Chair's corner.

• Author: Castellano, James G.
• Position: American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Board of Directors - Brief Article

What a great honor it is to serve our profession as chair of the AICPA Board of Directors. Serving in this role is an awesome privilege and an awesome responsibility. It is a privilege to lead this profession with such a rich history, and a responsibility to be an effective steward, to make it even better for those who come after us.

My entire career has been with Rubin, Brown, Gornstein & Co. LLP, a single office CPA firm in St. Louis, Missouri. The principles guiding our firm are equally applicable to my work as chair. They are: 1) protect and enhance reputation above all, 2) ensure strong financial management, and 3) continuously plan for and invest in programs that will provide benefits well into the future.

We have been working diligently to design and implement plans to advance the CPA Vision, which we all so proudly created. Those efforts will continue and you can expect new ideas and significant progress on a number of initiatives.

Our profession has engaged in serious debate about the global business credential initiative, just one initiative put forth to advance the Vision. Such debate is healthy and, in fact, necessary for effective decision-making. I express my thanks to all who constructively participated in the debate and who made their views known. We will find that achieving the Vision will require journeys along many pathways. The journey along each pathway is a valuable process in and of itself.

Substantial resources are being devoted to our initiatives to enhance our image and add value to our traditional services. Even more will be done. Expect further investment in our image enhancement campaign, in work on improving the usefulness and relevance of financial reporting, in our efforts to raise the value of our business advisory and assurance services -- thus...