FintekNews is pleased to offer our readers our “3 Questions” column, where we chat with a thought leader within a unique sector of fintech and ask them to answer just 3 questions for our audience in their vernacular. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Clar Rosso of The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), the world’s largest member association representing the CPA profession.

NAME:

Clar Rosso

TITLE:

Executive Vice President, Engagement and Learning Innovation

COMPANY:

Association of International Certified Professional Accountants

WEB ADDRESS:

www.aicpa.org

What does your firm do/offer within the fintech sector?

The Association of International Certified Professional Accountants, combining the strengths of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA), serves 657,000 accounting and finance professionals around the world. Our membership body includes CPAs, CGMA desgnation holders and students. We provide these members, and the broader profession with the tools, resources and intelligence they need to clarify complexity, anticipate risk and create opportunity. Technology is rapidly impacting the profession. To help our members stay relevant we support accountants and finance professionals in the development and execution of new skills and competencies. We provide them with frameworks, education, certificate programs, podcast interviews and more. Our Go Beyond Disruption learning suite includes certificates in cybersecurity, blockchain, data analytics, robotic process automation, artificial intelligence and Human Intelligence.

What is your role within your firm and what do you do there on any given day?

My role within the Association is to understand the change our profession faces, communicate about that change and determine the best way to prepare accounting and finance professionals for the future. Some of the great ways this shows up is when our team explores new technologies to deliver learning, like using augmented reality to explain blockchain within a supply chain. Or creating a virtual reality experience for professionals to use to explore managing change and solving complex problems.

How do you feel consumers (or if more relevant for your firm – businesses) are adapting to the facet of fintech that your company operates within?

My experience is that accounting and finance professionals understand that technology-driven change is going to disrupt the way they do business. While newer technology-driven change like cybersecurity, blockchain, data analytics, robotic process automation and artificial intelligence are top of mind, there also is a tremendous focus on how technology will change core functions of the profession like audit. In fact, the AICPA and its technology arm, CPA.com, along with our technology partner, CaseWare International, are collaborating to develop a transformative audit methodology, supported by a state-of-the-art technology platform, called the Dynamic Audit Solution.

We are constantly looking for specific opportunities to support the accounting and finance profession. So, when a need arises around an area like data analytics, we provide tools and resources from developing a data-driven strategy to a deep dive into how to build the data analysis and visualization skills that companies need. And since we know you can’t develop technical skills in a vacuum, we also devote considerable attention to developing the people, business and leadership skills professionals need to be successful. Our Human Intelligence series covers topics from managing change to conflict management, communication skills and more.


Clar Rosso is the Executive Vice President-Engagement and Learning Innovation, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants.