Influence is in the House!

Seldom do I get self-promotional in this space, as there are far too many issues impacting the accounting profession to write about as opposed to publicizing the accomplishments of our company and people.

But this once, I’ll make an exception.

Transition Advisors has just a dozen people in its employ, probably far less than most that know us or have engaged our services in the past would likely have envisioned. We’re small but think big.

 Recently, three of them, or effectively one-quarter of the staff, were named among the Top 100 Most Influential People in the accounting profession by the editors of Accounting Today.

Those named to the 2012 elite were CEO Terry Putney, President Joel Sinkin and Principal Chris Frederiksen. So, kudos all around.

As most of you know, I spent 12 years at the publication, 11 of which included several painstaking weeks huddling with my staff helping compile this list. For those eagle-eyed readers who have ascertained that the numbers don’t add up, I joined the paper two weeks after that year’s annual roster was completed.

But seldom in my experience has such a proportionally large percentage of one company been included in that prestigious group, if ever.

In my former life, I was often asked what constitutes influence. My answer was often borrowed from music legend Louis Armstrong, who when asked to describe jazz quickly replied, “Man, if you gotta ask, you’ll never know.”

But I’ll dig a bit deeper than that. The T100 includes members from all spheres in and around the accounting profession: firm leaders, educators, regulators, association heads, politicians, and of course — in our case — vendors.

Each candidate is weighed and either selected or rejected on his or her influence over the past year (and — contrary to popular belief — not over the course of a career) and like judging anything, it’s not so much quantitative as it is subjective.

Influence could be defined as authoring a new regulation that affects the profession or introducing an innovative new technology that CPA firms jump on. In our case, it revolves around our cornerstone strategies of helping firms navigate difficult and often sensitive transition and succession issues or structure mergers.

Will we repeat our T100 feat in 2013?

I confident we will. Remember, we have a year to work on it.