ENGAGE download – Wins and takeaways

Get a snapshot of the AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE 24 conference held in June at Las Vegas. Conference attendees share their experiences at this premier accounting event along with the knowledge that they gained from various sessions. Highlights include discussions on professional growth, finding balance, mental wellness and the importance of networking.

Register now to attend AICPA & CIMA ENGAGE 25.

Transcript

April Walker: Hello everyone, and welcome to the AICPA's Tax Section Odyssey podcast, where we offer thought leadership on all things tax facing the profession. I'm April Walker, a lead manager from the tax section.

Today's episode is a little different as it contains snippets and recordings from several participants at the AICPA and SEMA Engage conference, which was held last week in Las Vegas. I have actually been to this conference as a staff member of the association every year.

I believe this is the eighth. 2020 was virtual, of course, but I've been every year and somehow it just always gets a little bit better and better to me. But rather than hear me drone on and on about how great it is, please listen to those who attended.

I have with me Ashley [Francis]. Ashley was in person with me. We're recording this on Tuesday, June 11th. We were together last week at the Engage Conference in lovely, hot -- very hot - Las Vegas last week. Ashley, I'd love to hear your overall impression. How was your week at the conference?

Ashley Francis: So, my overall, overall, is that I am so exhausted, but it is that good exhaustion. Like you go and you do something, and you do the things that you want to do and you have such a wonderful time. That you're tired, but it was a good experience.

Walker: Wonderful, yes. Were you there all four days?

Francis: Oh, I was there longer because I did one of the pre sessions.

Walker: Look at you.

Francis: I did the PFS live pre session, sat for my PFS certificate, and passed the test.

Walker: Congratulations!

Francis: Thank you!

Walker: [Go] you with your new credential.

Francis: I know, it's very exciting,

Walker: Yeah, I think one more day might be do me in.

Francis: I agree, one more day,

Walker: It's wonderful…

Francis: [Five]days was enough, yeah.

Walker: Yeah, it's just a lot. I'm wondering in all of the sessions that you went to, if you had one particular takeaway or one session that really meant something to you. I guess meant something to you professionally or personally. That [included something] you are trying to implement into your life.

Francis: Absolutely. And this is a challenging question because there were three sessions that stood out to me, that I could go back and listen to again and again, but the one that impacted me the most, I would have to say, is Andrea Miller's session on balance and mental wellness. Because I think a lot of times, especially for me, everything is just go, do the next thing, do the next thing. Without stopping to think, wait... is this next thing the thing I actually want to be doing?

And so even though it was a big room, it was full of folks, her session did such a great job, having folks walk through that experience themselves in a very individual way. When I left that session, I was like, holy cow, what am I going to do with my life now? So, it was really big. I ordered [about] 30 books from the library because of it.

Walker: Nice, that's always a good session that creates more work for you to do after the fact. I didn't see that session. I have a long list of sessions that I want to go back to and watch for the first time or watch again. I'm sure you know she used to be staff here at the AICPA and I loved working with her.

Francis: She's great. Her career turn has been exciting to watch also. Can I give a shout out to the other two sessions that I would love? Twyla and Barbara Richardson, their session on “making wow client engagements” that was really good. And then Keila and Carrie talked about bringing in non-accountants to help support and sustain and build our firms.

That one was brilliant as well because it hit on so many different, important things that we need to think about.

Walker: Neither of those which I attended. again, there's so much going on, all the time, which is, not necessarily a negative of engage, but it's just. It's almost like you have FOMO. It's oh, I can't do all this stuff. Yeah. all thank you so much, Ashley, for hopping on and recording with me today. I hope to see you at, if not before, at next year's Engage

Francis: You definitely will.

Walker: Welcome, Brandon. I have with me Brandon Lagarde, who is a wonderful volunteer with me. [He]does a lot of different things, and he was with me at Engage last week. We had a lot of fun, but Brandon, I'd love to hear about your experience overall at the conference last week.

Lagarde: Yes, absolutely. Thanks for having me. Last week was the Engage Conference, and I believe this is the 8th Engage, is that correct?

Walker: yeah, that seems right.

Lagarde: 8th Conference? It's been many of them, and I think I've been to every one of them, and every time I go, I'm just amazed at the scope of what is provided. It just seems every year it gets bigger and bigger.

The speakers are incredible. the exhibitors are getting, better and better, and even, just so much out there. The people that are going. It’s a great experience overall. One thing we hear [a lot] about the accounting population and aging population. I was shocked to see the amount of young people at the conference and excited about accounting and excited about the practice. Also really getting to meet a lot of other people who are trying to do the same thing we're doing. Just this practicing and learning from each other and it was a great experience.

Walker: Yeah, it was. It was a lot of energy and a lot of enthusiasm. And sometimes it doesn't come from the older generation. It comes from the younger generation. But I like to be a hanger on [of the younger generation]. Brandon, are there any connections you made from a networking perspective during the week that you would like to share with us?

Lagarde: As I mentioned, this is my eighth Engage conference. And this is I believe the second annual AICPA Foundation Golf Tournament that was held Sunday morning before the conference kicked off. This year I looked at my schedule and I'm attempting to play golf, trying to get better and improve.

And I've been told that the only way to improve is to play a lot. So, I thought, let me sign up for this tournament. So I actually played in the golf tournament, Sunday morning. Fantastic tournament- I highly recommend it to anyone who's going out there. And got to meet some really great people.

You get put with three other people to play with. Didn't know these people before and played a round of golf. Had some good shots, had some bad shots, enough good shots to go back out there. We did not win the tournament, unfortunately, but we made some good friends and I continued to network with those individuals and keep in touch with them throughout the conference and ran into them multiple times.

I ran into him at the Old Red event, which was an event that was sponsored by AICPA, on Tuesday night at the conference. This was another great time just to network and to listen to the band. Although, it was a little hard to network there because it was a bit loud.

I tried to talk to Damian Martin a couple times, and I think we were screaming at each other at one point just because of the volume of the music. But it was a great place to just meet people.

At the exhibit hall, I'm always amazed at the [number] of vendors that are there that are sure They're there to support the AICPA and their product. But it's just amazing the technology that's out there and the things that are happening. Getting to meet some of the people there and getting to make connections with some of the platforms out there and learning more about people.

A lot of generative AI conversations, a lot of generative AI companies - some better than others- but, just a lot of opportunity out there to meet people. And that’s the benefit of going to something like this and going to a conference like this. It's not just tax people.

It's not just audit people. It's people from all different areas of the CPA practice. At the end of the day, all we're trying to do is help our clients and help our practices improve and getting to see what's out there and getting to meet people who are dealing with the same experiences we're dealing with is you can't put a price tag on that.

Walker: Yeah, I agree. Brandon, thanks for joining me for a quick little snippet of your week. It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year. I look forward to Engage 2025. What shenanigans will we get up to? Time will tell.

Lagarde: We've already started, we've already started [ENGAGE 2025] to do list.

Walker: Yes, we have. Things we didn't get to that we want to accomplish. Most of them are very responsible types of to dos.

Lagarde: Absolutely, I already have it in my calendar next year too. I'm already down to go.

Walker: Wonderful.

Lagarde: [Looking] forward to it.

Walker: Thanks for joining me, Brandon.

Lagarde: Thank you.

Walker: Welcome, Mark. Mark Gallegos was at the ENGAGE conference. We're recording this on a Tuesday, June 11th. Mark, tell me, I know it was not your first time, you've been to ENGAGE several times, but, what specifically, was a highlight for you about last week's ENGAGE conference?

Gallegos: Yeah, I think from the ENGAGE conference, it's the human aspect to me. Meeting people, interacting with people, and really getting to listen and learn from others. The way I look at it is, you get to learn from experts in the field in areas that you think you know a little bit about, and you learn that you have a lot of learning and growth to go forward with.

Learning on the latest trends in the profession, strategies, and regulatory updates from a tax perspective. And then, learning from these experts and staying relevant in the current tax landscape and the changing tax landscape.

But also learning from others in other areas, whether it's accounting and financial planning and estate trust and areas that maybe I don't do enough work in. But it enhanced my growth opportunity while there. At the same time, you just become a more well-rounded person by being inundated with that for a week.

Walker: Yeah, I know that's one thing that is possibly a negative for people about ENGAGE. It is so big and there are so many different topics. But to me, that is a positive, because you're not just meeting tax people. You're meeting people from all across the industry.

I completely agree with you that the human aspect of conferences is something I'm really excited was able to survive the pandemic and come out strong on the other side.

Gallegos: That's right. And I think networking within the conference, whether you're in the classes, between sessions or early in the morning or

Walker: Or late at night, let's just say.

Gallegos: Whatever your flavor is, or maybe all the above, I think that is a great opportunity because you're meeting people from various sectors within the profession.

These valuable connections last beyond the conference. You can even be meeting potential clients, people you could work with or vice versa. And more importantly, thought leaders- people that have great ways of collaborating with others and learning how you can help them, or they can help you. I think that's a huge takeaway for me.

Walker: I think so too. Thank you for sharing your insights. Hopefully, we give people who were not there a little bit of FOMO. And it will happen again next, next June. Thanks again, Mark.

Gallegos: You're welcome.

Walker: I have with me now Dan Moore, who was also out at ENGAGE with me last week. Dan, what's your overall impressions and thoughts about the Engage conference last week?

Moore: Hey, April. Thanks for having me on today. I don't know why the feeling seemed to be different this year. I don't know if it was just the great keynote that we had kick off the conference Monday morning- Eric Weinmayer, who really spoke to me and spoke to a lot of people.

But I just felt like there was a massive amount of energy. At this year's Engage, several of the speakers were just so excited to be there to get up and speak and talk to participants after their sessions. They were excited to meet up with their colleagues and go out to dinner. there just seemed to be so much.

Excitement within the room. The energy was great. And I am still a week later I'm just still really excited about how the event went.

Walker: Yeah, I had the same feeling I was trying to describe to my team members who unfortunately were not able to be out there with me and I said - it's just a vibe. That’s what the kids say. It just a vibe. It is hard to explain, but it’s just a good word for the energy and excitement.

Moore: Our speakers were excited to be there, and that was great to see. Some were speaking on new material, some had revised and revamped some older material. [They were] just so excited to present. Everyone really kept my attention, as much as we were getting tired near the end of the week and day four. They were still keeping my attention and the energy just was everything.

Walker: That's great. We know you did a lot of things during the week, but was there anything that you didn't have time to do? It's hard to make time for everything, but was there anything specific that you have on your to do list, for next year's Engage?

Moore: Several things stick out in my mind. I've already started my to do list for next year's Engage of the things I want to remember to do. Some of them are directly content related. But others are the other activities that are available to you during Engage.

First, it's getting up at 6am and participating in either yoga or the run. I know a group of people get together, they do a walk/run, they go out on the strip, and I didn't take advantage of that this year. So that is definitely on my to do list for next year. But also I felt like I didn't go into the conference as prepared as I wanted to really go out and explore the exhibit hall, as well as explore the solution sessions that were available with many of our vendors.

We are kicking off a project within my office to reevaluate our tech stack, and I really wish I would have taken the time to. start the conversations internally within my firm so that I could go out and seek out the vendors that are on the short list of solutions that we are looking at implementing in our firm.

Because what a great opportunity to meet the frontline of those technology solutions. That was the big thing that I really walked away thinking, next year, I want to take the opportunity to meet people. There's a number of solution sessions, I want to say there was probably at least

4 or 5 running every morning, also solution sessions during lunch, where you could go out and hear specific presentations from various vendors and I missed out on that opportunity. But you know what? I'm not going to beat myself up about that. That's next year. but I think it takes a lot of planning.

To come to the conference, you get the exhibit hall list ahead of time. So, you can go ahead and take a look and see what vendors are going to be in the exhibit hall and start thinking about those vendors that you want to visit. You can make the list up ahead of time to seek them out and not only get to meet them, but see, hey, are they offering some sort of special pricing for attendees?

And, hey, you can also fill up your swag bag. Go home with free stuff.

Walker: That's right.

I know that they were doing demos of certain things, and that would be cool to do. But like you said, you have to go into the conference planning exactly what you're going to do almost every minute, which is hard to do. It's hard for somebody like me to do, because I'm more of a wing-it kind of person. But if you plan, you can really take the full opportunities for what's available there.

Moore: The other thing too, if you're talking to a vendor and one of their the vendor's customers, come up, you can start the conversation with another firm owner. They're like, oh, I'm using this solution. Later on, you can meet up with them, and you can say, hey, now that we're alone, can I ask you some questions, how did you implement this into your firm?

What works? What doesn't work? What are some best practices you would suggest if you're thinking of implementing a new solution? And so that's also a great help. If you know a firm that said, hey, this is a great solution, but if I had to do it again, what would it be? I would have approached it this way. That connection really is invaluable.

Walker: Alright, thanks so much for sharing, Dan and we look forward to hearing more. Dan is the chair of the Tax Strategies conference, he will definitely be there next year, no question. Truly, in a couple of months, we start planning for next year's conference. Looking forward to doing that. Looking forward to seeing all the new and exciting stuff we can incorporate for the 2025 conference.

Moore: Thank you, April.

Walker: Yep. Thanks so much.

Walker: I have with me Kelly Rohrs. Kelly, it was your first time at Engage, so I would love for you to share kind of your initial impressions and also what was your favorite part about being at the Engage conference.

Rohrs: Hi, April. Thanks for having me on today. The first time at Engage, first time in Vegas. I couldn't believe how big it was. There were over 4, 500 people were there. Massive. I ran into so many people, so many familiar faces. It was really just such a wonderful event.

Walker: Yeah, one of my favorite things about, that just because it's such a big conference, you do run into people that you've probably only known necessarily through social media or things, so like putting a face to a name is really just the coolest thing.

Rohrs: Absolutely. Totally agree.

Walker: All right, any other kind of takeaways or thoughts you have about the Engage conference? Will you come back?

Rohrs: I think that people think that conferences like these are for large firms, especially put on by the AICPA. People don't think that this would be beneficial for the small firm owner, but I think that is an absolute misconception. I think a lot of the classes were geared towards the small professional, the smaller firm, how to advance your firm, what sort of services.

That you should provide or develop to keep up with the times and, besides the continuing education portion of it, the networking piece and meeting the vendors that were there was phenomenal. to have the two huge Showrooms filled with the best vendors in the country who are willing to, a lot of them are giving demos, handing out free demos, free months of subscriptions.

That is really the power of an event like this. To take away all of these new software or to hear what other people are doing in the hiring space. It’s priceless. It's worth every penny.

Walker: Yeah, it is, it's hard to describe, but it is like two giant rooms of vendors. And then also the vendors do, we call them solution sessions or education labs. And so even more you're able to get like a deeper dive into their services and things, which I think is, like you said, it’s cool and it's not something you can get just anywhere.

Rohrs: Yeah. It's so much better than being behind the screen. You're in person. You're watching these people who are super passionate about what they're doing. You're building true relationships. And I don't think I met anybody I didn't like.

Walker: Oh, that's always a positive. It was delightful. It was our first-time meeting in person, even though we've known each other for years. So that's always delightful to experience that. Next time we'll schedule and spend some more time together. I think we were all both just running around, crazy.

Thank you so much, Kelly, for sharing your experiences with us on Engage.

Rohrs: Thank you.

Walker: I have with me now Damian Martin. Damian was also at the Engage conference last week. Damian, you have been at Engage a couple of times. What was your general impression about last week's conference?

Martin: General impression, is just how inspired I am and, how great it is to see all the things going on in the profession and all the people in the profession, I'll have to say a highlight for me, aside from getting to hang out with my favorite tax podcast host, which is you, obviously, It was watching Tony Nitti accept the Sid Kess award and his acceptance speech and all of that.

That was just, just incredible and a highlight on, on, on many fronts, I'll just say.

Walker: I love those five minutes was like a lot of nuggets in there. If you have access to Engage and you can go back and listen to it, I would listen to it for that first couple of minutes. He's very inspiring, and makes you want to reach out and do bigger and better things.

Martin: Yes. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say too, that it was followed by a very, very good business tax update as well.

Walker: Absolutely, hang on, I wasn't just saying,

Martin: Yeah. No, I know you weren't.

Walker: Brian did an excellent job with the, Brian Lovett, with the business tax update, so yes, hang on for the whole session, the whole 75 minutes. Damian, did you make a networking connection? To me is my absolute favorite part about Engage, seeing people in person and, getting in that face to face connection. Did you make a connection that you'd like to talk about?

Martin: Absolutely. And I completely agree, right? Like it's nice to interact, especially, remotely and whatnot. But just there, there's something to being in person and maybe putting a face to a name and all of that, that happens every year. But this is actually a connection I'll say that even goes back to last year.

So last year at Engage, I reconnected with a group from the firm I started with, which is Bowman Company in Stockton, California. They were the ones that kind of gave me the chance in public accounting, got me inspired. Really the path that, that I got on to where I am today, I attribute all back to them.

And then coming back this year, I have to say, it just, it warmed my heart and it just really meant a ton to me to see Daryl Petrick and, Jeannie Rusick, who are, partners at that firm, sitting in the front row at my session on Monday, for the individual tax update. It just speaks volumes about them.

Back to your point about just the great people that are in this profession, and I generally walk away with, I know there's headwinds and whatever else, that you can focus on, but there's just, there's good people in the profession. So, it's really hard for me not to conclude that there's great things that continue to come for the profession as a result of people like, like Daryl and Jeannie.

Walker: Well said. Yeah, I think there's a lot to be said. There's a lot of positive energy that I feel when I'm at Engage that makes me excited about the profession and about changing and evolving.

Martin: That's right.

Walker: Thank you so much, Damian, for sitting down with me for a quick little interview. We'll have to, we'll have to have you back for a longer discussion at another time.

Martin: Happy to do it. Thank you, April.

Walker: Thank you so much.

Usually when I close these podcasts, I always talk about taking a journey together towards a better profession. And I ask my guest what their bucket list travel destination is. But while I didn't take the time to ask all of our guests today to answer that question specifically, I think it's safe to say that based on their discussions, we'll all be back together in Las Vegas, again, at Engage 2025.

Again, this is April Walker from the AICPA Tax Section. This community is your go to source for technical guidance and resources designed especially for CPA tax practitioners like you in mind. This is a podcast from AICPA and SEMA. Together as the Association of International Certified Professional Accountants. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcast, and we encourage you to follow us, so you don't miss an episode. If you already follow us, thank you so much. And please feel free to share with a likeminded friend. You can also find us at aicpa-cima.com/tax and find our other episodes as well as any resources mentioned during this episode and others. Thank you so much for listening.

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