Who Needs Sports When You Have Financial Athletes

By Camille Wilmes

Accounting students are pushed to choose either tax or audit as they navigate their way through school. Most professors do not even mention career possibilities in private accounting. Accounting Club’s remedied this by featuring two distinguished professionals from the ever growing private company of Koch Industries. Lauren Trace and Ryan Reach led the discussion about the various opportunities at Koch, specifically one of the Koch subsidiaries Koch Energy. Koch currently has nearly 120,000 employees and will gain an additional 17,000 from the new acquisition of N4. This demonstrates Koch’s exponential growth from 1996 when Koch had a total workforce of 10,000 employees.

Koch refers to their financial employees as “financial athletes.” They are referred to as such because of the need to be able to communicate the company’s financial statements to a variety of different audiences and need to be able to effectively communicate the data to each audience. This was emphasized by a brief game titled “Match the Description with the Role.” As the title suggests, the audience had to match the job description of various jobs to their respective job titles. The game demonstrated the vast occupational responsibilities of the various jobs accountants are responsible for inside Koch Industries.

One of the topics that kept recurring was the topic of “value maximization.” In most of the cases mentioned, the job description did not perfectly line up with the employees’ degrees. Koch tries to align the employees capabilities with the job that adds the most value to the company. Koch also encourages employees to continue learning by paying the employees CPA exams and employee tuition reimbursement. Lauren and Ryan enlightened the members of the Accounting Club of benefits of working as an accountant in private accounting.

The Unknown Things About Government Accounting

By Camille Wilmes

For our November meeting, we had the pleasure of welcoming four diverse speakers from the Association of Government Accountants: Kristy Bork, Teresa Allen, Nathan Zeigler, and Sarah Burrows. The four-person panel gave the Missouri State students the opportunity to ask question about a career path the many don’t know about. The discussion was led by our very own Director of Professional Programs, Connor Hutchison.

Sarah Burrows was the sole public account of the four speakers. She audits a variety of governmental entities, specifically public schools, for KPM. In her position, Burrows sees a three to four-month period of stagnation and educated us on the appealing retirement options offered through the government. Burrows also told us how in her position she has the opportunity to get to know her clients on a more personal level and enjoys being able to help them in ethical ways. Next we heard from Teresa who highlighted the importance of budgeting at the city level and the importance of paying attention to what is occurring in your local government as these agencies tend to have a more direct effect on you than the national government. The budget for the city of Springfield is $386 million budget which takes about half the year under the direction of two accountants.

Nathan also discussed how our issues relate to the city of Springfield. Some of the benefits to working at this level according to Nathan include job security, benefits, good career options, and a decent work life balance. Kristy Bork, an accountant who spent six years working for BKD, found managerial accounting to be the perfect fit for her. This position offered flexibility and diverse opportunities. Bork now does a fair amount of analysis in her position working at the Springfield-Branson Airport which is operated as an enterprise fund.

Collectively, the chosen speakers gave us honest accounts of the benefits and drawbacks from four unique perspectives. Bork, Allen, Zeigler, and Burrows come from varying backgrounds and helped us explore options many of us were originally unaware of. Missouri State was fortunate to be able to host this event.

Speeding to the Future

By Camille Wilmes

During November 2018, we traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina for the 20th Annual IMA Student Leadership Conference. Our record twenty-one Missouri State students had the opportunity to network with fellow accounting students as well and accounting professional from various industries. We were also given the opportunity to tour one of three amazing organizations in the Charlotte area: Bank of America, Duke Energy, or the Charlotte Knights. We attended the IMA bowling social as well as a Charlotte Hornets game. The conference was highlighted by the great list of speaking sessions led by outstanding business professionals.

The conference was started off by the inspiring Grant Thronton Partner John Howell. He was a witness to two major tragedies and was able to take the devastating situations to change his outlook on life. Howell went over the importance of giving your all in everything you do and not waste time on things and people that don’t matter.

Then, we began to filter into the smaller rooms to become engaged in enrapturing presentations from professionals representing firms and companies from all over the world. At one of the panels, the three professionals discussed their respective professional careers and how to manage your own career. They stressed the importance of always learning and to always be curious. One of the panelists, Candice Klein, also discussed the importance of doing what no one else is willing to do.

Another common topic among the speakers was the incorporation of technology and data analytics into the accounting world. The topics varied from creating RPA systems to Industry 4.0. Loreal Jiles spoke about how creating bots helps develop a more efficient workflow. She also spoke on how the bots won’t replace the need for human workers, it will just change how an employee does his or her work.

The conference was closed out by Weston Smith, the former Healthsouth CFO. He discussed his journey of actively covering up the three billion dollar fraud over his career at Healthsouth. Weston Smith told his personal story of how someone who always thought they were an ethical person fell down the slippery slope of financial fraud. Overall, the conference was an enlightening and enjoyable experience for Missouri State attendees. Many of the attendees are looking forward to going to Pittsburg next year.