Hello everyone and welcome to The Upstream Leader Podcast. My name is Jeremy Clopton, glad to be with you here today. We are going to be talking with someone that is a rising star in the profession and in her firm about her journey in public accounting. We’ve recently seen that some of the stats are saying that we’ve got, I think it’s three straight years of an increase in enrollment in public accounting at universities. That’s exciting. We’ve always known the profession is great. It seems like enrollments are going in the right direction, people are seeing it as an exciting career again. So I thought, you know, what a great time to talk to somebody that is rising in their career about why they chose public accounting. So for that, I have with me Alexia Pappas from Sorren. Alexia, great to have you on the show.
Thanks for having me, Jeremy. I’m super excited to be here and to talk a little bit about my journey in public accounting and at my firm. So my name is Alexia. I am a senior manager at Sorren. I’ve been in public accounting and with my firm for about 10 years now. So it’s been a wild ride with lots of fun twists. I don’t think you hear that a lot in public accounting, but…
I hear twists. I don’t normally get fun tied to it.
Yeah. It’s been a great journey, so.
Outstanding. Outstanding. Well, before we get into the journey, let me ask you the same question that I ask everybody, and that’s how did you become the leader that you are today?
You know what? I think that a lot of my leadership journey has been, or can be attributed to the people that I’ve surrounded myself with. I knew from a pretty young age when I came into the profession that I had high ambitions. I knew pretty much from the beginning that I wanted to be partner eventually, and I put a lot of effort into choosing the places that I worked. Even when I just interned, I did a lot of research, I interviewed a lot, and I put a lot of effort into picking a place that I felt like was the right place for me, where my career could be really nurtured and where I could grow without having to hop around a lot so that I could focus on certain mentors and leaderships and relationships that would get me to where I wanted to go, in both the fastest and I guess the healthiest way possible as well. So yeah, that was a main concern for me is like, where do I work, who do I work with, who do I work for, was huge. And how do I nurture different relationships to help both the firm and myself get into a leadership role as quickly and early in my career as possible.
Okay. So you mentioned not wanting to jump around a lot. Does that mean that your first choice was the perfect choice and you’ve never had to make a change? Or was there a little bit of, eh, maybe this isn’t the right place, the right person. And the reason that I ask: I don’t inherently think a little bit of mobility early in somebody’s career is a bad thing, because it’s so important to do exactly what you just described, which is to find the right environment with the right people and the right opportunities. How many attempts did that take for you to land where you knew, alright, I’m in the right spot?
So nobody’s career is perfect—I think everybody has a very different path in their career. And I also agree there is absolutely nothing wrong, especially when you’re early in your career, you’re younger, you’re trying to figure out what you’re passionate about or where you might fit, moving between firms, moving between departments. But I have been with my firm for my entire career essentially. I did internships before—I never interned with my company—but I did internships in other parts of the country and I extended those for, you know, the firm that I was at before my firm, but this was my first full-time position. I came in as a staff with absolutely zero experience in the department I was starting in. So I am in a different department now, but I have pretty much spent my entire professional career at the same firm and with the majority of the same people.
Okay. How did you find the courage in two different aspects of that story? Where did you find the courage, A, to decide, I’m going to start a department that despite the fact I’ve interned in this profession I have no experience in.
Yeah.
So maybe it was, you know, you learned those weren’t the right places. So the default is, I’ve got to try the other one. I don’t know. But how did you find that courage? And then I love what you mentioned about it doesn’t necessarily have to be switching firms, it could be switching departments, and you’re in a different department than you started your career. How did you find the courage to speak up and say, I should be somewhere else. It’s here, it’s just not here?
Yeah, so it’s actually kind of funny. I interned in tax at another firm back in Maine and I loved it. I was 100% like, this is what I want to do. I was super passionate about it. I felt like I didn’t need to see anything else, like that was going to be my career, and I knew it from the beginning. But I started interviewing, so I moved from Maine to Tampa, and I had no job. I was young, I was a little bit naive, I knew I wanted a change, and I just got up and did it without having a very significant plan in place.
It’s not very accountant of you.
I know! I’m not very accountant.
That’s, we’ll have to explore that here in a minute.
So I moved to Tampa and I started interviewing with a bunch of firms. I was using a recruiter, but realistically I was in a staff position, so I wasn’t any big fish for any firm. I was interviewing across the board, it was different, it was about 10 years ago and it was a definitely a different labor market; there was quite a bit of supply, not as much demand, it was a lot more difficult to get a job. I was very adamant that I wanted to find a firm that I felt like I fit in and where I really could bond with the leadership and the people that I was working with. So I probably interviewed at like, I don’t know, maybe like 10 or so firms, and I had actually accepted a waitressing job before I accepted this job at my current firm. I was supposed to start like that week or something, and then I found this firm and they offered me the job and I felt like it was the right fit, and I ended up going that direction. But there had been certain firms that I had offers from, and I know that this is, again, it’s not traditional. I knew they weren’t the right fit for me, and I knew that the right fit was out there. So instead of taking the first offer, the first couple offers that I got with firms that I had interviewed with, if I felt like it wasn’t the right fit culture-wise, I decided I’d rather make a little bit of money, you know, for even a couple weeks, a month—I knew it was coming, doing waitressing—than take a job at a firm that I wasn’t going to be happy at, that I would just continue. You know, I knew I would continue the interview process. I would just be looking for the next thing, and I felt like that wasn’t fair to them and it wasn’t fair to me either.
So all of this is to say I actually accepted the position that I started in, in a new department, the CAS department, with absolutely no experience, and to be honest, not a lot of interest in that department. And I did it because I absolutely loved the firm and the people that I interviewed with. So as soon as I interviewed with one of the partners at my firm, it was a much smaller firm back then, so the partners were still conducting interviews at a staff level. I interviewed with him, and it was just so different from all the other interviews I’d sat in on, especially recently. He was just so down to earth and like, he was so relatable, he was funny, you know, he was telling all these stories that they just reminded me so much of myself, and they made me feel like, okay, like, this is somebody like I really want to work for this is, these are the people that I want to surround myself with. I could tell he was brilliant, but you know, he was just, he was funny, he was fun. I was young and I was like, these are my kind of people.
So they offered me a job in a department that I had no experience in, and I was actually very upfront with them from the beginning that I wanted to work in tax. I eventually wanted to switch into the tax department. But I was open to learning new things, I wanted to grow, I wanted to be with them, and I was basically going to do whatever it took to work for them. So if it meant doing a job that I felt like I didn’t have a lot of experience in, or it maybe wasn’t where I saw myself long term, I was very willing to do that, as long as they were open to the idea of me eventually working in tax. I understood it meant that I would have to maybe start over a little bit, prove myself, but as long as the door was open, I was willing to start in another department. And I think it ended up being really good for me, to be honest.
Yeah. Well, and it sounds like you took agency for your own career before your career started.
I guess so!
But you said, “I’m finding the right place for me. I’m not just taking anything that comes along. I’m going to find the right place for me that has the opportunities that I want, that works for them, that also works for me, so that it’s not just go get a job and hope that it turns into a career,” but instead doing the diligence to ensure that you are setting yourself up to be successful. I’m curious, you’re a senior tax manager now. You probably do some recruiting, some hiring. How does that influence your ability to recruit and hire people? Because for a lot of leaders, somebody coming in and being that adamant about what they want can sometimes be a bit much, it’s overwhelming. It’s like, wait a second, shouldn’t you just be grateful to have a job? I love the fact that you were like, no, actually, I can get a job anywhere. I’m looking for a career here, so let’s make sure it’s right. How does that impact your ability to recruit others now?
So I think I do have a little bit of a unique outlook on it because I am never looking for the person necessarily that has, like, the strongest resume and who has the highest GPA and you know, who might fit on paper. I’m almost always looking for somebody who’s like the right fit from a culture perspective. And I feel very strongly that the rest of it can and will be taught. I think that education is very important, but you learn by doing, and I don’t think that there’s really anybody who’s coming into this career field who actually knows what the job looks like on a day-to-day basis—with the exception of having internships before—just by going to school. So I think education is important, I think it’s great if people do really well in school, but for me, my recruiting efforts have always been focused on who’s the right fit for the firm from like a culture perspective. And I think that most people at our firm have felt a similar way.
So I don’t necessarily know that, how do I say this? I don’t necessarily know that the way I came in originally was as strong as I think it was in my head. Because I’m also, I’m very open. I love to learn, like I was very much like, “Tire me. I want to work for you. I’ll literally do whatever you want, be in whatever position you want, as long as I know that there’s opportunity to grow and to be in the department that I want to be in.” So, I don’t know. I just think that when it comes to recruiting efforts on all fronts, I’m super open to people who don’t necessarily fit in the typical box. And that’s been really important over the last couple years because like you said, recruiting efforts have been a lot more significant over the past couple years. And it is getting better, but I think it’s been important to see past those “they interned at X, Y, Z and their GPA is over a certain amount and they are an accounting major and they’re planning on getting their, sitting for their CPA as soon as they graduate,” you know, those boxes that we typically like to tick. I think that those are maybe not as important as who they are as a person and how I see them fitting in, not only with my local group, but the firm as a whole.
I would agree with you. There is a lot that the traditional on paper, strongest candidate, we don’t really know. And I’m with you: I love education and learning, I think higher education definitely has a very significant role. I have yet to talk to a firm that hires somebody straight out of school that knows how to do an audit or a tax return the way they want them to. They understand the foundation of how it’s done, maybe why it’s done, and the philosophy of accounting. I’m sure most accountants would say there’s no philosophy, it either is or is not, but anyway, you know what I mean. They understand the concepts and all of that, but the “how to,” you don’t get the how to until you get to the firm because every firm’s how to looks different. And that’s really important that you, that you brought that up. I’m going to go back in your story a little bit. I’m going to go back to your story and then I’m going to jump ahead in the story. How about that?
Perfect.
So you’ve started at the firm you’re in CAS, you’re like, don’t really know what this is, never done this before, but I see other opportunities ahead of me. How did you make the jump back to tax? What was the inflection point that created the opportunity that you then took advantage of to make the move?
Yeah. So I actually really highly valued my work that I did in the CAS department, because I went in thinking I knew a lot about tax and about like a company’s financial situation, which is again, naive, ’cause all I had done is intern had gone to school. But I felt like I had a good grasp on it, and I started in the CAS department and I realized I knew absolutely nothing at all. Nothing. So it opened the door to me really getting to know foundational accounting, and it has led me to be able to help my clients in ways that I never would’ve been able to help them before. So I feel like starting in CAS allowed me to actually understand my clients’ businesses, and how to get the accounting to where it needs to be, in order to even prepare a tax return. And so, I mean, that was important to me.
I think that I excelled a lot more in the CAS department than I expected to. I thought that I was going to have no interest in it, and I thought that I was going to be really bad at it, and it actually took me a couple years to transition into tax. I can’t remember exactly. I transitioned when I was a senior associate. So I was promoted in the CAS department before I transitioned into tax, and I actually really loved it and I loved my clients, I loved what I was doing, I was pretty successful. and it made the decision a little bit more difficult, especially since the tax department saw me as a CAS person, and they saw me as being super green and I was super green. Like, I had only ever completed an internship, it was at a larger firm. I had sort of specialized, because bigger firms tend to only have you work on certain types of returns. So for tax, I think that they were taking a little bit of a risk bringing me in, especially since I was already a senior associate. It was more of a conversation and a longer road than I had originally expected it to be, to transition.
I think that the big thing that really led to my transition and allowed me that opportunity is we built up our CAS department a lot. When I came in, it was a smaller department with not as strong leadership as we have today, and they were really working on building that department up and getting it to a place where, you know, they could bring in more staff, bring on more clients, really grow it. And they had started to become pretty successful in growing that department, and I think it allowed me the opportunity to transition away from it, because we had so many other really strong, like leadership potential—there was a lot of strong leadership potential there. So possibly in a role that they saw me in in the future, they saw other people being able to maybe fill that role, but it did take a couple years.
So important to have a successor for what you are doing and what your plan to be doing when you want to make a change. I find a lot of people miss that. They think, oh, but if I have a successor, somebody that can take my job, they might take my job, and that’s a bad thing. The reality is, until they can take your job, you can’t take something else because you’ve got to keep doing it. So it’s actually the thing that releases you to go take advantage of other opportunities, is having somebody that can do what you do. It sounds like you experienced that, and the fact that it was growing, there were other people that could do what you did, and that’s not a threat to you. Arguably, it’s an opportunity for you to be able to then step over into the tax side. So that’s exciting. I’m curious, your firm, you’ve been with your firm 10 years. The firm is now Sorren. It was not Sorren 10 years ago because Sorren’s just been around for about 18, 18 months about?
Correct.
Yeah. So as we’re recording this, so it was not Sorren then. It was smaller. It is Sorren now, you’ve seen a lot of change in the firm. What excites you about the next 10 years?
So I think anytime change comes, especially as accountants, we can be a little wary of it. I’ve been honest, I’m not your typical accountant. I actually get kind of excited about change, I try to be super adaptable. I think when I learned that we were going through an acquisition, a merger. I was a little bit nervous, but I was also super excited, ’cause I knew that the partners at my last firm would not be making this decision if it wasn’t the right decision for everyone, including myself. So I tried to get on board really early, and there’s a lot of stuff that excites me about being in this big firm. I mean, for me, I think a big thing is I am trying to make partner sooner rather than later, and joining a bigger firm provides a lot more opportunity to get exposure to different areas, to really nail down what you’re doing, like where your expertise is, how you can differentiate yourself, how you can work on your business development skills. I just have so much influence now from so many people that I never would’ve had access to without this merger that it’s been really instrumental in my career.
So I think over the next 10 years I am going to really try to focus on developing my skillset in a niche area, and it’s something that I’ve actually always had a focus in, but I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that I’m going to have at this large firm, at my smaller firm. And I probably, if I wanted to have the book of business that I needed to have to be a partner at a smaller firm, I most likely wouldn’t have been able to fully focus on this area of tax and this certain type of client. So that’s super exciting to me. The other part that’s really exciting to me is it opens the door for a lot of different staff to be in my pipeline, be in my downstream, that I never would’ve had either. So one of the big things that I’ve gotten from ELA is like you talked about this succession planning and really focusing on who is going to step into my role as I step into the next role. And I think that at this much larger firm with, you know, a lot more resources, that opens a lot of doors there as well, which is extremely important to me. I can’t imagine doing both what I’m doing today and then taking on a new role as well, so I have had a very positive experience so far.
Yeah! Well, and what’s so interesting about what you just shared, as I reflect on what we’ve talked about so far, you started by saying that how you became the leader that you are today was finding the right people to surround yourself with that would invest in you and help you grow and provide you opportunities, and that has been true throughout your career, it sounds—you have more people now that are surrounding you, investing in you and doing that—but what I just heard you say is what excites you most about the next 10 years is now your opportunity to do that for somebody else, and I think that’s incredibly awesome that it’s, “I now have the opportunity to be somebody else’s mentor, somebody else’s advisor or that encourager,” let’s take away the formal titles that we always use in the corporate lingo side of it and just, “I get to care about somebody else early in their career that wants to be surrounded by awesome people, I get to go be an awesome person for them, and help them find their passion and their area.” And that’s super exciting to hear.
Because as fast as we’re going, and I know you heard me say this last week at our Emerging Leaders Academy Conference where we were together. As fast as we’re going, we’ve slowly stopped taking the time to invest in the next generation. And I don’t think it’s been intentional. I think it’s a byproduct of the fact that we keep optimizing for efficiency. What I love is you’re in a larger firm. It’s a firm that has private equity investment involved, and I know a lot of people will say, oh, well that’s going to be optimized for efficiency. Our entire conversation has been about people, and our entire conversation has been about how people have invested in you, and you’ve seen opportunities to grow, and now you’re looking to invest in others so that they have opportunities to grow. And that really excites me for the profession.
Me too. I think it’s the most important part of the job. I always say like, I am so excited and I really hope that five years down the line that someone’s talking about me the way that I talk about my mentors. Because it does, it makes a huge difference in your career, and I am very clear with the people that I work with, that I consider them part of my team, and as I am growing in my career. As long as they’re open to it and they want to grow, I will be bringing them with me. Like I will be there for whatever they need, I will advocate for them, I will teach them, I will be their friend. Like, I really care about my people and I think that’s the most important part of the job.
And I think it’s funny that you mention, you know, private equity coming in and optimizing for efficiency, and of course we want to be efficient. I mean, who doesn’t want to be efficient? But the thing with this merger and this firm that’s so special, is we have gone through a private equity acquisition and we have been allowed to remain the firm and the people that we have always been. And the reason why is because it works. This is what makes us money, like cultivating our people and training them and caring about them more than we care about other aspects of the job is the way that we’re making money. Because it’s the way that we’re keeping our people happy and keeping our clients happy. So it’s not only important, like just fundamentally to me, I actually think it’s important like for business, yeah.
Well, and that’s the thing is there are a lot of, you know, we get all kinds of questions. Obviously private equity, good or bad, mergers and acquisitions, good or bad? And the answer is yes to all of it. It could be good, it could be bad, I mean. You could run your firm poorly as a solo practitioner, you could run it really well As a solo practitioner, I have, I’ve come to the realization, or maybe it was just I was unwilling to come to a conclusion. I don’t exactly know. There’s no one right way to run a business. And as I think about what makes our profession so exciting, that’s one of the things that makes our profession exciting. You can run your firm however you want to run your firm. If you want to go somewhere where it is high volume, low margin, optimize for efficiency and treat people like machines, which doesn’t necessarily sound exciting to me, you can probably find a firm that wants to do that, and just crank out tax return after tax return and go for 80 hours a week and 3,000 hours a year. You can find that. I’m not judging that. I wouldn’t join that firm, but that’s just me. Some people would. Some people love that.
Others, 2,200 hours a year, very advisory in nature. You know, lower volume, higher margin. That’s the beautiful thing about our profession. No matter how the firm is set up, what I find to be most important is, are we taking care of our people? That’s going to be the biggest, A, I think is just fundamentally important as a leader. You have to care about your people. But second, that’s going to be our biggest competitive advantage, and big differentiator, is the firms that can figure out how to take care of their people so that their people care about their business and care about their clients, those are the firms that are going to thrive. And it sounds like that’s the environment that you’re in, which is not surprising. I know some of the leaders at your firm. You’ve got some amazing leaders at the firm.
Yes, we do.
And that’s a very good thing. I have one final question that I want to ask as we wrap up, and it’s a new question that I’ve been asking some folks. So I want you to go 20 years into the future. Who is the Alexia that you are becoming, that you want to be 20 years on from now? When you think about you, 20 years down the road, how will you know that you’ve had a successful career?
20 years is a long time, Jeremy. That’s a good question.
Especially as fast as we’re changing these days.
Yes, it’s, but I think a lot of, looking back on my career, and I’ve had to do a lot of reflection on this since having my daughter, is, did I come into work every single day? Or most days. Don’t call it every day, nobody has every day. But did I come in excited to do what I do and do I feel like at the end of the day when I leave, I am fulfilled? And am I able to feel that fulfillment on both sides of my life? So the work-life balance is another really big reason that I was drawn to my firm, and that I’m drawn to the firm that I’m at right now, is I do not want to wake up 20 years from now and say, “Hey, I was really driven, and I was really successful, and I made a lot of money, but I was miserable doing it.” Like, that is my nightmare. So I think for me, a lot of my success, and at least from an inward perspective, is going to come from whether I feel fulfilled in both areas of my life, and I feel like I’ve been able to give as much as I can to my career without sacrificing this life that I have outside my career, because they’re both really important to me and I don’t want to miss out on this life I have with with my family, in exchange for a successful career where I make a lot of money.
I think it’s very possible to have both, and I’ve seen people who have both. I see the leaders at my firm have both. And I look at that and I say to me, that is what I want to see myself doing. Because I have traditionally, prior to having a family, been somebody who invests very, very, very heavily into my career and what I do for work, and I think that’s so important. I think it got me to where I am today. But I think as you progress in your career and you take on a different role as a leader, it actually opens the door for you to have maybe even more flexibility and more of that work-life balance. So that is something that 20 years from now, if I don’t have that, I would be really disappointed in myself.
Yeah. What an important word, “fulfilled.” And it’s such a, it’s a simple word and it’s a word that we sometimes use, but what a powerful word as a measure of success. And it’s so important because it requires that we define fulfillment, as you said, not just monetarily. It’s not as the bank account’s fulfilled, but do I feel fulfilled in work, in life, wherever it may be. What a great intentional way to go, and what an awesome profession to be able to do it in.
Yeah, absolutely.
Like you said, you’ve got leaders that are paving the way and showing that it can be done, which I think is outstanding and I would argue it’s a great career for that. We don’t always talk about that. I think it’s generally because most people don’t want to talk about all the good things, it’s perhaps a touch more fun to complain about all the other things, get a little bit more attention, and we like to latch onto the drama as a species, I’m convinced. But it’s so important to talk about: We can have a fulfilling career and a fulfilling life, they don’t have to be—it’s not either/or. It’s and. And that’s such an important thing. And the way you’ve talked about your journey so far and what you’re excited about, I am a strong believer that you will find that, and you are well on the path to that fulfillment. So Alexia, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. It’s been a really fun conversation.
Yeah, thank you for having me. I’ve loved it.
