BONUS | Alan Johnson - Accountants Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Across the Profession

Alan Johnson, President of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), joins Count Me In to talk with Loreal Jiles, IMA Director of Research, about the importance of taking action to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) in the accounting profession. On the heels of an IMA and CalCPA-sponsored research study supported by IFAC and 13 other organizations, Loreal shares relevant findings from the research study and Alan recounts personal experiences and offers actionable insights on steps accounting and finance professionals can take to play leading roles in DE&I improvement. Download and listen in for inspiration to act now!

Contact Alan Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-johnson-a96601a8/
Contact Loreal Jiles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/loreal-jiles-804648a1/

IMA's Diversity and Inclusion Commitment and Resources: https://www.imanet.org/about-ima/diversity-and-inclusion

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Mitch: (00:00)
Welcome back to Count Me In. IMA’s podcast about all things affecting the accounting and finance world. I'm your host Mitch Roshong and today I am previewing another special bonus episode. You will hear from IFAC President, Alan Johnson, as he speaks with IMA's Loreal Jiles about diversity, equity and inclusion. In their conversation, to the two discuss what accountants can do to promote and support diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces, and ultimately do a better job as a profession to attract, retain, and promote diverse talent. Keep listening as we tune into their insightful dialogue now.

Loreal: (00:40)
Hello everyone. I am Loreal Jiles and I am Director of Research for Digital Technology and Finance Transformation at the Institute of Management Accountants. Today, I am joined by an accomplished executive in the accounting and finance profession, Alan Johnson, who is currently President of IFAC, the International Federation of Accountants. Throughout his career spending about four decades. Alan has worked in Africa, Europe, and Latin America in a host of finance roles, including chief financial officer, chief audit executive, and several other board roles and executive roles. We joined today in discussion of the important topic of diversity equity and inclusion in the accounting profession. And for the purposes of this discussion, when we refer to the accounting profession or the accounting and finance profession, we are collectively speaking of the public accounting segment as may be familiar to those in the US those typically working in CPA firms and audit tax or advisory capacity, or the management accounting segment, accounting and finance professionals working within business or other organizations. And so for the last few months or so, the Institute of Management Accountants and the California society of CPAs to gather with global research partner IFAC, and a host of other research partners and contributors have just concluded a look into DE&I in our profession. We discussed, and focused on three aspects of diversity, race and ethnicity, gender and persons who identify as LGBTQIA. We began with the US and this is part of the larger multi-part series that will ultimately be global, and what we found in the US was the presence of something we've termed the diversity gap. Much greater diversity across the profession, but considerable under-representation of diverse talent among senior leadership levels. For every 10 of our professions, most senior leaders, eight of them are men., nine are white and few identify as LGBTQ. We surveyed over about 3000 US accounting professionals and found that diverse talent believes aren't advancing because of inequity and exclusion that still persists and it's diverse talent, unfortunately, is leaving companies, and in some instances, the profession because of a lack of D&I. So not like to invite you, Alan, if you could help us shed a bit of light when the importance of this topic, please tell us why is DE&I an issue that should matter to the accounting profession.

Alan: (03:24)
So, good afternoon, everyone and good afternoon Loreal and thank you very much for inviting me to this podcast. First of all, I just to let your listeners know that, the accountancy profession is a profession. It's a global profession of 3 million professional accountants around the world, and we support businesses. We support, which are both large and small. We support the public sector and we support indeed many organizations across the world. And, you know, at the core of what we do, we act in the public interest. Therefore, we must operate clearly with integrity and we should operate to the highest standards of ethics in line with our professional code of ethics, which I hope you're all familiar with. I think we would all agree that decisions, the best decisions that are made are those that are rigorous on analysis, robust in debate, and that the decisions are made putting the public interest or the interest of all stakeholders ahead of the personal interests. And it's also, I hope we recognize that our profession clearly is a people-centered profession, that is people at the heart of organizations. So it is obvious that we need to ensure that we have a diverse, inclusive, profession that clearly respects everyone's views. And that is why it matters to our profession. It actually also matters to all other professions, but, you know, in our case, we are purely a people centered profession and therefore ethics, which ethics equality. And, and I would actually say that, diversity equality and inclusivity or inclusiveness is actually also, you could argue is an ethical issue. And as ethics is at the heart of what we do and how we operate it is of course, pretty obvious. I hope that DE&I is so important to our profession.

Loreal: (05:26)
Absolutely. Thanks so much for that, Alan. If we shift gears a bit more building on the importance of this for our profession, what can, and should individual accountants do to promote and support diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplaces?

Alan: (05:45)
Well, as I've said, you know, all professions should, in fact, all aspects of society should be promoting inclusivity, diversity and equity, that goes saying. But I would love to start by saying one thing, which pleased me, what, on Wednesday morning, when I read the press, the president Biden had signed for executive actions on Tuesday, aiming to increase racial equality across the nation. I was very pleased to read that, but on the other hand, I was also saddened that it needs a presidential executive action to address the issue of racial inequality. Honestly, in societies today, it should not need a presidential act of that kind, but if it needs it it's been done and I applaud your new president, and I hope that everybody takes note of the importance of this. But let's go back to our profession in terms of promoting D&I. First of all, I would say it starts with leadership. Leaders have to demand that their organizations embrace diversity, equality and inclusivity everywhere. But just by saying it doesn't mean it gets done. So it's about leading by example, our professional leaders need also to make appointments that reflect society, which means more diverse, more inclusive and more equitable. Cause these are the basic principles of humanity. They then need to hold their own teams accountable to ensure that they live up to those values. They need to set targets, they need to set objectives, and they need to measure that the organizations are moving in the right direction ...