Episode 114: Intentional Succession: Take It Seriously And Have A Plan With Grace Horvath
A promotion is both an opportunity and a responsibility. And it is never without challenges. In today’s interview with Grace Horvath, President and CEO of CPAmerica, we discuss what it takes to create an intentional succession plan for leadership. She shares some important tips on transitioning not only yourself but also your replacement, and how coaching and feedback can help you become successful in your new role. Tune in and learn how you can be more intentional in your succession planning!
---
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Intentional Succession: Take It Seriously And Have A Plan With Grace Horvath
In this episode, I interview Grace Horvath, CEO and President of CPAmerica, a national association of independent accounting firms. She has driven the strategies for the delivery of services and resources designed to increase firm growth, profitability, and sustainability provided to member firms since 2011. As the first female leader in its 43-year history since January of 2022, Grace is excited to head the association into its next era of supporting member success and the evolution of the profession.
Grace lives in Gainesville, Florida with her husband, John, who is a civil engineer. Her daughter relocated back home to Florida where she is an RNA scientist and just welcomed her first baby. Her son and his family live in Jacksonville Beach, Florida so she is lucky enough to see them often. She is an avid reader and enjoys cooking, entertaining, traveling, and spoiling her dogs.
During this interview with Grace, we discuss what it takes to create a succession plan for leadership. What are the tips for transitioning, not only for yourself but your replacement, and how to take in feedback to be successful? I hope you enjoy this interview with Grace and like, subscribe or share with people that also could use these tips that Grace is providing during this interview.
—
I am excited to have Grace Horvath from CPAmerica here in this episode. This is my second time talking to her. Grace, do you want to give a brief introduction of yourself before we get started?
Sure. Thanks so much for having me, Amy. This is my second time, so I feel quite honored to be invited back. I am Grace Horvath. I am the President of CPAmerica. We are a national association of independent accounting firms. I’ve been with the association since 2011 and took over as president in 2022.
We had such a great conversation. I was looking back and Grace was my eight episode. If you want to go back and read the episode in 2019, we were actually at a CPAmerica event in Hawaii right before the quarantine. We were so lucky to get that event in before everything was shut down. Grace’s story was so incredible of just her upbringing and everything she had been through in her life and breaking through that generation. Being the first to go to college and make a success of herself. Also, having the example I think of your mother, grandmother, and so forth. Since we talked the last time, Grace has transitioned into being the CEO of CPAmerica. How long have you been with CPAmerica? What were your beginnings with CPAmerica?
I started in 2011. My first day was the Leading Partners Retreat. I had been hired as part of the succession plan of my predecessor, who probably a lot of people reading will know was Kathy McDonald. She was a force to shore and quite some shoes to fill. That was back in September of 2011. I started as a director. I moved up to vice president over time and then competed for the president’s position. I can tell you that if you were to ask me this, “Do you consider yourself to be a person who always wants to be the first one to do something?” “No,” but I’m now also the first female president of the association and we’re in our 43rd year in 2022.
I think it’s an important conversation because so many people are with organizations for a long time and people get used to you in certain roles. Every transition that you make, whether it’s from director to vice president to president, you’ve got this respect for the people that were there, what they did, what your new vision is going to be, and how you transition that.
Maybe you can talk about that first transition because it’s important, especially since you said you were hired to be a successor. Many firms that I work with don’t identify successors in every role of the organization and have that bench strength. What was that process like when you knew you were a successor? How were they grooming you to make sure you were ready for the next role?
One of the most profound things that Alan Deichler, my former boss and the former president of CPAmerica said to me when I started was, “I want you to learn, observe, understand who we are, what we do, and what members need, but I’m not asking you to do it the same way we’ve always done it.” He was very emphatic that my goals and objectives were not to recreate the processes that were in place.
Because I didn’t know what they were, I was completely brand new to everything. It’s not like those things came as second nature to me. I knew nothing about the organization and Kathy at the time was also taking on some initiatives that she wants to do as part of the programs and services that she was still working with.
I was thrown into it where I had the benefit of historical knowledge, both in the building and the paper files. I also had the support and the autonomy to do things differently. Coming from not being in that position, you look at the way something’s done. You learn how it’s done and you go, “There could be a better way to do this,” or it’s not necessarily a better way. It’s that you think about it differently and you’re going to have a different approach than the person before you.
Maybe you can talk about how you approach that. People can say, they’re fine with you wanting to do things differently, and then when you start doing things differently, they’re like, “We did it this way because of X and you start hitting some roadblocks.” What was the best way for you to communicate and manage up in order to be successful in making changes?
One piece of that was circumstantial luck and that my predecessor went and purchased a property in a large retirement area here in Florida. Whereas, I think initially she was hesitant to step back. When she discovered what was ahead of her, she got so excited that she really got out of the way. For a lot of what I was able to do, I didn’t get any resistance because of the institutional methodologies, I didn’t have the author of those next to me all the time.
I see in some of our member firms, that’s a real struggle especially if you’ve got somebody who comes into the firm very young and they grow up underneath the senior and managing partners. They’re very much a mentor, boss, supervisor, coach, and all those things. I can say that this is something I felt that somewhat transitioning from me to Alan.
Succession Plan: When you're coming from the outside or when you're coming from not being in that position, you learn how things are done and you may have a different approach than the person before you.
The hardest part about the transition is you don’t want to do anything that’s perceived as disrespectful or coming off as, “Thank goodness your tenure is coming to an end because we’re ready to do things my way, which are going to be better.” It’s not like that but it is definitely a challenge when you were predecessor is still around and still very much the leader, the figurehead in every single way to start establishing your own way of doing things. It’s a tight rope to walk.
You knew a year before you were going to become president. Is that correct? They announced it.
We actually knew two years before, and I don’t know that a two-year runway is necessary but we are so transparent about how we may answer to our members and our members knew that Alan was approaching retirement. They were just chomping at the bit. They want to know what’s going to happen. Our board of directors had thought, “If we have to do an outside search, this could take a long time.”
We need to determine what’s going on with the internal candidate, which was me, and was I going to have the qualifications that they were looking for to do the job or were they going to open it up and allow me to compete with others? We went through a very rigorous process with an outside coach, all kinds of 360 evaluations, where we looked at not only me as an individual, but we looked at the position of the president and CEO, what the members thought that job should be doing and the type of person they thought should be in it.
The next thing I know, I turned out through this process to be aligned as a very good match for what the membership thought was needed in the role and it happened soon. It was in January of 2020 and then all hell broke loose. We had a very strong transition plan in place. When I take a look at our firms that go through transition, some of them have very strong plans in place.
For others, it’s just, “We’re winging it. When I’m out of the seat, you’ll come into the seat and you do things your way.” We were extremely methodical about it. In the first year, it was like, “We know the decision’s been made. Now, we don’t need to worry about it.” The pandemic came along and we had plenty of other things to think about. In 2021 is when we started the process of slowly beginning to hand off work a piece at a time or levels of responsibility.
With that being transparent that you were going to be the next president, how did that affect you in your current role? Were you toggling two positions during that time period? How was that working in order for you to be ready?
There were multiple layers to that and there’s the actual layer of physical demand that’s required because we named then my successor. We had an internal candidate here, Jenn Walker and we had this revelation. I was like, “I didn’t start here as vice-president. I started here as a director. Maybe we don’t need to go out and find another vice president. I’ve been here so long. We can look more towards a director. If we do that, we have somebody here who is phenomenal.”
What happens is you have this one-year period where I’m learning to do the job of president and starting to take on some of the responsibilities. As an example, “Here you go. You got to do the budget and you got to start doing all the prospecting,” which is a physical requirement of your time and attention. I’m still doing my job as vice president and then teaching Jenn how to do that job when she’s on the way up.
It was very demanding to say the least. The flip side of that was that Alan was very 100% committed to fulfilling his responsibilities and being present, mindful, and staying in that position of leader until the end of his tenure. At the end of the day until 12/31/2021, the buck was still stopping in Alan Deichler and I got to step in and take that on in ‘22.
I think this is important as people are taking on new roles and elevated leadership positions. What was your process? You have worked there for a long time so you have your ideas, but where did you go out to learn? I know that you said that they interviewed the members and so forth, but what did you do yourself before you made any changes to assess what changes were going to be made once you became president, besides what you knew already of the role?
I had always been involved at the level of leadership and with our board of directors. I had my hands in strategy. My job was to drive that. In the time leading up to now, we had ideas and things like, “We need to do something for the next gen. We need to have a program that’s going to help firms with recruiting, retaining, and building bench strength. I would take that and run with it. I have the knowledge of like, “Here’s the architect. We need to fill this particular space and it needs to have this particular function. It needs to be great. Build that.”
I did have a lot of that knowledge coming into it, which was a deep understanding of the members and what they wanted. Over time, one thing we’ve never wavered on is staying very clear and steadfast to our objectives. Why are we in business? What are we supposed to be doing? When it came time to make changes, there were some things that I was a little bit excited about because I am very different than my predecessor. I knew I would approach things differently when given the opportunity to do so, but I was just patient and waited until it was my turn.
I think that is important because, with any change, it’s great. As you said, whether you need two years, it is to be seen but to have that time where people start getting to know you or seeing you in a different way is important. It’s not only identifying a successor. It’s letting people know that is your successor. People start seeing you as that next leader, which a lot of times doesn’t happen, but at the same time is how you filter through change when you’re excited to go as a leader to make some structural changes and things like that. Also, having to pace it with everybody else’s temperament. How did you approach that?
Going back to what I was talking about the methodology and I think that this is what I wish we could see in more member firms, where there was more intentional succession. When you have the luxury of that time, you can vet the person that’s going to be taking the role. It’s removed a lot of the uncertainty as to how you think this person is going to perform because people have had the time to think about it, question it and possibly even work with that person on what they know will be different.
Succession Plan: The hardest part about the transition is you don't want to do anything that's just perceived as disrespectful.
We see that all the time. You see major Fortune 500 companies like Starbucks with the main guy stepping down and a new guy coming in. Except for probably an inside circle, nobody knew that was coming. I don’t know that in order to have a successful transition, there needs to be a super long runway or the buy-in. You have to be ready to just do it. Listening to people is very important and to what they want. Because of my background in sales, you have to put yourself in the opposite set of shoes from you and don’t think about what am I thinking but think about what they’re thinking. I prioritized making sure that people understand expectations and what they need to feel comfortable.
We talked a lot about your mother, even on your father’s side, his mother, your grandmother, and their work ethic. Where do you think you see that come into yourself? When you come into a role like this, do you ever flashback certain memories or things that they told you growing up to help keep you motivated that’s helped you now or that’s in the back of your head taking on a role like this giving you confidence?
You need to be reliable and do what you say you’re going to do. Getting into a position of leadership like this, if you sit there, start picking apart, and thinking about that, it can be terrifying. It’s because there’s so much at stake. When things are not going as planned or when there are things that relative to what we do could be considered crises, we try to put that into perspective and say, “Nobody is going to die at the end of the day here. We’re not performing surgery. We haven’t killed anybody, but even then, nonetheless, it is important that what we do is done to the degree of excellence, which is possible to achieve and still get things done. I guess if I have to think back about my background, it was the tenacity. You just don’t put your hands up and walk away. You’re like, “No. I can figure this out.”
I have found that too, where things might seem overwhelming. There’s so much to get done and then everyone around you that’s your team is getting stressed about all these things. With what you talked about on the importance of having a plan in place so that you’re only focused on what we said we were going to do this month. Eventually, we’ll get to that vision in twelve months or whatever but if you start thinking about everything, that’s when your mind starts blowing apart and staying focused on what’s ahead of you and you’ll get there.
You do have to do that. You have to give yourself time to reflect and there’s a required degree of self-awareness that when you start to feel overwhelmed or you encounter a situation that you’ve never encountered before, how could you not. If this is the first time you’ve ever been a president or a CEO and the first time you’ve ever been the one who’s ultimately making the decisions, half the stuff you come across is going to be the first time.
You have to put that in perspective, relate it to what you are clear your objectives are to be and check yourself and where your decisions are coming from. Are they coming from emotion? Are they coming from reason? It’s okay to be emotional, but you need to decide how and when you’re going to do that and not when you’re trying to make a critical decision. When people are looking to you to be solid, you need to be a rational thinker or a leader.
They feel that you’re dependable or reliable. The thing about leadership is it can be very lonely on one hand and that self-awareness of getting present and understanding that. It’s because I think the other thing that comes in is being aware of whether you’re being rational or is it emotion or is it ego. A lot of times what I see in a lot of leadership and firms is not breaking down new things. It’s more about ego and that’s that self-awareness piece that is good to get back to because what’s best for the company is not for me or any individual.
People should have a lot of clarity on the difference between ego, competitiveness, and ambition because it’s okay to want to be the best. It’s like, “I would like to run the most mediocre association.” No., you don’t want that. You want your members to be like, “We love everything we get out of that membership.” You got to be competitive to do that, but still with it. Those people who will read it will remember that it’s Patrick Lencioni’s you need to be as hungry, humble, and smart.
To your point of competitiveness, you want to be making sure you’re always doing your best, but if you’re always looking to the person, association, or firm next to you to make it, “They’re doing this or they’re doing that. A lot of times I’ve gotten to situations in business and your staff’s even like, “I see them doing that.” It’s like, “What are we about? What are our values? What is our mission? What’s going to separate us? Why would someone come to us versus somebody else?”
You have to stick to that. For our member firms, not every client is a fit. I noticed for our firms that are accelerating as the most profitable, progressive, and having the best time with their people are the ones who have made a strong determination, “This is who we are and this is who we serve.” Every client that comes through the door, we may love, but it might not be the right client for us.
It makes those leadership decisions easier. Every time you’re like, “Is it aligned with our values?” Yes or no.
There are firms out there who are looking for things that we don’t offer and they’re just lovely firms. It would be great to have them as a member, but we don’t offer what they need. They’re looking for something different. We have to be careful as an association. We’re never going to be all things to all people and to every firm. I suppose if we had 1,000 people working here and an unlimited budget but that not being the case. It streamlines it from the top down. For your team and your people in place, they know that they’re in an environment where innovation, fresh ideas, and refusing to say, “That’s the way we’ve always done it,” our core values, the flip side of that, we’re able to stay focused and not just be all over the place, like having squirrels running through the building.
You said you did a 360-process. I don’t know how often you do it. I love to hear that but what have you learned about yourself as a leader through that process and what have you pivoted or changed from those learnings.
I definitely had to work on my communication and I continue to work on that. For anybody who’s transitioning into a position of leadership, I am such a huge advocate of executive coaching. You said something about how it’s lonely at the top. It’s a relative term, but it is. There is not anybody internally for you to vent to when you got to work through the emotion of something. There’s also not anybody who’s going to come in and tell you, “You need to be thinking about doing something better.” You’re doing something in a particular way and it’s not helping you achieve what you need to achieve.
You can get that through a mentor or through a trusted friend. I am so lucky that a couple of my close girlfriends are also pretty seasoned executives. They’ll tell it like it is, but working with an executive coach and this will be maybe the third time I’ve done it. Each time you do a 360, it’s consistent. You see where your strengths are and I think it’s important to see where your strengths are because if you’re a good leader, you do maintain some humility, and you’re a little bit humble, you don’t think you tend to do anything good. It’s really nice when you get some validation and the flip side of that is you get that feedback for the things you need to continue working on. I know for me personally, it’s communication, which would probably be about 99.9% of the population.
Succession Plan: You have to put yourself in the opposite set of shoes from you and make sure that people understand expectations and that you understand what they need to feel comfortable.
What does that mean when you say communication? Maybe you can give an example.
It’s that all the people in the room walk out of the room with the same understanding of the conversation.
I have a great quote from a yoga retreat I was on, he said, “The myth about communication is that it happened,” because it’s like, “Whatever you come in within your head or from a prior meeting.” You don’t know what’s coloring somebody else’s perception and how you make sure that you’re repeating things enough, that people take away the messages or whatever feelings are blocking your messages. It is so important.
There’s a wonderful book I recommend. It’s not an easy read, but it’s Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking To Strangers. Have you read it?
I haven’t read it, but I’ve heard parts of it from a podcast.
It is very enlightening when you accept that most of the time you cannot know or understand who you’re talking to. The book is not necessarily so much about communication. It’s about how we have to quit putting our beliefs and assumptions onto others and making our own reality out of that. It’s the same thing. If you’re leading members, a staff, or people, I go in and I don’t assume that anybody knows what I said.
One of the things we’re doing internally and I am asking my staff to hold me accountable for this is when we conclude a meeting or communication. I got dinged and it was so true. Making decisions, coming time to execute whatever that is, weeks or months later and I’ll pop up and say, “What is this? Where did this come from? Who decided this?” They’ll look at me and say, “You did.” It’s like, “Okay. You’re right.” Thankfully, it was not anything detrimental, but that’s frustrating.
It was like, “You guys are going to have to record me.” We started making it a habit that when we make a decision on something or we meet together as a group, we can conclude that with some minutes or something. Some documentation that it’s like, “Here are the things we decided on. Here’s what’s left outstanding and here’s who’s doing what. Here’s what we talked about and decided that we’re killing this. We’re not talking about it anymore so don’t bring it up again.” It’s holding each other accountable that everybody is walking away with clarity.
I love the idea of making sure that everybody heard everything and is clear on what the actions are because so many times there are meetings with no action. There is a lot of conversation about things you should do, but then it’s like, “When will it get done?”
If you have a team of high performers, you’re not going to keep him that way because nothing is more frustrating than spending time and getting nothing out of it.
I know January was official, but you had a year of transition ahead of it. Would you give advice to other people coming into a leadership position, looking back on some tips that they should take coming into leading an organization, a firm, or wherever they are?
I would say to make sure that you have as much information as you can about the organization and whether or not you’re coming internally or from the outside. You want to understand the history and know what it is you’re dealing with. Especially if you’re walking and new to a place, you don’t want to be like, “I haven’t done this before.” It was something that colossally failed several months before he got there. I would highly recommend the coaching.
I highly would recommend having somebody to help you work through and go in with an understanding of where your strengths and your weaknesses are, identify the things that you want to work on, formulate your plan, and then work with somebody to hold you accountable to sticking to that. Amy, sometimes, I’d even include things like mindfulness, taking some time to meditate, doing certain exercises, and going through things to make sure that you don’t become overwhelmed. It’s not just about getting the job done. It’s also about being well.
Also, controlling your energy and talking about how important it is with an executive coach. One of the hard parts about leadership is the further you go in leadership, the less feedback you get because people are afraid to speak up. You can create the environment the best that you can, but having someone with no skin in the game that can give you feedback is important and maybe shadowing you in meetings or wherever you can bring them in to help with that.
These are some great tips and I’m so excited about the things that you’re doing with CPAmerica. I have always loved working with CPAmerica, your team, and the firms there. We’re launching a CAS collaboration in August 2022. That’s exciting. It will be in Indianapolis and have a whole workshop for the firms of CPAmerica that are looking to understand how to build that foundation in their practice.
Succession Plan: People should have a lot of clarity on the difference between the ego, competitiveness and ambition. It's okay to want to be the best and you have to be competitive to do that. But you need to be as hungry, humble, and smart.
I’m going to give you one more thing I would tell people to do. It’s like me talking to you now. I would tell anybody making the transition to ask questions. They need to reach out to people in the profession and are in similar positions. Talk to people, get educated, and ask questions. It’s always okay to say, “I don’t know. Can you help me learn more about this?”
You never know the different perspectives as well that might add to what you’re already doing, which is so helpful. It’s being open to that.
That’s going to be amazing. I’m very excited. I know your members are excited. We’re going to be in Louisville. I was there for the marketers’ meeting and we do a marketing round table there. I got in somewhat early and I needed something to do to kill some time. I decided to go for a walk and I said, “There’s a river. It’s a nice day out. I’ll walk across that bridge.” I had not paid attention to where I was so I’m like, “This is a long walk.” It’s like a mile to get across this river. I walked to the other side of the bridge and there was the sign, “Welcome to Indiana.” I literally walk to another state. That’s where we’ll be staying. It’s a good part of town that we talk about.
I always end with some rapid-fire questions and I’m going to challenge you to pick a different category because the last time you picked family and friends. The other categories are money, spirituality, and health.
Let’s talk about money.
Things are actions I don’t have that I want with the money?
I do not have a deep enough understanding of very sophisticated investing and have the time to figure that out.
Things or actions that I do have that I want as far as money?
I have a good handle on how to be responsible with it.
I think that comes from upbringing too. Coming from the background, it’s making sure you never end up that way. I always have that fear of losing everything. Things or actions I don’t have that I don’t want?
Losing sight of what’s important in the pursuit of money.
I think a lot of people get distracted and I also think with age, it changes. At least for me, it has. I know I’ve flipped to how much I need versus how much can I make. Things or actions that I do have that I don’t want?
I still have the paper bills.
I hate when they go paperless because then I forget I’ve gotten an email about it. I’m so bad about it. There are so many great lessons. Is there anything you want to make sure people walk away with from this episode that we haven’t talked about or maybe something you want to reemphasize?
I would emphasize where the opportunity exists to make your succession planning very seriously. Whether or not you’re looking at internal candidates or you’re having to go outside of the organization, have a plan.
Succession Plan: As a leader, it’s very enlightening when you accept that most of the time, you cannot know or understand who you're talking to.
This is such a great example of what you guys did and for other people to think about. Thank you so much for being on again Grace. As always, there are so many great tips and interesting stories.
I enjoy talking to you and I’ll see you soon.
—
Now, for my Mindful Moments with my interview with Grace Horvath, and for those of you that want to hear her backstory, that is episode eight of the show. She had so many good stories from growing up that helped develop her into this leader now. I had her back on because I think it’s so important to talk about succession planning, leadership, and the process that CPAmerica went through to bring her in as president and also to set her up for success.
Grace was actually with the organization since 2011 but always was in a position of being a successor for somebody else. A lot of times, when we think about succession planning, we only think about it for the highest level, not thinking about it for every level of the organization and where your bench strength is. Also, make sure that people know how to do each other’s jobs and are ready for that next role so that if you see gaps, you can identify that early and ensure that they’re going to be ready to take on that role.
Secondly, what is important about succession planning is that not only that person knows that you see them in that role, but the people around them also see them in that role. When they eventually transition into that role, they are accepted as the next leader. We talked a lot about this process of being in waiting for that next level or when you become a new leader, the process of getting people the mindset around change, innovation, and the things that you want to do.
One of the things that we talked about is even as excited as she was, this was a two-year process. They went through a selection process and announced it two years prior to her becoming president. The transition didn’t happen for a year before her being president. There were lots of time to be able to train her, get her ready for this role, and also be looking out for who was the best person to take on her role and so forth. Having the time to look internally and externally, but making sure that they did put a priority on internal candidates first because of knowing the organization, the customers, and the clients is a much easier transition than bringing in someone brand new.
One of the things that she talked about was not doing anything that would be disrespectful and challenging the predecessor while they are around. As respectful as someone can be that someone is taking their role, there’s always that personal feeling about someone taking your job, even if you’re ready to go on and do your next best thing. There’s just respect to give to someone for the work that they’ve done, the progress that they’ve made, and around the leader they are. You don’t want to overshine those people until it’s time for them to move on and you’re able to start making the changes that you want.
The other thing was the transparency that they let all the members know about the process and staff. They were ready for this and the people that we’re selecting for the next leader were doing 360 evaluations. They were taking in the feedback of staff and members on what they thought the qualities of this next president and CEO should be in order to match it to the right profile.
A lot of the work that doesn’t get done in job descriptions is doing that research work of what is the job description, not thinking about any one person. It’s because too often, we are thinking about who we want in that job and fitting them into it rather than knowing if they meet the criteria of what’s needed in the organization.
Just because you have that job description before, what has evolved over time and what are the new initiatives that you need to think about and then match the candidate to see if they are a fit for that. Profiling in the job description is not personal and it’s very clear where the gaps are with the candidates. She talked about that transition period being a struggle with toggling new responsibilities and all responsibilities, but still having her predecessor there to help, to support her, and do his work while she was transitioning other people into their roles as well.
Also, staying clear on the objective of the company. Once you get into that role with any change that you’re going to make and understand what is the value proposition of what you do as a business. Even if you need to redefine that, make sure you take the time to do that first before you start making changes to ensure that the changes you are making a line with the value proposition of the organization. In this intentional succession planning, she gives credence to the fact that it removes the uncertainty of the people that work in this corporation, and the customers as well, so that they feel comfortable with what is going on in the organization and feel like they understand what’s happening next.
We also talked about how important it is to listen first before making changes. Try to put yourself in others’ shoes so that you can understand what their expectations are so when you are developing a new strategy and you’re taking that into account. To think about what is hard for everybody is when you’re going through change, there are big plans. Start to realize not only for yourself but how hard it is for everyone or if something is going wrong, not harping on that too much and losing sight of the bigger vision.
Also, make sure that you have brought everyone along with you on that journey. She talked about the importance of giving herself time to reflect. Make sure she’s very self-aware of how she is feeling and what things that she needs to do to reset so that she’s not making decisions out of emotion, but instead being rational, reasonable, and doing the best thing for the company versus herself.
We did have a discussion about the difference in ego versus competitiveness versus ambition, which a lot of times can get in the way of leadership. When we take ourselves out of it, we usually will come to the right decision for the company. Also, we talked about the importance of executive coaching. When you become a leader, less and less feedback comes to you. Having someone that doesn’t have skin in the game to be able to give feedback to you is important so that you can continue to improve. Even though you’re a leader in an organization, you never stopped striving to be better.
She gave three tips at the end of this that were important. Coming in as a new leader is to make sure you have as much information as you can about the organization, understand their history, and respect it. Make sure you have an executive coach to help you through your strengths and weaknesses and hold you accountable for making the changes that you need to make. Make sure that you’re asking questions to people outside of your organization, but maybe still in that industry or profession so that you can learn more and make sure you’re feeding that information back into the organization.
There are so many great tips here for leadership and getting out of your belief systems so that you make the best decisions for an organization. I want to thank Grace for being on and hopefully, you’ll look into CPAmerica as well if you are an accounting firm that’s looking for an association to help you with resources. If any of these lessons are helpful to you, make sure to share, like, and subscribe to this show. I look forward to sharing the next interview with you soon.
Important Links
Grace Horvath – Previous Episode
About Grace Horvath
Grace took on the role as President and CEO of CPAmerica, a national association of independent accounting firms, January of 2022. She has driven the strategies for delivery of services and resources designed to increase firm growth, profitability and sustainability provided to member firms since 2011. As the first female leader in its 43-year history, Grace is excited to head the association into its next era of supporting members’ success in the evolution of the profession.
Grace has specialized in business development, marketing, and program & services development and implementation in a variety of industries. She spent the first part of her career based in Miami, FL in luxury retail where she excelled in sales and business development and lead regional corporate sales training. After moving to Gainesville, FL in 1995 she continued her path in sales and business development with an association solutions provider as a publisher for professional trade associations. Wanting to be closer to home for her young children, she spent nearly 10 years with a mixed-use real estate developer where she was the director of sales and marketing responsible for the growth, branding, and leasing of projects from inception to build-out. She has dedicated her career to service and personally making a difference at home and abroad through her affiliation with Rotary and other charitable and volunteer organizations.
She serves as immediate Past Chair of the Gainesville Alachua County Regional Airport Authority; and is the Past President of the Gainesville Women’s Forum. She has been a member of the Rotary Club of Gainesville since 2001, serving as club president securing highest recognitions for the club for exceeding service and fundraising goals locally, nationally and internationally. She was co-founding chair of the nationally recognized Rotary Reading Safari, a literacy program created in partnership with Santa Fe College and the School Board of Alachua County. She has served twice as the only person, and woman, to serve two successive years as president of the Rotary Club of Gainesville Foundation. She was recognized as a 2016 Santa Fe College Woman of Distinction. She served on both the operations and foundation boards of Girls Place, Inc. where she was recognized as Board Member of the Year, was president of the operations board and chair of their signature fundraiser.
Grace lives in Gainesville, FL with her husband John who is a civil engineer. Her daughter recently relocated back home to Florida where she is an RNA scientist and just welcomed her first baby. Her son and his family live in Jacksonville Beach, FL so she is lucky enough to see them often. She is an avid reader and enjoys cooking, entertaining, traveling and spoiling her dogs.