Stories of Our Community

This CPA Gets to Watch Live Music in His Office

Gregory Levine, CPA, hadn’t originally planned on becoming a CPA nor did he set his sights on the music industry. Those two paths simply came together.

Greg, who would not have it any other way, is now a senior director of finance at The Orchard, an independent distribution arm of Sony Music Entertainment. He sees the nuances of his early career as laying the groundwork for where he is today. Take his first job in tax at Arthur Andersen in 2000. Before the collapse of Enron and Arthur Andersen, Greg realized that valuations excited him more than just tax. “I started in media entertainment in tax but after about a year I moved into valuations. The valuations group was more finance focused. It had the technical accounting, but we also did goodwill impairment testing, financial modeling and discounted cashflow modeling. It was a different atmosphere than tax,” he says.

Fast forward to when Greg landed a job at BMG Entertainment. His valuation experience and having a music client previously came in handy when he was hired into a corporate accounting role at BMG, where he performed high-level deal analysis. According to Greg, his group was responsible for giving deal advances to artists for their content. At that time, “they wanted to centralize all of the various deals out of BMG and wanted a central team to review and analyze that kind of information,” he explains.

BMG merged with Sony Music Entertainment in 2005, and Greg began working in corporate accounting for Sony. That was when he decided to become a CPA — having a boss who was also a CPA helped. “In order to stay competitive, I really need­ed to get my CPA,” he says. Greg’s boss was also able to sign off on his accounting work experience, which was needed for the license. “The fact that I worked for a CPA made the transition to get my sign-off and license much easier.”

Greg stayed at Sony for more than 12 years, moving eventually to the global digital finance department, which focused on their key digital providers (such as Spotify, Apple and Amazon) and making sure digital revenue was properly recorded on their front-line labels’ books (Columbia, Epic, RCA, etc). “They were like shared services but on the revenue side,” he explains. At Sony, Greg worked on interesting label purchases, notably the heavy metal label, Relapse Records.

When the CFO asked him to join his team at The Orchard, Greg remembers him saying, “I need somebody that understands digital accounting and the systems that Sony uses,” noting that there were many opportunities at such a large company. When he made the leap to The Orchard, Greg was able to see all the different parts in accounting since it is run as a separate business unit. “We’re dealing with payables and receivables and oversee the invoice and revenue processing for all the digital stores. We license everything for our digital stores,” he says. “We have some owned content where we process royalties, but most of it is a distributed business model versus Sony, where they own the content for the artist. We’re onboarding smaller companies to our Orchard platform, distributing their content, taking over their invoicing — constantly working with the tech department to scale our systems.” The Orchard has an office in the U.K., where they work with the tax department. “It’s more interesting than general accounting,” he maintains.

Working on smaller accounts has some advantages too. “We get to watch live music in our Orchard offices almost every week (smaller artists trying to break out). That is probably most fun to watch a band perform at 4 p.m. on a Thursday and then go home,” says Greg, who lives in Holmdel with his wife, Andrea, and children, Seth (13) and Sienna (11).

Making the Numbers Work for Make-A-Wish

Chief financial officers typically work to reduce costs, but Della Hammer Cherchia, CPA, CGMA, the recently retired CFO of Make-A-Wish New Jersey in Monroe Township, had another equally important task of stretching the budget to serve even more critically ill children than the 560 served on average per year.

“Our chapter finds as many eligible kids in New Jersey as possible,” says Della. “Studies have shown that, on average, 700 kids (in New Jersey) are diagnosed a year with a critical illness. Our goal is to reach every one of those kids.” Since 1980, the 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, which receives no federal or state funding, has granted more than 11,000 wishes.

All of the skills she learned along the way in her accounting career, she says, came to serve her well at Make-A-Wish New Jersey. “Every year, we start from scratch to raise money and grant as many wishes as we can,” she admits. That lofty mission never deterred her. “It’s a charity with a business focus.”

So what drew a CPA with a career in mortgage banking and strategic planning to assist critically ill children? Nonprofit volunteering and her enjoyment from giving back. After spending six years in public accounting at Touche Ross (now Deloitte & Touche) and the next 27 years in mortgage banking with the likes of Chase, PHH and MetLife, a colleague informed her about a CFO opportunity at Make-A-Wish New Jersey she couldn’t pass up. Della seemed a natural fit from her accounting expertise but also from her time serving on the board of her temple in Marlboro for 13 years, primarily as treasurer. “I just found the work as a temple volunteer really energizing. I was able to apply my skills to an organization in the evenings that really needed the financial expertise after working full-time during the day so it was like moonlighting,” she explains. This experience, she says, was relatable to Make-A-Wish New Jersey. Recalling her initial visit to the nonprofit, she explains, “It was one of those things, they had me at hello.”

She also liked the Make-A-Wish global brand with 59 chapters nationwide to connect as a network. “Their mission is so profound. I’ve always worked for global brands. That’s been something that I’ve always felt was important — to work for something that’s bigger than me,” she says.

Covid's Challenges

The well-recognized Monroe Township castle that comprises the façade of the Make-A-Wish New Jersey headquarters is a fixture in the community, but during the last few years even that wasn’t enough to garner all the donations needed. The COVID-19 pandemic slowed much of their fundraising. In fiscal 2019, Make-A-Wish New Jersey granted 595 wishes. In fiscal 2020 and 2021, they granted approximately 250 wishes per year. As of this writing, they granted 335 wishes for fiscal 2022, but their goal is to get back to the pre-pandemic level of wish-granting.

The pandemic also provided a great opportunity for Della to leverage her busi­ness experience with solving operational and strategic challenges. As she explains, they had to adjust to new and safe ways of holding fundraising events and community outreach. “During the pandemic, we pivoted to granting primarily online shopping sprees, room makeovers and camper wishes. We focused more on individual cultivation of donors and had to postpone travel-related wish-granting.”

Della also successfully navigated the myriad of challenges to obtain federal relief funding through the Paycheck Protection Program, which became a lifeline for the nonprofit.

Still Giving

In retirement, Della doesn’t plan on slowing down too much, but she will concentrate on granting the wishes of her first grandchild, Jeremy. She will continue to support nonprofits, and, of course, be an ambassador for Make-A-Wish New Jersey to anyone who will listen.

From Traditional Accounting to High-Fashion Strategy

Alexandra (Allie) Guccione, CPA, had one of the more typical beginnings in the field of accounting, but the Fairfield, New Jersey, native’s career certainly didn’t stay that way.

Looking for Strategy

After interning in PwC’s assurance practice, she was then hired into the practice after obtaining her B.S. in accounting and completing her CPA. While there, Allie spent most of her time working on pharmaceutical giant Merck. She explains, “Associates were given one area of the business to review/audit in the assurance practice. I was personally responsible for revenue, and thus conducted all required revenue testing.”

Allie enjoyed the work but soon realized PwC’s transaction services practice, which consisted of financial due diligence and mergers and acquisitions work, seemed more interesting and challenging to her. Never one to back down from new experi­ences, Allie jumped feet first into the transactions group and loved every minute of it. There, she advised clients on how much they should buy or sell a company for. “I would normalize earnings in order to produce an earnings number that our clients could either 1) bid off of in order to acquire a target company or 2) use as a proxy selling price if they chose to sell their own company,” she says. “What I liked about the work was the constant new challenges and projects. I would work on a deal for a month or so and then, shortly after, be placed on a new deal; my work was constantly changing.”

In the transactions group, Allie worked mainly with private equity firms on deals in health care and pharma. “Being in New York and New Jersey, pharmaceutical deals were very hot at the time,” she explains. She also particularly liked working on a deal for the e-commerce giant Chewy.com, where the company was sold to a private equity firm. “Being e-commerce, that was a lot more fun,” she admits.

Eventually, after several years at PwC, an opportunity came up at Tapestry, Inc. As the global retail apparel and fashion holding company for Coach, Kate Spade New York and Stuart Weitzman, Tapestry offered Allie an opportunity to focus her career on corporate strategy. Now, after more than four years at Tapestry, Allie is pleased with her decision. “I wanted to make a career move to go in-house where I could see the full lifecycle of my work play out,” she explains. “At the time I joined, Tapestry had just rebranded from Coach to Tapestry. They wanted someone who had accounting, controls and an M&A background to help integrate Kate Spade into the organization.”

That experience also proved to be exactly what the NJCPA could use in its chapter leadership positions. Allie became the president of the NJCPA Essex Chapter in June, after serving on the chapter board since 2019.

The Early Years

So, what inspired such a determined professional to go into accounting in the first place? Her alma mater, Lehigh University. “They have a very good accounting program,” she explains. “At Lehigh, the university sets students up to graduate with nearly 150 credits and the skills to pass the CPA Exam.” She feels that its course structure helps encourage students to take the CPA Exam right after college.

Her family also influenced her decision to go into accounting. “I originally thought I wanted to be a sports agent,” she explains, but her father convinced her that accounting was a good business major with great job opportunities. Allie’s mother is also a CPA. A lot of students, she says, don’t love accounting while attending their university but having an extra push from family in the field definitely helps.

Allie also learned a lot at her latest educational institution, Columbia University, where she completed her MBA. “I went to get my MBA to study corporate strategy and corporate development,” she says, noting that her current department is very research heavy.

One CPA's Passion to Drive Change

James (Jim) C. Bourke, CPA, CITP, CFF, CGMA, managing director of advisory services and partner at Withum as well as a past president of the NJCPA, has collected every regular season Topps baseball card ever issued, except for one — card number 311, a 1952 Mickey Mantle Rookie card, which he still has his eyes on. That steadfast determination comes natural to him whether it’s in collecting baseball cards or transforming the accounting profession.

The son of Irish immigrants from Jersey City, Jim was driven to be the first in his family to attend college. High school helped shape his interest in accounting. One accounting professor at Sayreville War Memorial High School, Mr. Caliendo, who has since retired, was a CPA who brought practical stories into the classroom. “I think I learned more about real-world accounting in that class than in my whole college career. When I was a senior in high school, I knew I wanted to be an accountant; there wasn’t a doubt in my mind,” he says.

Jim went on to be one of the first CPAs in the nation to receive the designation of Certified Information Technology Professional (CITP®) from the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). He also was elected chair of numerous AICPA committees and conferences connected with technology, including the AICPA’s first ENGAGE conference. He was one of the first CPAs in the country to receive the AICPA’s system and organization controls (SOC) for cybersecurity certificate.

With that number of “firsts” behind him, it’s no surprise that Jim is credited with using technology to advance the accounting profession. An early embracer of working remotely, data analytics and optimization, automation, artificial intelligence and cyber and information security, Jim routinely speaks to a national and global audience about how technology is helping to propel accountants into becoming the business strategists and trusted advisors that clients and companies need. “Our profession is now able to attract all of those next-generation professionals who embrace technology,” he says.

The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the technological change that was already occurring in the profession, he says, as clients needed immediate assistance with everything from loans to budgeting — and they needed help remotely and with their technology. “We are seeing a shift in the way firms derive revenue,” he notes. “CPA firms that find ways to transform their practices and offer advisory services will continue to see accelerated growth.”

Jim is also the global technology and advisory leader at HLB International, a global accounting network of which Withum is an independent member. “I have engineers. I have data scientists. You don’t have to be a CPA to be involved in many of the services offered today in our advisory group,” he says.

Early Influences

So, how did a determined CPA first embrace such technological advancements? Jim’s love for all things tech dates back to his obsession with technology and computer games. “I knew I was either going to be a CPA or a programmer and write video games because I had a passion for both,” he explains. “In college, I would write and design my own computer games.” Years later, when Jim first entered accounting, he noted there was a lack of technology in all of the day-to-day functions. “I started setting everything up on Lotus 1-2-3,” he recalls of the early days.

Today, he still loves a good video game and continues to drive himself and those around him — both on the job and with CrossFit every morning. Sometimes, he’s even joined by his three grown children — Emily, who works for a real estate company; Kate, a junior at Auburn University; and Brandon, the only accountant/technologist in the bunch, who works in the SOC group at Withum — or his wife, Jody, also a degreed accountant, who is now a real estate agent and restores furniture.

When Analytics, Finance and Blood Purification Combine

Chief financial officers are historically known for preparing budgets and analyzing costs, but Kathleen P. Bloch, CPA, MBA, CFO of CytoSorbents Corporation in Monmouth Junction, also fills her days discussing things like immune responses and blood filtration. That’s because CytoSorbents, which has been marketing its flagship blood purification device CytoSorb® in Europe since 2011, received U.S. FDA Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) in April 2020 to make CytoSorb available in the U.S. amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The device is used in the treatment of deadly conditions resulting from critical illnesses, including COVID-19, where in many cases the immune response is too strong and starts to shut down vital organs.

“It was so rewarding to help save patients’ lives here in the U.S. since we manufacture the device in Monmouth Junction. In addition, after all these years of only selling outside of the U.S., it’s great to finally have some sales in the U.S,” she explains.

Following its U.S. EUA, the company completed a public offering of its stock (NASDAQ: CTSO) in July 2020, to raise funds to support its global clinical development program. For a CFO like Kathy, that meant in addition to overseeing all Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting and compliance activities, she had to speak with investors, and along with her CEO, give presentations to help raise money. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, we raised $57.5 million in the public offering, which provided the capital needed for our clinical trial activities,” she explains. “The company’s key development focus in the U.S. is funding clinical trials evaluating the removal of certain commonly used blood thinners during urgent cardio¬thoracic surgery to reduce bleeding risk and complications. If U.S. FDA marketing approval is obtained, it should significantly add to the company’s future growth.”

Contributing to the company’s international growth has always been exciting to Kathy. “Because we have an international footprint and sell CytoSorb all over the world, we have five foreign subsidiaries. We have to deal with five different currencies in preparing our consolidated financial statements,” she says. When Kathy started with the company over eight years ago, there were 15 employees. Now, the company has more than 220 employees worldwide and subsidiaries in Germany, Poland, Switzerland and the U.K. The finance and accounting team has grown to 12 professionals.

Other Roles

Prior to joining CytoSorbents, Kathy wore many manufacturing CFO hats. Her cost accounting background and manufacturing knowledge allowed her to move from one industry to another. Kathy’s CFO roles have included Silver Line Windows, a window manufacturer in North Brunswick; Laureate Biopharma, a contract manufac¬turer of biologic drugs in Princeton; and PC Group, Inc., a manufacturer of bar soap and other personal care products headquartered in Manhattan. While every CFO job has been fulfilling, she notes that working in a company that manufactures a life-saving device has been particularly rewarding. “Leading the finance team at CytoSorbents, we’re not just crunching the numbers — our product is actually saving lives. When you hear that a tiny baby was hospitalized and hooked up to life support machines and then our device was used and the baby survived, there’s not much better than that.”

Kathy, who is now vice president of the NJCPA Mercer Chapter, favored applying her accounting skills to private industry over public accounting, but both career routes had their benefits. Having started out as an auditor in public accounting, she acknowledged the advantages of working with a broad array of companies, but she prefers the ability to gain in-depth knowl¬edge in a single company. “When you work in private industry, you really learn the business. You know the business model inside and out. And that makes it possible to identify areas where a slight adjustment in operating practices can make a big difference in cashflow or profitability — and significant improvements to the bottom line,” she says.

Breaking Down Barriers

After growing up in the inner city of Cleveland, Dr. Evelyn McDowell, CPA, CGMA, has overcome many obstacles. Now an associate professor of accounting and department chair at Rider University, Evelyn has lessons to share both inside and outside the classroom.

THE EARLY DAYS

As the second oldest of eight children, she took it upon herself to make sure her siblings were entertained — the only way an accountant knows how. “All my life I’ve been an accountant. I used to make paper money and hide it all over the house for my younger sisters and brothers to find, then I’d count it. Whoever had the highest amount would be the winner,” says Evelyn. “When I went to grocery stores, I wanted to work at the cash register. I loved that whole thing. I was mesmerized. I loved calculators. I loved the technology,” she adds.

While there was no mentor in Evelyn’s family, she did have an accounting influence at her high school when she took an accounting course. “I didn’t know anyone that had an accounting degree,” she explained but she liked the work involved. It was also in high school where she became one of the first members of INROADS, a nonprofit organization that helps African Americans become acclimated to the business world. There she learned what it takes to make it in business — which paid off in spades. She eventually worked in public accounting, for the city of Cleveland, in internal audit for the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, internal audit for another bank and for a hospital before forming her own CPA firm.

Evelyn soon discovered she had a knack for explaining and presenting accounting to her clients and others — in short, teaching. So, she went back to school and got her Master of Accountancy and then her Doctor of Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University. Soon after, she jumped into teaching full-time. This took her from Cleveland to New Jersey, where she remains.

According to Evelyn, the most rewarding thing about teaching is helping students, especially students of color, navigate and enter the accounting profession. “I think accounting is the best profession ever on the history of the planet,” she explains. “I really like teaching intermediate accounting because that’s the foundation. If you don’t get that, then you are lost. I love having the responsibility to make sure they get it.”

COMMEMORATING THE MIDDLE PASSAGE

Evelyn also realized American slavery was something everyone, especially the youth, needed to be educated on. “Growing up in the United States of America, I could see that our country has a problem with owning up to the problems of the past and its relationship to the present. We all grow up not knowing much about the bad parts. I grew up not knowing about the magnitude and extreme barbarity of American chattel slavery and not knowing how deeply my family was affected by it,” she explains. “But, as I researched my family’s history, I could see the history from my great grandparents’ putting an ‘X’ as their signature since they couldn’t read and write, and a will with my second great grandmother (who was eight years old) being inventoried as slave property, just above the hogs and furniture.”

After researching her own history, she realized that other people could do the same and founded a hereditary society for descendants of those who were enslaved, called Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage. The other part of the mission, according to Evelyn, who is the president of the organization, is to commemorate their lives. “Once we know their name, we remember who they are and what they went through and the last part is to educate their children and others about that history,” she says. As a new grandmother herself, Evelyn realizes how precious one’s history is.

All in a Very Long Day’s Work

CPAs routinely ask Edward K. Zollars, CPA, tax and technology partner at Thomas, Zollars & Lynch, Ltd. of Phoenix, Arizona, and all-around tax sage, about everything from capital accounts in partnerships to unemployment relief and Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan forgiveness. But the question they really want to ask him is, “do you ever sleep?” While the answer is decidedly “yes,” most would argue the validity of that given the quantity of carefully crafted responses he churns out daily to CPAs on both sides of the United States.

As a member of the New Jersey Society of CPAs, the Arizona Society of CPAs (ASCPA) and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), Ed takes it upon himself to respond to numerous complicated tax queries in the form of emails, member forum responses and calls. Since joining the NJCPA in July of 2018, Ed has posted more than 1,700 times to its Connect Open Forum, which has actually helped boost membership at the Society. At the ASCPA, Ed was the driving force behind Arizona’s roll out of their first member discussion group, the predecessor to their current Connect system. Throughout the years, he has also contributed to other CPA societies, such as the California Society of CPAs’ CalCPA Yahoo Groups, its TaxTalk and a tax news group.

Others know Ed as the over-subscribed lecturer for the accounting continuing education program at Kaplan Financial Education (the Loscalzo Institute) and frequent contributor to Kaplan’s Current Federal Tax Developments website. As teaching became increasingly more natural to him, Ed acknowledges, “I had no intention to build that classroom skill; it indirectly kept happening.”

So where did he hone such skills? From working with his clients, of course. “Clients have been doing that to me for years, before I ever got to the teaching side of the equation,” says Ed. “As a CPA you have to be used to that. Take whatever is in front of you — however messy, mixed up and crazy it may be — clients still need to have something explained to them today. It helps dramatically to anticipate where the questions and problems are going to come from,” he adds. And it helps to do your homework. “Clients in Arizona know things about California. That’s why New Jersey practitioners better have some knowledge of what’s happening in New York.”

MIXING IN TECH

A native of Phoenix, Ed says he’s “always been down here in the desert.” Though he does not come from a long line of accountants, the desire to help people does run in his family as his brother, Jack, is in law enforcement in Phoenix. Ed’s technology skills, however, could have come from his father, who was among some of the earliest IT professionals dating back to the 1950s. Along with accounting, Ed pursued his interest in technology while attending Arizona State University.

From there he worked to update the technology at Thomas, Zollars & Lynch, which ultimately led to him being recognized by the AICPA for his tech skills. While in charge of technology at his firm, he supported lots of software. That led to becoming involved with WordStar, the word processing program on CompuServe, where he became a moderator and a systems operator. In the early 1990s, the AICPA launched their own forum on CompuServe and asked him to work the moderation software for the forum and to become a systems operator for them. He subsequently was appointed to technology panels and became a regular speaker at many state CPA societies, including the NJCPA.

Outside of helping CPAs, Ed also assists his local church, the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Phoenix, with what else? Accounting and technological assistance. He served for years as the financial secretary and continues to assist the current financial secretary with production work to run a podcast with the week’s sermon each Sunday.

Becoming a CPA- Still a Mother's Dream

While a mother may dream of many careers for her children, becoming a CPA often lands somewhere on that list. Just ask Alan E. Gumeny, a semi-retired CPA of Clifton, whose mother, Penny, proudly professed that wish publicly — long before Alan ever thought of becoming a CPA. Was it a premonition? Coincidence? Oddly, it would seem to be a bit of both.

In preparing to become a CPA, Alan, who was then a student soon to be graduating from Rutgers University in the late 1970s, opted to take a Becker Review course. On the wall in the classroom was an ad featuring a woman boasting, “My son, the CPA. It’s enough to make a mother cry.” When he looked up, he realized that it was his mother who was smiling with pride in the ad.

A Different Path

While Alan didn’t actually take the CPA Exam at that point in his life, he did eventually become a CPA through a non-traditional route. As soon as he was of age, he joined the Army, since his parents taught him and his four brothers the importance of having a “service mentality.” That sentiment came from his mother, he says, who was raised in the Great Depression. He recalls her saying, “When good things happen to you, turn around and give back.” Alan says his mother made some “good decisions,”noting that both parents acted and modeled to take advantage of New York’s burgeoning film industry and its close proximity to Nutley, where they lived. Penny mainly took care of the children and worked at the Associated Press in New York but also did “side gigs” modeling and acting when she could.

Alan also had a knack for making good decisions. After working three years as a combat engineer building bridges and other structures in the Army, Alan utilized the GI Bill to attend Rutgers University. There, he enjoyed both engineering and accounting classes but decided on accounting as a major. Between his job with the IRS, where he worked for three years after graduating from college, the commute as well as a new baby on the way, he was unable to finish studying for the CPA Exam.

He then went on to accept a job with the FBI, where he worked for 22 years and honed his investigative and forensic accounting skills involving mostly white-collar crimes. “Many of the cases you would have were bust-out scams (where organizations would end up closing shop and selling inventory on the black market), bankruptcy scams, Ponzi schemes and insurance fraud. I had to track these guys down and get the money back,” he explains.

While at the FBI, he eventually ended up going back to a Becker Review course, taking the CPA Exam in 2002 and passing all four parts in one sitting. Imagining how his mother, who had passed away by that time, would have reacted to the news of his passing the CPA Exam, he says, “I’m sure she would have been delighted and proud over the course of events that actually came true.” And that “dream” came true in spades — not only did Alan become a CPA, but his son, Bryan, is working towards that goal at a CPA firm in New York and his daughter-in-law, Kristen, and son-in-law, Keith, are both CPAs. He and his wife, Barbara, have two other non-CPA children, Eirik and Kristen, as well as five grandchildren.

Looking back, Alan speaks highly of his past job experiences, noting that having the right accounting skills helped him in all steps of his career. Alan eventually left the FBI for a six-year stint at a Wall Street law firm, retired in 2011 and later started his own consultancy.

The Best of Both Worlds

It’s not every day that a lawyer decides to obtain his CPA or a student is so motivated by taxes that he decides to become a lawyer — but that’s exactly what happened to Marcus Dyer, Esq., CPA, co-leader of tax controversy at Withum.

Marcus, who was raised in North Carolina, attended Duke University for undergraduate studies, achieved his master’s at the LBJ School of Public Affairs in Austin, Texas, and then moved back to the east coast to attend the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Determined to assist as many businesses as he could, Marcus never really forgot his southern roots. As he explains, he works to provide “comfort to the client.” And nowhere is that assistance needed more than in tax controversy. “Each day is a new challenge. I love de­fending the taxpayer against the government,” he explains.

The Early Years

What drove Marcus to law school in the first place was his experience at the LBJ School and a subsequent internship at a tax lobbying firm. “It was my job to tell the Legislature how much revenue and cost was associated with a bill. In Texas, any bill that had a net cost was dead on arrival. Some of the legislators would ask if they could preserve the essence of the bill and take the cost components out.” In order to do that, Marcus told them he would have to change the language of the bill. So, he got started. “I had to understand the legislation, work with our counsel to try to find a way to keep the essence of the statute…I said ‘this is fun.’” He then went on to take the law school admissions test.

While Marcus enjoyed taxes, he didn’t start out liking accounting. “Unlike most CPAs, I was studying things from the government standpoint…how to raise the most amount of revenue with minimal burden.” But it was during his classes at the University of Pennsylvania Law School that he discovered his love for actual tax work. “Most lawyers do not like taxes. I took the classes and I liked them, so I started taking more.” And after increasing exposure to tax controversy challenges, he also realized the importance of obtaining his CPA. Marcus then went to school at night to obtain the necessary credits to take the CPA Exam.

Nowadays, Marcus spends more time navigating taxpayers’ challenges amid the “partially closed labyrinth of the IRS,” as he calls it. “The bigger the challenge, the more satisfaction I get out of it,” he admits. Though there are fewer tax collection letters from the IRS due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Marcus works on lots of complex tax engagements. On any given day, he will be knee-deep in tax appeals, IRS examinations or dealing with significant tax penalties. As he says, “it’s really the best of both worlds.”

Paying it Forward

As an appointee to Governor Murphy’s Restart and Recovery Advisory Council and the chairman of the Foundation Board of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey, Marcus knows the importance of assisting New Jersey businesses. At the Chamber, Marcus works to provide African American business owners with “the resources they need to flourish and remain viable businesses.”

And he does not take that role lightly. “If small business is the backbone of the economy, the success of African American businesses is critical if we want to uplift the economically disadvantaged communities in which these businesses tend to be disproportionately concentrated,” he says. Indeed, giving back is important to Marcus since he has had several mentors who have assisted him along the way — beginning with his uncle, Don Dyer, who was the first African American partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers; Rick Coyne, partner-in-charge at Withum; and John Harmon, founder, president and CEO of the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey.

How a Three-Month Stay Turned into a Lifetime of Learning

Fabiana M. Mello, CPA, a native of Brazil, left to study English in the United States for three months when she was 19. The only problem was she didn't want to return home. "I saw an opportunity to earn a living here," she says. After realizing her potential to become an accountant and a CPA, she decided to attend Essex County College and then Montclair State University for her bachelor's degree. From there, Fabiana never really stopped learning,

She passed the CPA Exam in six months, then eventually earned her Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF), Certified Municipal Finance Officer (CMFO), Certified Tax Collector (CTC) and Qualified Purchasing Agent (QPA) certifications. And now, as the chief financial officer of the Borough of Lincoln Park, she is in the process of studying for her Registered Municipal Accountant (RMA) licenses.

"Math was also easier for me since I was just learning the English language. Little did I know that accounting is a whole new language," admits Fabiana. And since she likes problem solving, governmental accounting particularly suited her. From working on water utility issues, redevelopment challenges, town events, road upkeeps and repairs, and the development of new sports fields, she solves lots of problems.

"Everything I do has a long-term impact. The borough will be debt free by 2030," she says. "When I first started this job, I thought I might be bored coming from a CPA firm, but I am always learning new things. The laws are constantly changing."

Getting Started

Fabiana very much enjoyed her forensic specialty as an accounting manager at DiGabriele, McNulty, Campanella & Co., LLC in Fairfield. "In forensic accounting, there were no guidelines for the solutions, so you really had to be creative," she explains. But after a close mentor espoused the benefits of working as a municipal CFO, she was enticed by governmental accounting and all the hands-on projects that went along with it. She was appointed assistant CFO for the town of Paterson and eventually moved to CFO in the Borough of Lincoln Park in 2017.

And signs were there that she would be a natural in accounting even as a kid. "I grew up liking math and always liked the office environment — paper, pens, calculators. I actually collected pens and papers," she admits. "I thought it would be harder in the U.S., but I have a good work ethic, which helped." Her passion to perform was evident during her first internship with DiGabriele, McNulty and it's why they asked her to return several years later.

Though her family keeps her busy, she still enjoys her day job. At age 22, her son, John, is not exactly ready to follow in his mom's footsteps, and her two other children — Logan, age 9, and Luke, age 6 — do not have much of an idea about accounting just yet. But that doesn't stop her from encouraging them all to go into accounting one day. However, she and her husband, Rafael, will keep an open mind when it comes to their children's careers.

One thing she does push for, though, is for her children to embrace their Brazilian roots. While the coronavirus pandemic made her emphasize "the important things in life," according to Fabiana, it also helped her connect with her culture again. During the past few months working at home, she was able to sign both of the younger boys up for virtual Portugese language lessons. Her older son, already fluent in Portuguese, goes back every year to Brazil, but now her younger children will have an opportunity to experience the language.

Not Your Traditional Father/Son CPA

When Matthew B. Wielkotz, a CPA and a licensed public school accountant, first joined his father’s accounting and auditing firm in Pompton Lakes and Newton in 2012, he saw a few things he wanted to change. That’s only natural given that Matthew is part of the new breed of CPAs entering the workforce today. Fast forward a few years later, Wielkotz & Company did undergo some changes, but it also stayed the same in areas too — for good reason.

Matthew had planned to revise and revamp the “old way of doing things,” when he came to the registered municipal accounting (RMA) firm from PwC. But not everything needed to be modernized. Both Matthew and his father, Steven D. Wielkotz, CPA, a registered municipal accountant and licensed public school accountant, knew the value of keeping good client relationships intact — the kind that have been fostered since his father joined the firm from KPMG in 1995. Despite a few name changes, the firm has maintained its focus on governmental accounting and auditing — something both Matthew and his dad are proud of. “The client-relations side of governmental ac­counting is very exciting. It’s a very rewarding industry. It’s tough to find an industry that is more openly relatable to people than paying taxes,” he explains.

Matthew did leverage technology and bring more efficiency to operations and client organization. Having acquired accounting experience in real estate at PwC, Matthew also added redevelopment services to the slate of offerings the firm now provides along with its traditional specialty of serving municipalities and schools. His experience helps in providing New Jersey’s Payment in Lieu of Taxes Program (PILOT) agreements, which incentivize developers to build in underdeveloped areas and not have to pay traditional real estate taxes. “There’s a lot of really exciting things going on with development, such as affordable housing, open space park solutions, etc. The next 20 years of development in New Jersey is going to be fascinating,” says Matthew, who is also a part-time CFO for the Jersey City Redevelopment Agency.

Old and New

After they bought out some partners on the verge of retirement, which paved the way for a corporate restructuring, the firm rebranded as Wielkotz & Company, LLC. To this day, Wielkotz is a perfect mix of old and new, which provides the best of both worlds to its clients. To Matthew, leveraging technology is key to running a successful accounting and auditing practice. But as Steven reminds, though modernizing has its advantages, it’s equally important to maintain the level of hands-on auditing service that clients, such as Bergen County, Passaic County and al­most one hundred other local governments, municipalities and school districts have come to expect from them.

This kind of accounting and auditing leads both father and son — and now another son, Daniel, has entered the family business — to meet a variety of people from the polished politician to the exterminator or contractor who may not be an expert in municipal finance but has a legislative position in town government. “We help local politicians. They run on certain specific goals and we help them figure out the financial ways to achieve them,” explains Matthew. Assisting with getting a local government’s bond rating up and helping them communicate with the ratings agencies has a direct correlation to what they pay to borrow money and saves taxpayers money on an overall basis, adds Steven. “The ability to stabilize taxes and their budget and help them stay structurally balanced provides personal satisfaction to us since you are helping them accomplish their goals.”

This kind of niche accounting is indeed a two-way street. “They really lean on us a lot more than what I saw at the larger accounting firms,” explains Matthew. But that’s not a complaint. As Steven notes, some of his clients of more than 20 years are some of his closest friends. And sons Matthew and Daniel have grown up calling at least one mentor, a former county auditor himself, “uncle.”

Always the Teacher

While some professionals know from the start that they want to be CPAs, others end up there after going in another direction. Still, others never stop using their original talents and simply apply them to their new accounting roles. That’s the case with Jay Lauretta, CPA, director of risk strategy at ADP.

While Jay chose not to be an art teacher like he originally planned while attending Monmouth University, he has decidedly been “teaching” most of his life. At ADP, Jay enjoys being the advisor to an audit staff on all things related to Sarbanes-Oxley and career development. Previously, as an audit manager at Baker Tilly, he developed a specialty in healthcare and performing audits of employee benefit plans (EBP), eventually representing his region as part of the firm’s EBP Center of Excellence Group. There, he annually trained all levels of associates, including partners, and trained others on auditing standards and data analysis software.

What he likes best about auditing is the “dynamics of it, or the problem-solving.” According to Jay, “I like being the guy who helps people figure out their problems so they can go and execute on what they need to do.” At ADP, he enjoys “taking people under his wing and understanding the why of how we do something,” he says. “I’m constantly educating people or advising them. As an auditor I get to do that almost every day.”

When starting out in his career, Jay was unsure if he wanted to be an auditor or tax accountant. By the time he joined Baker Tilly, he knew he wanted to be an auditor. “I like the way accounts are balanced, exact and precise. I’m a very detail-oriented person, which served me well in accounting, but auditing taps into my social skills,” he says.

His love for teaching was further evidenced at his volunteer work at the NJCPA. Since 2008, Jay has been an NJCPA career awareness program speaker, where he presents the benefits of becoming a CPA to high school students around New Jersey. He was also the leader of the Emerging Leaders Council from 2013 to 2018, where he helped those new to the profession develop their careers.

Where it All Began

“I did a lot of painting and drawing,” explains Jay, noting that he went from wanting to become an art teacher to math teacher then science/pre-med before settling in at Monmouth University’s music industry program. Either by coincidence or by fate, half of that program was filled with business courses. “I took accounting because it was required by the music industry program,” he adds. “I remember sitting in the class on the first day thinking I’m probably not going to like this,” remembering the horror stories of his friends who hated accounting.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong. “I gravitated towards it pretty naturally and I really enjoyed it,” he says, noting that he could tell he liked it since it was the first homework that he did every night. When the professor found out that he wasn’t an accounting major, he phoned Jay directly to say, “You’re an accountant. The way you are in class, the way you do your work, you are an accountant. When you finally come to that realization, you let me know.” Jay eventually did switch majors.

Giving Back

Even his love for video games is still put to good use. For the past eight years, Jay has helped raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals through its “Extra Life” 24-hour video game marathon. “Video games are probably my favorite hobby. I knew this was something I could do and ask my friends to be a part of,” he says. Helping sick children also gives him more appreciation for his own family — wife Kyleen; daughters, Abby, 7, and Zoey, 4; and son, James, 10 months.

How Data and Analytics Helped One CPA Find Her Niche

Sasha Pailet Koff, PMP, CPA, CGMA, knew data and analytics would be the wave of the future in accounting. From helping to to build out the digital strategy for the U.S. Postal Service's first web page to becoming senior director of global supply chain digital operations at Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. in Bridgewater, Sasha has always been about data and analytics.

In this role, on a daily basis, Sasha incorporates data science and predictive modeling and analytics for the supply chain organization to seek out opportunities to improve the patient, consumer and customer experiences, as well as drive revenue and cost improvement opportunities. "I work with everybody...from people on a plant floor, to data engineers and developers, to sales and marketing staff, to our finance departments all over the world....dealing with currency, tax and system models to be sure our customers have the products they want and need, while simultaneously driving profitability for our company," she explains.

Data analytics and predictive modeling is huge for the accounting profession, she adds. "When we think about forensic accounting, in particular, there's a whole world of capabilities." A CPA's job is not just about the mechanics of running the books, she notes, it's about understanding the financial performance and making sure the public has confidence in the financials that were compiled. "I see a huge need for those skillsets, and potentially more need because of the digital age in which we live."

Never Far From Accounting

While Sasha saw value in an accounting background owing to her father running his own CPA practice in the greater New Orleans area, she was more fascinated by engineering while at The George Washington University. She never entirely gave up on accounting, however, as she took the majority of her non-engineering elective courses in accounting. "If I look back on my college years, I think I actually built the futuristic CPA pathway. When I think about accounting or business acumen of the future, I fundamentally believe folks who will succeed will have to balance the problem-solving acumen of an engineer and the sound fundamentals of the accounting background," she explains.

Her career path is testament to those beliefs. After consulting at Andersen Consulting and having the U.S. government as a client for three years, she ended up going back to graduate school full time and getting even more accounting courses under her belt. She eventually achieved her MBA from Columbia University, where she had her first introduction to working in a corporate environment. Earning a summer internship at Rohm and Haas, which is now Dow Chemical, was a great opportunity as was landing a job after graduating at Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, LLC, working for who else? A CPA. "My first job at Johnson & Johnson was in the strategic pricing gorup for North America. My role included the oversight of rebates and warranty payments to custmoers in the U.S. and was akin to an internal audit function," she explains.

From there, Sasha moved into a new business developmemt role at Johnson & Johnson, looking at acquisitions and divestitures and understanding profit and loss. She subsequently ran commercial operations for Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company, and was responsible for everything from sales force compensation to new product launches, cash flow and supply chain operations.

Lessons Learned

Choosing the corporate environment over public accounting and consulting was never an easy decision. Her first consulting opportunities with Andersen Consulting taught her many lessons, as well as how much she valued seeing projects through from the planning stages to fruition. As a consultant, she gave tremendous recommendations, she said, but she never knew whether they were put into practice and in what timeframe they would be implemented. Being on the corporate side, she has much more skin in the game. "I also have the accountability of it working and seeing it through. That really intrigues me," she says.