Lessons in Leadership and Growth Marissa Lynn Graves, CPA, CIA, CFE, is the director of accounting & finance at Sportiqe Apparel Co. in Tempe, AZ. She has several year’s experience in public accounting, internal audit, and now in industry as a finance executive. As a graduate of Northern Arizona University, Graves volunteers her time with the alumni association and is also the accountant for the AriZoni Theatre Awards. She is a published author in the AICPA’s consumer book, Save Wisely, Spend Happily, and also a member of the ASCPA Emerging Leaders Committee and an ASCPA Champion.
by Marissa L. Graves, CPA, CIA, CFE Like many of us, I’ve been working remotely the last few months and had some immediate and impactful changes to my professional career and personal life. I have used some of this time as an opportunity for reflection and gratitude. Most recently, I am immensely grateful for a specific opportunity from the ASCPA – the Leadership & Growth Alliance. Almost a year ago, I sat in a room with a committee of other professionals to decide the future of our training opportunities. In past years, we had offered halfday or full-day seminars with impressive speakers and topics. But this past year we decided to shake things up a bit and follow a cohort program; meeting every other month as a group to learn and connect together. Our group of 19 professionals met six times over the past year with a focus on developing our leadership skills. I wanted to share some of the topics and advice that really resonated with me from those sessions. We had a variety of perspectives on leadership, learned practical skills we could implement immediately, and even had “homework” to bring to sessions and personalize the content. Although we were led by inspiring facilitators, the participants really made this an experience worth sharing. I hope you’ll agree.
We’re in This Together One of the biggest takeaways I had during the series was that regardless of our position or company, we were all dealing with similar challenges that we were able to discuss. The irony was that at the beginning of our session a year ago, I don’t think we realized that. We focused and celebrated the diversity of the group in terms of title, area of specialty in tax or audit, working in industry or public to give us a variety of perspectives. However, we quickly formed bonds and built trust in our first exercise where we anonymously submitted our biggest personal and professional successes and defeats. Barriers went down immediately as we each read the projector screen that scrolled with honest and transparent comments; things that brought tears to eyes, and things that sparked laughter. We weren’t alone and had the ability to encourage and learn from one another in a safe environment. That unwritten theme carried us throughout our sessions and serendipitously into
JULY/AUGUST 2020 AZ CPA
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