is done, it’s opened up markets that in the past you needed infrastructure, you can get to those markets but mobiles open it up.
So technology in many ways is going to help up deal with these challenges and that megatrend is you know is happening rapidly before our eyes, so the fifth one is the rapid advancement of technology that disrupting business models but solving important problems and helping us deal with those other four megatrends in ways that we never dream possible.
So the important point to point out is these megatrends are all connected and they’re moving really fast so when you think about what’s happening in the world today as we talk about with our people and our clients, what’s happening in the world today isn’t random, so these governments need more money and they need funding, that’s directly tied to aging populations. That’s historically tied to infrastructure needs. So the fact is these megatrends are affecting the way companies, governments and society overall behave today.
Andrew Argue: So I appreciate that. I think that that’s the stage for sort of the macro environment of what’s going on in the world today. Now, I want to talk about how you see the accounting profession fitting into that and referencing your article that was in accounting today.
Tim Ryan: Right, so maybe before I do that, to set it up with context, a quick story. So when I was in college, I had an internship. I had a professor who would encourage me. So I was working at the supermarket and he had encouraged me to go try an internship and I worked as a receivable clerk at a company that put in a filing cabinet system and I remember saying to this professor, Professor Bruno, I don’t like this like this is not fun, I don’t like this, I don’t think I’m going to go into public accounting and I was the first person in my family to go to college until I am today, and so he was really the mentor that said give this profession a try.
Had I not listened to him, I would’ve had so many misperceptions around what this profession is about, I would’ve missed out on, there were 25 great years in terms of experiences and opportunities and that’s why I wrote this article like the accounting profession is adopting rapidly and the reality is the world around us is changing.
So when you think about some of those megatrends, when you think about accelerating rates of urbanization, the fact of the matter is the accounting profession will be the one there to make sure that tax payer money because at the end of the day that’s where it’s going to come from is spent in accordance with what the project plan said, spent on time and all stakeholders get relevant reporting, and that’s important like that’s dealing with the societal problem and while the frame of that reporting doesn’t exist today, it’s coming, it’s inevitable because if we’re going to see $40, $20 spent to deal with accelerating populations in these urban areas, there will be a huge need to the accounting profession to help deal with that societal problem.
Just go to other one when I look at the accounting profession, so you get to this, you have issue of climate change and resource scarcity, the reality is frameworks are going to be developed to help identify which companies not just today are producing the best bottom line but which companies today have insulated themselves against supply-chain threats and supply-chain risks that will increase their value ten years out and reporting frameworks and structures are going to be needed for that and we’ll be at the forefront of that, but the environment that you and I grew up with when you were in the profession in my 25 years of ten case, inevitably those are going to be rewritten.
The reality is framework made sense 70, 80 years ago, but today the world needs something more forward looking, the world needs something that gets around these megatrends and the profession is going to be there. So at the end of the day, what we all want as professionals is we want the ability to really make a difference, we want the ability to have an impact and the megatrends intersecting with this profession give the accounting profession a front row seat that really help address those challenges.
Andrew Argue: Now, you know, I’m just thinking from the perspective of someone out there who’s an individual, I think this is a great learning experience to think about the world on a big stage, think about the accounting profession as a whole, but what is your one piece of advice that you would give to someone that’s looking to fit into this changing environment, that’s looking to make their mark in a world where so many things are occurring, so many changes are happening, how can they make a difference?
Tim Ryan: Right. So I’ll give you the same piece of advice I give the people who are closest to me. So this will be, I have six children, I’m going to give the piece of advice I give my children, right. The reality is when you start out in this profession, there are some foundational things that we all have to learn, it’s almost a continuation of what I’ll call the formal education process, but very quickly, there after the learning curve accelerates like we are exposed to so many things.
What’s great about this profession is many of us were going tens and twenties of clients in our first three years, and by getting exposed to different clients, you start to see the world from a very different lens. You start to see best practice, you start to see trends emerge and you get exposed to so many things, and the single biggest piece of advice I could give anybody is stay within this profession as long as you can because the reality is every year within inside this profession, because you are exposed to so many things both in the clients’ side, as well as the people you’re working with, you’re learning curve goes like this.
And so, the reality is one to three years within this firm is worth five, six, seven, eight on the outside and that takes your development to a completely different level and just when you think that you can’t learn anymore, you’re exposed to another client, another government, another societal problem that takes your learning curve to a completely different level and that’s the best I give.
Andrew Argue: No, I absolutely agree with that. I have often heard it being reference to dog years, you know, they say it’s a multiple of what you would get in another experience, so I think that’s very helpful. Now, what about for someone’s that’s already in the profession, has been doing it for a while but wants to kick it up a notch, wants to change, to do better and to really make mark up there, what’s your advice to them to really get things in gear?
Tim Ryan: So I’m going to say a couple of things. The first thing is I have the saying that whenever any person is at any organization, that within public accounting or private industry, you build up a personal capital account, you belong in an organization, you earned the right to be treated with respect, you earn the right to be treated, have more flexibility, and when you have that inevitable challenge in life, you draw in that personal capital account whether that’s a personal problem or something else, and what’s great about being in any organization for a long period of time is you can draw in that capital account.
So what I would tell to the people is use your personal capital account and seek out other opportunities within your organization. If you’re part of a large organization, one of the benefits that come with that is you can have multiple experiences within the same organization.
So you can have a mobile experience, you can go overseas to somebody’s exciting emerging markets, you can go to another market within the US, you can work on a different type of client from one industry to the other and I would encourage people to seek that opportunity out because that gives you a broader perspective on life and without a doubt, the more different, the seats you sit in, the more your perspective starts to broaden them, the different you see the picture. So that would be one piece of advice.
The second piece of advice I give to people is don’t be afraid to self teach yourself. If you see something that is really interesting, there’s so many resources that are out there today in the digital age that we live in, take advantage of the opportunity, teach yourself because the world is moving in such a rapid rate. It’s not just the senior people know as much. If you take the time to teach yourself on a problem or on an opportunity, the sky is the limit. So don’t be afraid to not only leverage people but self teach yourself those important challenges.
Andrew Argue: Now, I think that that’s great advice. Now, we always wrap up with the two same questions, so I’m going to drop these on you. what’s a great book that you’ve read recently or maybe your favourite book that you would recommend for people out there.
Tim Ryan: Okay. So a book that I’ve read very recently is a book called The Right Fight, it’s by a woman named Dr. Saj-nicole Joni and that book talks about two things. It talks about connectional intelligence and it talks about constructive conflict and constructive conflict is something I believe all along in my career which is that goes with the golden rule again which is how do you want to be treated, and the best answer within whether being in the personal side of life or as well as in the business side of life, the best answer come from what I call skin and knees and bruising bones.
So the reality is you’ve got to have healthy debates around something that ultimately gets to bad answers and that’s what she covers the book. What she covers interesting is the fact that innovation is hard because anytime you’re innovating, you’re changing something, so it treats you to think about it in the perspective of the person of group of people who are having something changed, and again that’s where the golden rule comes in which is well you think about how it feels in their perspective. So that’s a terrific book that I recommend.
Andrew Argue: Yeah. It reminds me of, you know, when you’re making those changes, the potential for failure, it may not work out, there’s that fear that’s always there, so know I think that’s great. Now, the last question I’m going to ask before we wrap things up today and again thank you so much for doing this and coming on, is what’s a great quote that you live by and tell us how you apply that in your life?
Tim Ryan: Yeah. So it goes a little bit to that failure point again. So Michael Angelo has a quote I actually carry around in my wallet and it’s been the first best I can tell 13, 14 years and the quote goes something like this which the biggest risk is shooting too high and missing it. The biggest risk is not shooting high enough in hitting it. And the reality is, failure is an important part of anyone of our personal development and failure doesn’t mean just going out taking a lot of cap on and starting a business.
Failure maybe, asks you to go to a meeting that you weren’t invited to. Failure can be asking you to get you an assignment and you’re not quite ready for yet or any other range. But, don’t think of failure as a big capital F, think about it with small capital F and really pushing each and every one of you be better every day.
Andrew Argue: I think that’s great and I think watching someone like you who has a long career, who’s been very successful, it’s important for people out there to realize that when they do have one failure or another failure or another failure, it doesn’t mean that things are over.
Tim Ryan: Right.
Andrew Argue: If you’re in it for the long run, you can still make it through as you’ve gone. So I think you so much for coming on, I really appreciate it.
Tim Ryan: You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.
Andrew Argue: So thank you so much everyone for listening. If you want to see this video, if you’re listening to the audio version go to thebeancounter.org, they also have the books there as well as the quotes and all the information you need, so thank you so much for tuning in and I will talk to you soon.
CPA Exam & Starting Bonus
CPA Exam Policy
Reimburse Exam Costs: Yes
Reimburse CPA Review Course: Yes
CPA Passing Bonus: Yes
CPA Passing Amount: 5,000
Starting Salary & Where to Apply
PwC Locations
Key Recruiters
Reaching Out to PwC
Getting in the door at PwC can be tough, but if you approach it the right way, it's really not that hard. For a firm of this size (and it's the same for all Big 4), there isn't a key recruiting contract that will work for you anywhere in the country. That will change as we go down the list of top firms.
With PwC, you're going to have to do some research.
The good news is that I'll walk you through step by step how to target specific recruiters and firm staff, and exactly what to say to get your foot in the door!
