MACA: Make Accounting Cool Again

A Certified Public Accountant (#CPA), or the equivalent, plays a critical role in ensuring the efficient functioning of our market-based economy, the economic system credited with producing the highest standard of living for humanity since the advent of civilization. It is the accountant as watchdog of our capital markets that ensures the accuracy and reliability of financial statements in which investors put their trust to make informed decisions on the optimal allocation of capital. Yet, according to the CPA Journal, as of this writing, the accounting profession is facing a severe shortage of accountants.

To make matters worse, the pipeline to replenish the ranks of the profession is not delivering, with fewer college students in recent years selecting accounting as a major. A direct result of this trend is a drop in the number of candidates sitting for the CPA exam, falling from 48,000 first-time candidates in 2016 to 32,200 in 2021, a drop of 33%.

Many reasons have been advanced for this decline, the top two being the 150-hour degree requirement and the perception that accounting is just plain boring. Hollywood stereotyping has only served to amplify the latter. Just consider how the bespeckled accountant Louis Tully, played by Rick Moranis, is portrayed in the movie Ghostbusters. Confirming the stereotype, the Wall Street Journal cites popular culture depicting accountants as “spectacularly unexciting number-crunchers whose eyes are concealed behind green eyeshades, who have their heads buried in Byzantine financial statements and who seem to share a common genetic history with voles.” The ramification for our market-based economy could not have been more dire.

The first line of business needed to address this existential crisis facing the profession is an image makeover. This is where @Greg Adams comes in with his novel, the crime thriller #GreenShade$. As Greg told the podcaster @Paul Barnhurst recently, his motive for writing the novel was to draw attention to the crisis facing the profession, and to dispel the negative stereotype attached to being an accountant. Greg, himself an accountant, having spent 11 years at KPMG and now leads the American Management Association (AMA), wants to make the profession attractive once more to young professionals; to make accounting cool again. My reading of the novel suggests Greg has made a good start towards achieving that goal.

The Plot Unfolds

Greg is no Virginia Woolf or Gertrude Stein, but certainly did a fine job writing Green Shade$. As the story goes, while conducting the audit of a data processing center called NSG Global in Bengaluru, India, the audit senior Jiemba Abbot, found himself in the midst of an Enron-style financial fraud. This led to the murder of both the audit senior and the engagement partner by a pair of hired assassins from the Caribbean. The uncovering of the fraud set off a trail of intrigue and drama spanning the globe from Bengaluru to Sydney, New York, and Bridgetown.

The accounting hero to play detective in uncovering the plot was a New York based senior partner called Derek (Dex) McCord from the audit firm KGO, whose client was NSG. Also a client of KGO was Green Shade$, a money management firm based in Bridgetown, Barbados. Uncovered by the audit was an unexplained information flow from NSG to Green Shade$. In essence, Green Shade$ was trading US stocks for its mutual funds using non-public information obtained from NSG. The center came into possessing this information because of its work on behalf of several NASDAQ listed companies in the United States. The work involved using eXtensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) technology to tag and standardize financial and other business data prior to filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The center, an outcome of the offshoring craze occurring in the US, was owned by a consortium of investors headed by one Nigel “Nauti” Metcalf who resided in Sydney, Australia, and which also owned Green Shade$ in Barbados.

Finding the explanation from the Bengaluru staff about the mysterious information flow from NSG to Green Shade$ unsatisfactory, Abbot escalated his concerns to the engagement partner, Tony Young, in the Sydney office of KGO. Tony then flew to Bengaluru to review Abbot’s workpapers and to inspect operations at NSG, but on returning to Sydney a few days later, mysteriously “died” in a surfing accident off the coast of New South Wales, though an experienced surfer.

When Dex flew from New York to Sydney for Tony’s funeral, Abbott arranged to meet and apprise him of the audit findings, but was mysteriously killed before he could discuss any of his findings with Dex. Dex himself was almost killed.

Now suspicious, Dex flew to Barbados to examine the accounts of Green Shade$. His mission was to investigate what, if any, connection existed between the deaths in Sydney and the flow of information from Sydney to Barbados. It is in Barbados that we see much of the action taking place and the different elements of the plot unfolding.

Weaved within the storyline of the novel is a plethora of information about the accounting profession, with hints at the benefits that can accrue to someone pursuing a career in accounting; there is even an appendix at the end of the book to supplement this information. There is also some background given on the countries in which the plot unfolds to provide some context: Australia, India, the United States, Jamaica, and Barbados.

With the salvaging of the profession in mind, Greg uses the career paths of his main characters to highlight the career opportunities that can accrue to someone with an accounting background. Nigel “Nauti” Metcalf, for example, started his career as a bookkeeper in his father’s business, later progressing to earning his Bachelor of Accounting from the University of New South Wales, and later still, his Masters in Accounting from the Dardin School of Business at UCLA. Adept at networking, he developed a strong network of friends at business school which was to serve him well later in becoming a successful entrepreneur, Greg this time highlighting the importance networking in the business world.

After a brief stint at Ernst & Young in Sydney, Nigel launched his own consulting business, leveraging his business school network and a group of mentors he had curated in Australia. He later purchased the data processing center in Bengaluru, which he named NSG Global, and which was to become central to the novel’s storyline.

In a similar light, Greg highlights the different career paths taken by others in the profession, such as Tony Young, Dex McCord, Steve Walsh, and Sally Sasso, all with careers starting in public accounting. While Dex, for example, stayed on at KGO to become senior partner, Steve left PWC to become CFO of a “Data & Intelligence” company in Stamford, Connecticut. Sally meanwhile left KPMG where she was a tax accountant to start her own high-net-worth tax practice in Los Angeles, advising the celebrities with whom she loved to hob-knob. Given the range of experiences developed as an accountant, career possibilities are deemed endless.

Greg also uses the lips of his characters to convey some useful professional advice to his readers. For example, he uses Steve to advise his friend Dex to “find a new WAVE and RIDE it.” ?That is, to have his eyes open to spotting opportunities in their infancy, and to be ready to jump at them, as Steve did to land his CFO job at the then upcoming data company. Accountants at public accounting firms are especially exposed to spotting these opportunities, given the wide swathe of clients they serve across multiple industries. I can see #GenerativeAI and all things connected as a current “new WAVE” to ride, with huge potential for finance and accounting professionals.

Through Steve, Greg also remarks on one of the key roles of a finance leader, using the CFO role as example: “While it’s true that [a CFO] is charged with optimizing the company’s profitable performance…He also has to stay on top of technology, regulatory compliance, shifting economic trends, changing supply chains, international trade agreements, evolving tax laws, and even the global impact of pandemics.” ?Finance professionals have to recognize that “senior finance positions are less about reporting and the rear-view mirror, and more about bringing strategic insight into how the corporation should be running.” (Adams 77)

Again, highlighting the importance of networking, Greg uses Steve to advise Dex to leverage networking organizations like The Financial Executives Network Group (FENG). I can attest to the plethora of networking opportunities and resources that FENG brings to the table, having utilized these myself with much success since joining the group.

?

MEANWHILE

Elsewhere in the novel, the reader is reminded of the impact to society when accountants fail to exercise the utmost integrity in discharging their responsibilities, Greg using the example of the Enron scandal which led to the collapse of the audit firm Arthur Andersen and the creation of the SOX regulations. As the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) reminded us in the report CPA Horizons 2025, a core value of the CPA profession is integrity: “CPAs [must] conduct themselves with integrity and honesty, holding themselves to rigorous standards of professional ethics.”

The report also identifies six core critical competencies that CPAs must possess: communication skills, critical thinking and problem-solving, leadership skills, anticipating and serving evolving needs, synthesizing intelligence to insight, integration and collaboration.

Finally, the report offers a piece of marketing advice for the profession: “The exact nature of the work that CPAs perform must evolve to respond to shifts in business, society and technology. These changes will offer opportunities to enhance the value of CPA services, positioning CPAs to be leaders in helping clients and employers adapt to change…”

Of course, the novel is not all about accounting. Sprinkled within the unfolding of the plot are tidbits on surrounding issues adjacent to the main storyline that the reader could find interesting. ?For example, while describing the background of the senior engagement auditor, Jiemba Abbot, an Australian Aboriginal, Greg gives a brief history of the Aboriginal people in Australia and the impact that the British settlers had on their native culture. A point Greg did not mention that would have been interesting, is that the British settled Australia, starting in 1788, because they had been kicked out of the American colonies by some pesky revolutionaries led by that fellow George Washington, and the British needed somewhere else to banish their undesirables.

Interestingly, it seems that Australia today is in no hurry to wean itself fully off the umbilical cord that ties it to the shadow of the British Empire, with King Charles III, successor to his mother Queen Elizabeth II, still acting as the official head of state for Australia, described as a constitutional monarchy. This state of affairs does not sit well with many Australians, voiced through the dialogue of the Australian character, Nigel Metcalf.

At the same time, tiny Barbados, site of Green Shade$, had severed its colonial ties with the British monarchy, becoming a parliamentary republic in November 2021. Also in Barbados, Greg takes a little detour to drop in a bit about the society, like drawing the reader’s attention to the economic importance of mangoes grown in the country. Dex’s Barbadian tour guide had high praise for the fruit while the two were traveling through a mango orchard, “The scent is very seductive, isn’t it?” (Adams 243). My grandmother told me as a child it’s the fruit that will make a “man go” from stupor to vigor with a few bites, hence its name.

Jamaica, the homeland of one of the assassins in the novel, Doug Carroll, also came in for a little overview by Greg. As with Australia, Jamaica was a consolation prize for the British who had failed to capture the more prized Cuba from the Spanish, via an attack launched from Jamaica. Not mentioned by Greg was anything about the famed Jamaican city of Port Royal, once called “the wickedest city on earth” due to its reputation as a major hub for pirates in the 17th century, including the likes of Sir Henry Morgan, Calico Jack and Blackbeard Teach. That would have been an interesting tidbit to mention. Greg, however, did speak of the culture in Jamaica that produces the likes of track and field world champion, Usain Bolt, but recognized that others like Doug Carroll often falls victim to exploitation by the likes of Nigel Metcalf because of the promise of becoming a sports champion.

However, as a Jamaican, I have to give credit to Greg for getting the Jamaican patois spot-on, as when Doug, while on his assassin mission in Australia, shouted “ovadayso” in giving direction to his partner in crime, a dialect characterized by the Australian police investigating the murders as “funny sounding” (Adams, 137). That makes me wonder; is my Jamaican accent “funny sounding?”

As a bonus, Greg leaves us at the back of his book an appendix of material that the reader can reference to get more information on the accounting profession. These include exhibits that cover:

• Purpose of Financial Statements and Double-Entry Accounting
• The New CPA Exam
• T-Account Finance Education Model—WIDE and DEEP SKILLS
• The Major Differences Between U.S. GAAP and IFRS
• The 10 Steps in an IPO Process
• Key Financial Ratios

?

References:

Adams, Greg D. Green Shade$: Accountants Aren’t Supposed to Die This Way. Telemachus Press, LLC. May 8, 2024.

Queenan, Joe. “How Can We Make Accounting Cool”. Wall Street Journal. Feb 9, 2023.

Burke, Jacqueline A. PhD, CPA. “The Accounting Profession is in Crisis.” CPA Journal. January 2025.

CPA Horizons 2025: A Road Map for the Future. Journal of Accountancy. December 2011