Episode 108: You Are One Of Us: Reaching Out And Supporting Others With Mark Koziel
A big part of leadership involves reaching out and supporting others. We learn this today from Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA, and President and CEO of Allinial Global. In this episode, he talks about the importance of mentors in his life to help him navigate his career and what he learned from them that he uses as a leader today. When his parents divorced, he realized that he was always looking for a father figure in every place and work he went. He considers those father figures as his mentors, which is why he was able to achieve where he is today. Join us to know more about managing a company, taking care of your people, and prioritizing your customers.
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You Are One Of Us: Reaching Out And Supporting Others With Mark Koziel
Welcome to this episode where I interview Mark Koziel, CPA, CGMA, President and CEO of Allinial Global. From the beginning of his career at a large accounting firm in Buffalo, New York to his tenure as Executive Vice President of Firms Services at the AICPA, he has been a leader and consistent advocate for CPA firms. He is well-known and highly regarded within the profession. He has appeared amongst the Top 10 of the Accounting Today's Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting and has been named to the International Accounting Bulletin's Global Accounting Power 50 List.
In his downtime, he enjoys beautiful summers in the mountains of North Carolina, where he spends time with his wife, Maryann, and enjoys boating, golfing, and smoking a fine cigar with a glass of wine and barbecue. During my interview with Mark, we talk about the importance of mentors in his life that have helped him to navigate his career and what he learned from them that he uses now as a leader. I hope you enjoy this interview with Mark. If there are things in here that resonate with you that you think could help somebody else, please share this episode with those around you so more can learn from Mark's story.
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Welcome to this episode. I am very excited to be coming to you from the Atlantis Resort in Nassau Bahamas with Mark Koziel, who is the CEO of Allinial Global. Mark, do you want to give a little background on yourself before we begin?
Thank you for having me, Amy. I am the President and CEO of Allinial Global. I started here in August of 2020 in the middle of the pandemic. Before that, 14 years at the AICPA. Before that, 3 years in a political media firm. Before that, 12 years in public accounting in Buffalo, New York. I always like to say that I had the privilege of practicing in a recessionary economy my entire career, and still being able to grow. Our firm doubled in size as I was there and it was fun to see that. All of those experiences helped me at AICPA and led me to do this now.
We've known each other for a very long time through the AICPA in the beginning, but now I'm watching you take over Allinial Global. It is exciting as well. Before we get into all that though, this story is about you. You should be the expert on yourself. We would like to talk about where belief systems come from, where we come from, and how that drives into our life later. Did you grow up in Buffalo, New York?
I did. I don't know if this was specific to Buffalo or not, but the CPA profession and all the partners there, it was this blue-collar profession. I look at it that way. For me, it was a step up. I was always told by college professors, “I'm not here to get educated, I'm here to get a job.” That was a big part of me. That blue-collar mentality of work ethic is what has driven the CPA profession for so long, and some of that's missing. I see that as opportunistic in the underrepresented minorities. Many of them unfortunately are in those blue-collar backgrounds still. How do we still find that work ethic and still find those candidates that filled the same background?
What did your dad and mom do?
My father worked for the airlines. He started the year I was born in 1968. He joined Mohawk Airlines which became Allegheny then became USAir. He was in Buffalo. My parents divorced when I was twelve. My mother had different types of retail jobs and struggled with four kids. Fortunately for me, I still had a father figure through my best friend's dad who kept me straight for all those years. He passed away.
I'm sorry.
Thank you. I couldn't get up there because we had all the things. They're all coming down. We're going to spread his ashes on the lake in a month. My friend followed in his dad's footsteps and became a cop. I said, "I'm going to go to school for accounting, so I could get into the FBI." He said, "You do that, so when you show up at the crime scene, you can tell my son and all of your other friends, “Out of the way, I'm in charge." I never did that. I didn't know anything about public accounting. That's why I chose accounting.
I want to pause on that teaching moment because it's something I know of you to be that way as well. I was in a similar situation looking for a role model and so forth. My best friend's parents have always been that for me as well. It's important in your career and personal life that you're always looking for someone to coach you or be that person in your life that cares.
Supporting Others: You're going to have all these different clients and what you do. Having that pace, client interaction, being able to get clients, and all that was a lot of fun.
It's funny because I always searched for that father figure in my life and my professional career, and I've had that in so many instances, which is great.
You knew it worked for you once. You don't even realize you're doing it.
It's all of a sudden like I can't believe how much I learned from this individual. They taught me so much and were able to carry that forward. In college, I worked at a supermarket in a sporting goods store. The owner of that became a father figure to me. I used to call him coach. He was a big baseball guy and was a baseball scout. He's the guy who taught me how to sell and how to work the role. We can talk about skills. I'm 19 or 20 years old. He's taking me around all these things and watching and learning. It's something that I'll never forget.
It offsets any skill that you have. Especially, in the accounting profession, it's almost like a bad word for sales. It's something not only from a new sales perspective, but a client relationship, long-term relationships, whether it's friends or family. It's that mentality even though it's called sales, it's looking for people's pain points and how you can help.
That's what we talk to our firms about the most. It is managing that client relationship. It's not about the work. No one cares about the tax return much unless something came like a scary IRS letter. Beyond that, it's the relationship that matters.
Let's go back. Funny about the FBI, I had the same experience. I was going to go into white-collar crime, but they had told me that I still had to be trained for bank robberies and that they could call me at any time. I was like, "If I'm not doing it on a regular basis, would that put me in a bad situation?" It's like doing accounting every day. You understand this stuff and I'm like, "But you're in a situation like a bank robbery."
Something had happened at the time when there was a guy in the woods that everyone was looking for. I can't remember who it was now, but it was very famous at the time, but it scared me enough that I was like, "This is probably not my career move," but I was so excited about it. You found that you liked accounting?
I did and then public accounting is diverse in what you can do. You're going to have all these different clients and what you do. That started to attract versus saying, "I'm going to be a controller somewhere." Having that pace, client interaction, being able to get clients, and all that was a lot of fun.
Where did you start? Was it audit tax?
I started at audit and it was with a local firm in Buffalo. It was a tough time because the SNL crisis had just happened. There were three banks that went under in the Buffalo market. You had all of these accountants on the street. There were big layoffs in the big six at the time. They started to lay off because they've lost these clients. I came out in a tough year. People are like, "I can't believe that ever happened," but it did. Firms stopped hiring. There was this three-year gap of new hires because everybody cut their hiring in half because of all the lay-offs and everything.
In '91, I started with my firm. I left there a few years later and joined another firm. At that point in time, the market had opened up again because no one hired three years prior. Now, everybody needed seniors. This idea of we need staffing seniors started in '94. Because of the reaction of the market, there were fewer students going into accounting at that time. I don't feel like we've ever recovered. People are like, "It's the 150-hour rule that did it." It's not. It's the market that did it.
The blue collar mentality of work ethic is what has driven the CPA profession for so long.
It's also the work compression of it. When you're in college you're not aware of all the opportunities in a profession. When I was in college, I was like, "Audit or tax?" I did a tax co-op and I'm like, "I don't like this, so I'll be in audit.” When I went into audit, it was different than I thought. What was it that you liked about when you started in this profession, what you did, and how you expanded?
It was about client relationships. It was audit as my purview. In my first firm, we were segregated by service line. For some reason, there were only two of us that started that year. I felt like we were in a lineup like the way they anointed the wizards in Harry Potter, “Which house are you going to be in?” They look at him and they're like, "You're going to be our retail small business guy." They come and look at me and they're like, "You're going to be our not-for-profit government guy."
I got stuck in that, but I got a good employee benefits plan experience. When I went to the next firm, I was able to open up. While they wanted champions inside of their firm and having industry expertise, they also wanted you to see multiple things so that you can gain perspectives. Maybe this industry over here is doing something cool that your client over in this industry should know about.
How did they do that? Did you have meetings or were you paired up with people?
We're paired up with people as a senior then. I'm working with managers and senior managers that are having more experience. It was a nice blend. From there I morphed into doing advisory. I started a couple of new divisions there. We started placement and HR consulting, and I was running all those before I left. There were a couple of pieces out of that firm that helped define me differently.
The first firm, you're in the audit department and you're like, "Who cares about the tax people? I go get my client done." My second firm put everyone through a five-star training that now Rainmaker owns. At that time, it was somebody else. The whole thing about five-star, the one that stuck with me the most about that training was internal and external customers. You can't turn customer service on and off. How you treat your internal customers is a good indicator of how you're treating your external customers. That made me think differently, especially because your internal customers are still serving a client. I need to think differently about that and how I interacted with those other departments became important.
People lose sight of that so much. I also talked to a lot of CFOs and finance associations and tried to flip that on its head rather than being a call center or service center. You can be on the outreach of what they're looking for and what they need. That also changes your leadership because you start asking your staff what they need versus telling them what they need.
As you have this leadership progression at the AICPA, they had offered me some executive leadership coach.
How did that transition happen to the AICPA?
It was weird. I left the firm and a lot of it was around partnership and ownership. There was no real discussion of succession even in the conversation I had with the managing partner at the time when I said I was leaving. This is the thing I ran placement and I told everybody, "There is that point where you flip the switch and you say I'm out. There should be nothing that current organization can say or do that should change your mind back."
I'm like, "I've made the decision." I had a client that was after me for over a year to come and join them. It was a political media firm. I was doing a lot of business advisory with them. They're like, "We want you to run our time buy division," which I had no experience in. It’s buying time for political ads. We went in and revamped the program.
Supporting Others: That's what CPAs do for their clients trying to take complex things and making it simple for the client to understand. That's the most important thing.
What gave you the confidence to do that?
It was craziness more than confidence. I was talking to the owners about it and what their needs were. I'm like, "This makes sense." It's still a numbers game. They knew I had experience in politics. I had helped run a couple of campaigns locally. That is part of why they fought it and they said, "You have a passion for politics." I learned very quickly that I don't. I thought I did until I met politician friends of mine that I was helping. I was originally going to start my own wealth management firm and I was in the process of doing that when AICPA announced that they were moving to Durham from Jersey City. Jim Metzler was another one of those father-figure mentors.
He was on the show. How did you meet him?
Jim and I grew up in Buffalo together. We're in competing firms but still involved in the Buffalo chapter state society. We still got together once a quarter as I was at the political firm and he was at AICPA. When I got the announcement that AICPA was moving, I emailed him. I said, "Jim, I see AICPA is moving. Are you moving to Durham?" He emails me right back and says, "No, but you are. Call me, you're on my list," and that was it. He had the position picked out for me. He's like, "You'd be perfect to manage PCPS,” a firm channel of the AICPA.
When I spoke to him, he was talking about how hard that job was because it was a very innovative job and no one understood what he was doing, and to also have that vision of knowing that's what was needed and targeting the right people.
Which he did well. He had to rebuild an entire department because of 500 positions, and only 40 people moved. Everyone was offered, but only 40 moved. They said it’s fairly normal inside 10% when you do a move like that. I didn't know what I didn't know.
You trusted him. That's an important piece of what we learned along the way and what we need to do as leaders. You were willing to take that leap because you trusted him that he would take care of you.
It was so incredible. Some of our firms here in Allinial were in leadership roles at AICPA, so I knew a lot of the firms coming out of it. It was a great experience for fourteen years. I'm sure Jim said it, it was hard work. His purview was basically 40,000 firms because he was there to advocate for all these small firms. He did some incredible things to help them more than people know. There are standards and regulations that get potentially proposed. I remember him and me sitting with the government accounting office, GAO, when they were talking about trying to regulate some things like overtax.
We sat there with a copy of our standards in the book. It’s not that we were going to read from it, but we wanted to show them the impact of "We have all these standards. We're good. We don't need this type of regulation from you." They saw that and that was very helpful. Now, the majority of the profession has no idea about that. They only want to see what is coming at them. When they see that, they're like, "What are you doing to me?" They don't see the five other things that were prevented. Not everything is perfect.
With all the things that you did leading up to that, one of the big skills there is influence and learning how to influence. Based on your title, you're serving everybody. What did you learn about how you influence an outcome?
A lot of that came even from the political firm as we did advocacy. Seeing that source of influence as you're going through that helped me with the source of influence on this. It goes down to the basics of having client conversations or doing presentations and the like, it's storytelling. It's being relatable in a way to say that. In the GAO, other than saying, "You need to do this," it's, "Let me tell you about this particular firm and client and how that relationship works." It’s getting them to understand in a different way. That's what CPAs do well for their clients. It’s trying to take complex things and make them simple for the client to understand. That's the most important thing.
You can't turn customer service on and off. How you treat your internal customers is a good indicator of how you're treating your external customers.
That’s part of the influence of selling. What you're talking about is like, "I understood this client's pain point. I'm trying to make it real for you,” but it's someone's pain and you're trying to solve it. Through that time, as you move through the AICPA and your roles changed, you've had a lot of people that work for you.
One of the things that are a struggle for people that move through the ranks is leadership. You did go to some leadership training, but just because you're technically good at something doesn't mean you're a good leader or you’re a people person. What did you learn along the way that helps you in your career to help you with leading others?
It's taking self-ownership in everything and saying, "I want you to change." Rather than coming to you and saying, "You need to change," it's "How do I need to change to show up to effectuate that and make it happen?" The executive coach I had was John Engels.
It's important that you had an executive coach. Before you move forward on that, that's important because people use executive coaches as a weakness like a therapist. How did you get involved with that executive coach?
It was offered to me by AICPA. He was Barry's coach at the time. He was in Rochester, New York. Jim Metzler brought him to the AICPA. I believe he was Jim’s executive coach. He did a lot in his old firm. John's whole thing is he’s all about the family dynamics. Bowen's theory of leadership is that your family upbringing and family connectivity have a lot to do with how you lead.
First meeting with him, two hours, John's going through my family history. He starts out on my mother's side, "What was your grandfather's name? What did he do?" We're going through all of it, then he gets to my father's side. He says, "What's your grandfather's name?" "I don't know." "What do you mean you don't know?" I'm like, "I don't know. We never talked about him. We were never allowed to see him. I had my grandmother who we couldn't talk about." "What did he do for a living?" "I don't know."
The one assignment I had before I even started executive coaching was to get in touch with my father and find out what he was up against growing up, to gain perspective. There were certain ways that my father and maybe it was part of the divorce, or how he treated us as kids that a lot of what he went through structured that. I always said to myself, "I wanted to break it," but I never understood it. For him, it was a bigger thing to have me understand it.
That perspective has carried through from that point forward that I didn't know what any of my team members were up against. I never had a get-to-know-you conversation. It was always about the work, "Get it done. Here's everything we need," and that's it. No one asks why when someone who is a good employee starts to show up differently. They never ask why to see what happened. It's all, "They used to be good. They're not good anymore. Would you get rid of them?" Again, you just don't know.
You're going to lose potential.
That's right. It's a lot of that. From that point forward I would meet at least once a year with every person on my team. When I joined Allinial, I did the same thing and I still do that. I check in. One of the most powerful questions, to your point about listening, was so spot on. That's what it is. The question, "What are you up against when dealing with me?" It's a powerful question to try and figure things out and let people know that you're open and that sense of vulnerability, I never would have shown up with trying to be vulnerable in anything. Now, it is okay to do that. It happens a lot, just gaining that perspective.
Getting in the rhythm of it. It's getting comfortable with it first. Especially with so many leaders in accounting firms that I work with, what I find is they love the work, but the people side seems administrative. Jennifer Wilson and I spoke to Joey Havens on our Leadership Lunch Chat. He had made a comment, "As you move through the ranks, you earn ribbons." You keep earning your stars as you go up the ranks, but as you keep going up the ranks, it's your job to keep giving those stars away. That's a hard thing because you're shifting from something you love to help others succeed.
Supporting Others: Build trust levels with your team in the most major way. And it could be hard at times.
Even in this role, my perspective is getting others around me the strength to be able to do it. I'm still working through that with the team. That's new to me and I'm new to them. That trust level is what I'm trying to build in a major way. It could be hard at times.
You always looked for mentors or targeted them. A lot of people wait for a mentor to be assigned rather than looking for the people. As a leader and flipping that, how did you look at mentorship and finding the people to help that helped you?
If it were in my direct report chain of who I think about overtime. You and I were talking about Natasha Schamberger who is now with us at Allinial and worked for me at AICPA. She left that to go be the CEO of Kansas. She was like my little sister. To me, the family's style to me now is what becomes important. I would want people to treat her like I would want my sisters to be treated. We would have a lot of these discussions and she at times was challenged with a few things from a leadership perspective and we would talk them through. It was very different. I always tried to be that mentor without anybody asking me because I would feel bad if they couldn't do that with me.
It didn't feel like you are open enough. The story with Natasha is an important one because you targeted her and thought she had potential. Whenever we have those high-potential people, we want to hold on and keep them. We might get very offended if they leave us. Your story about Natasha is an important one for people to know.
It first started when she had worked for me for a number of years and wanted to move her family from Durham back to Kansas where she and her husband grew up so her daughters could be around cousins. She comes to me with this two-page proposal of how she's going to manage her team remotely. This was ten years ago. She left to go be CEO of Kansas.
In the last several years while she was gone, my recollection of the story was that I'm progressive and I immediately said yes to this request. When she started with Allinial a couple of months ago and I’m telling the story to everyone, Natasha looked at me and said, "Actually, I first said, no." She said, "You called me that night, within 24 hours. Either you thought of it differently or I think what happened is you talked to your wife, Maryann, and she's like, ‘What are you thinking? Why wouldn't you do this?’" I think that was the case.
We made it work and people are like, "She left you," because of that remote thing. I had encouraged her to interview for that role because my vision was she was going to get this experience as a leader in a state society. She's going to get CEO-level experience. She's going to get advocacy-level experience. It's two things I couldn't give her at where she was. Maybe someday, we bring her back to the AICPA in a different role. I decided to leave AICPA. She knows firms as well as I do. She's a great leader here now. It's the perspective of being able to let go because it's right for her career.
That's a hard thing to do. That can be even within the firm going to another department. Because someone is a good manager in one department, if they have a future in the firm, isn't it better that they've experienced other departments and learn how all the firm operates, and the different clients and so forth? That's hard for people to let go of because when you have Natasha or someone like Natasha, it's easier for you to be a leader because you're like, "Natasha has got it." Letting someone like that go means more work for you. That's unselfish to be able to do that, but it's hard because what's in it for me isn't so high.
Part of it too is that in her leadership, she was developing others on her team that I felt more confident in being able to say that. As long as you're watching the succession chain inside the firm and not only evaluating that first line that you have, but also the lines underneath that and how accountable are our managers, directors or partners in developing others. When a firm says, "I don't have anyone to succeed me," whose job was it? Even here now, if I get hit by a bus who takes over for me at Allinial? I have to think about my replacement constantly. I did that at AICPA. I did feel bad about it because it was in the middle of the pandemic.
Did you really feel that? You're like, "Thank God, I got out."
Erik and I started the town halls together. We had Lisa Simpson on occasion and it became more frequent because it was her team that was developing all the PPP supporting materials, the calculator and all those things. We were all working 14 to 16-hour days at the time trying to get through it. By August, I'm like, "Things will settle down and this will be over soon." That didn't happen. Every month I started to feel worse about it. I'm like, "I'm sorry,” because I gave her more to do on top of it.
The important thing is managing client relationship. It's not about the work. Beyond that, it's the relationship that matters.
She stepped up. She was ready. It goes to succession planning as well. You can never do your next best thing if you don't have someone ready to take your spot. Even if you plan to not leave, there are other things or visions or innovations you may want to do in the role that you're in that if someone can't take the work that you do now, there's no way for you to be your next best self.
I've watched her grow even more after I left. It's nice to see that, you do have that succession because you want to see success in whatever you've created to that point and let them take it in their own direction.
I want to bring up another observation I've had. It’s how many women you've helped. I'm not saying they didn't earn it, but this isn't a very hard profession for women to get elevated in. I even was thinking when I was getting ready and looking at the docket of speakers. I'm like, "There are a lot of women leaders on this." There are no conferences out there that look like this.
This is even in the speaker world. We talk about it a lot. Even the Speaker Association makes mistakes at their own national conference where it's all the same. I don't get that from you that you're looking, "That's a woman. I need to help them," but how was that happening where you're being more open to people that don't look or think like you?
Part of it is the appreciation for the challenges that it could be. I don't look for it, to be honest, but I have the right topics that I want and then I know the general speakers. It goes back to the early days when my wife, Maryann and I had our son, our only child. I think he was two years old. We get up one morning and she's like, "Ben is sick. He's going to have to stay at home from daycare." I'm like, "That's a real problem for you." She's like, "No, that's a real problem for us. What does your day look like? This is what my day looks like."
I carried that in the work to say, "How many of those conversations are happening with all of our team members who are here?" Especially, our female team members. I watched my wife struggle at times with career over family. It takes the smallest thing that happened. Understanding that over time and trying to be more understanding with that and developing leaders. I've had great mentors who are female also.
It was Kimberly Ellison-Taylor who said this for a number of years and it always stuck with me. It's that "Women have to work twice as hard for half of the credit." I've seen that. There have been other instances of working with the women's initiatives executive committee at AICPA, and then the diversity commission and not seeing the numbers grow. As a profession, this is problematic. How do we figure it out? It's still been a problem. Trying to attain more female leadership inside of it has become important.
It's an important point. When you use that example about Maryann and even in executive positions I've been in, maybe travels coming up, and they're like, "You probably shouldn't leave because you're the mom." "My family situation is my business so let me make the decision." From a male perspective, "If my wife went on a business trip, what would that mean for me?"
To be able to take your own life, but also be open with those conversations that empower people is important because sometimes we can take that experience in the wrong direction, not intending to. It is still staggering to me how much leadership is still not diverse, even though the firms might be. It's allowing for that difference in the way you interact and express yourself, and it's hard.
From a diversity perspective, I enjoy learning more about cultures, but it's a challenge in our society. January of 2007, I'm in my first year in the AICPA and Metzler had a conflict, so he asked me to step in and speak at a conference. It was the National Association of Black Accountants Division of Firms. I always like to get in the night before to go to the reception to meet a few people before I speak. I go there and there's no doubt that I am the guest speaker the next day. I am the only White man that fitted the role.
As soon as I walked in, one gentleman walks up to me, "I'm George Wiley. It's great to meet you. Thanks for being here. Let me introduce you to a few people." He puts his arm around me and takes me to each and every person in that room and says, "I want you to meet Mark Koziel. He's a good guy. He's one of us," and that is that inclusion piece. It is incredibly important for people to gain perspective of what it's like to be the only one of something in a room. Whether it's a male partner with all the women leaders in their firm or however you want to make it happen.
Supporting Others: We were all so worried about hurting someone's feelings that we're not having deep enough conversations.
I've always had that comfort level because I was a young person in an older generation. People pulled me along, but in this perspective and George is an incredibly great friend to the day. I love the man. He taught me so much. We're all so worried about hurting someone's feelings and we're not having deep enough conversations. It's being able to get into that trust zone and be able to say things.
When I was at The National Commission on Diversity, Kim Drumgo was running it at the time. She and I had a lot of conversations. I'm like, "I'm going to say the wrong thing, but I want to understand that I'm saying the wrong thing and why. I need your help. In doing that, I want to be open about it. I'm going to ask you questions because I want to learn." It comes from a place of wanting to learn and to be better more than anything. We started those NCDI meetings and reminded everyone that as the meeting starts, they had to suspend their right to be offended so that we could have very real conversations and it did.
To not hold it against them. You have to have that conversation. That's important. Going back to the original story of the blue-collar accountants, if you've never had the example of this profession in your family, how would you even know? It's important to go seek out others and find where they go and network, and get educated so that you can be there to take them under your wing as well.
I had a student back at Buffalo. My college alumni had an Annual Accounting Banquet. One of the accounting students there was a minority. He was going to work for a firm that I knew well. It wasn't one of my old firms, but I was also thinking in my head. I know that they don't have any Black partners and I don't even think they have Black directors, so there's no leadership for him to look up to.
I said, "You may not be the only Black person there. There may be others at your level, but at some point, it's going to look challenging for you based on there being no one there to generally relate to. If you want to find someone, let me help you find someone. If you want someone Black who has made it in leadership, let me help you do that, or at any time you can call me. Just be open and honest about what's concerning you about this." You would hope for that inside the firm, but they don't always get that. I wanted them to stay because we have so few underrepresented minorities in leadership in the profession. It becomes even more important for everybody to stand up and help them feel more included in what they do.
That's an important point. I have been doing a consulting job with a firm and they have a DEI committee that they're trying to figure out what to do with. There is a Black associate there that I spoke with who's not on the DEI committee. Their point was, "Just because I'm Black shouldn't mean I have to lead this. Anyone can walk over to me and ask me what my experiences and story are, I plan to share it, but no one asked."
They didn't want to have to lead it and be the ones to change it. Not everybody wants to be that person. It goes back to some of the things you've talked about before with nurturing people that you work with. It is asking, "How can I help?" first and not pegging them into things that don't follow their interests, but making sure that you're there to solve for them. It's about them.
It's interesting. Barry also had this at one time. In the top 100 firms, we're trying to see diversity there. They're limited to two seats per firm for that meeting. We opened a third seat if it was a female leader. We did this a number of years ago. Even still, there were a couple of firms that already had a female leader, a managing partner or CEO, and they weren't coming to the meeting.
He asked one of the female leaders, "Why aren't you coming to the meeting with the firms?" She's like, "It's a bunch of guys there. I can't be bothered. We sent a couple of our partners who would like to go to that thing." He's like, "We need more female leadership." They're like, "I let them do it." He said, "If not you, then who? We still need that first one." Not everybody wants to carry that burden on their shoulders and understand that. I think that's your point.
Some people are the ones that want to innovate and some people are the ones like, "Don't segment me out. I've worked this hard to be one of the pack." There are so many great lessons in our discussion. Is there anything we didn't say or you want to emphasize as you want to make sure everyone takes away from this conversation?
To me, it's still a great profession. I love what we do. I love the firms that we have here in so many of those years at the AICPA, going to accounting conferences, and giving them all this great information and you say, "Good luck." Now, we're able to and even taking your messaging and other leaders that we've had in our conferences in saying, "What do we need to do in our firm?” Natasha's here to support that and I'm here to support it as is the rest of the team. As people say, they've gained that perspective of like, "Now, what do we do with it?" It’s giving that push forward. That's what transitioned me to this. I've always said I was helping firms, but I was giving them the right information. It wasn't completely helping. It was probably creating more angst, but now we're helping.
Love what you do and love your firm.
Doing the actionable work that you can walk away. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this interview. For all of you, please subscribe and share it with anyone that you think this message would be helpful. Thank you very much.
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For my Mindful Moments with my interview with Mark, he had so many great stories that he shared. I also appreciate him being so transparent about his background and what has led him to the successes that he has now. We started off talking about his family and how he had a distant relationship with his father and a hard relationship at home. Where he looked for mentorship was with his friend's father. That became an example for him to try to understand what it was that he wanted to do in his life.
Coming from a family of blue-collar workers, accounting wasn't something that was around him to even go into it. With the advice of his best friend's father, that was an area that he looked into when he went to college, and he became an accountant. Those little moments that we go back and look at the people that had an impact on our careers, and also how we think and what we do to open our awareness into the world are so important. We have these belief systems that get created within us, but we don't necessarily know how or why they got there.
With intention, we can change what those belief systems are. He talked a lot about that during his interview. His best friend's father was a big impact on him. Also, during that time in his life, working at a retail store helped him learn to sell. The general manager took him under his wing and taught him the ropes that have helped him throughout his career.
We talked about how sometimes the word sales can have this bad connotation to it, but when we look at what it is when we're solving people's pain points, that is what creates long-term and lasting relationships with our customers and clients. It is so important to develop those skills, especially if it's a gap. You may look at yourself and say, "This is an area that I haven't been mentored in," and where can you go find help to be able to improve those skills as well.
The other thing that we talked about was how important the relationships he developed overtime in his career. The people that noticed him tried to pull him through and teach him the ropes. Once he got into the accounting profession and into the accounting firm that he was working for, starting off in Buffalo, New York, the connections he made through the AICPA ended up helping him along the way.
We had an interview with Jim Metzler. He talked about how Jim had targeted him to help grow the firm services area of the AICPA, and brought him when Jim was growing that area. It's important that when we're making relationships, we don't always know how someone is going to show up later in our career or have ideas for us that maybe we haven't thought about.
It’s being open to those opportunities and thinking about, "Maybe I don't have all the skills to do that and haven't done it before,” but taking on that opportunity and going about it from a learning perspective. That is something both Mark and Jim have demonstrated. Even if it wasn't something that they were experts in, how do they go about learning it? Also being transparent that they're in the learning mode, taking on a new role, not feeling like you have to come in as the expert, and then understanding when your experience clicks in. It is something that can help the organization to feel confident about that as well.
One of the other things that we talked about was inclusion. Mark has been a big advocate of the initiatives of AICPA with the diversity and equity committee and women's initiatives. He talked about the story of going to NABA and being the only White male there, and that opposite feeling that many Blacks have all of the time or minorities that they're the only one in the room. He felt that way showing up at an event. and how he was treated to feel like he was included amongst them.
I loved the comment that he said that George Wiley had made when he saw Mark standing in the room. George came over and put his arm around him and said, "You're one of us," and was introducing him that way. Immediately, he felt included and took his guard down. We forget about that because we're in our own experience all through the day. We're not necessarily looking out for the people that might feel different on the outside. Maybe it's the knowledge that they're not as smart or whatever that might be, and how we can make people feel they are one of us, and you are there to support them so that they don't feel alone.
The other thing is with the examples that he had of mentors created himself as a leader. Looking out for the people that he was going to help along the way and always knowing where his succession was, where his bench is, and who are the people that he wants to make sure are getting the extra attention so that they were successful in their careers and they feel the confidence.
We talked about Natasha that works for him. At a very hard decision point, he suggested an opportunity that would have meant that she left his organization. This happens a lot of times with leaders. We get afraid to let go of our best people because our job is going to be harder without them. You are in a working rhythm with them. You know the things that they can take care of and you have to train someone else to be able to do it. The strength to be able to look outside of yourself and take the ego away to say, "I want to help another person be able to get the skills they need."
He saw that there were opportunities she had with the CEO role in Kansas that he wasn't going to be able to provide her. It's not that he didn't have a vision in the future that she might come back, but the risk is she may never come back. She may like that role and so forth. It happened that he had another role for her down the line and she's now working with him again.
That's also what creates trust in any working relationship that someone is not out for their own selfish interests. They are there to help others around them. When we talk about inclusion and leadership, they go hand in hand. These stories were so good to bring that out, and think about how we can all do that in our own lives and businesses, and with the people around us.
Important Links
Jim Metzler - Past Episode
About Mark Koziel
Mark Koziel became President and CEO of Allinial Global in August 2020 after 14 years with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). In addition to leading a team of twenty-seven staff members, he is responsible for strategic planning, financial performance, and the association’s overall growth and success.
From the beginning of his career at a large local accounting firm in Buffalo, New York, to his tenure as Executive Vice President of Firm Services at the AICPA, Mark has been a leader and consistent advocate for CPA firms. Well known and highly regarded within the profession, he has appeared among the top 10 of Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting and been named to the International Accounting Bulletin’s Global Accounting Power 50 List.
In his downtime, Mark enjoys the beautiful summers in the mountains of North Carolina where he spends time with his wife Maryann and enjoys boating, golf, and smoking – both a fine cigar (with a glass of wine) and BBQ.