Lights camera CPA! CPA Irwin Jacobson talks about breaking the entertainment industry--and the challenges of accounting for it.

• Author: Ascierto, Jerry
• Position: Q+A - Cover story

Irwin Jacobson witnesses magic every day at the office.

As vice president of finance and controller for Culver City-based Sony Pictures Entertainment, Jacobson has a front-row seat to the inner workings of some of Tinseltown's highest profile productions and celluloid heroes.

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A 16-year veteran of the entertainment industry, Jacobson will share some of the secrets of his success, as well as tips for how young professionals can springboard their careers, at CalCPA's Young and Emerging Professionals Conference in May 2007.

The conference, driven and designed by young and emerging CPAs, will be held in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

"This will be one of the most important conferences of 2007," says CalCPA Chair Marc Parkinson. "The program is busting at the seams with must-know information for young professionals, from negotiation and presentation skills to business etiquette and goal setting--all delivered by young professionals who are at the top of their game. If you want to be a future leader in the CPA profession, you won't want to miss this."

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Jacobson sat down with California CPA and discussed how a CPA can break into the entertainment industry, the challenges that movies and television programs face on their road to profitability and other top accounting issues in the entertainment industry--including why green M & M's may be a legitimate cost of production.

Q You were born in Portland, Ore., and graduated from the University of Washington. How did you wind up in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles?

A After graduating from the University of Washington, I went to work for Touche Ross, based out of Seattle. I audited a number of different industries--retirement homes, bakeries, even Starbucks in its infancy--but nothing sparked my interest the way that the entertainment industry did. It's always been a passion of mine. Growing up, I loved going to the movies, the theater, watching television.

So one day I thought about how to combine my outside interest with my career. As I was thinking about that, I was reading an article from Daily Variety about Touche acquiring a business management practice out of Century City. I called the managing partner of that Touche office and said, "I would love the opportunity to come and work out of your office. I'll relocate at my own expense--I just want to be in entertainment."

I told them I would audit whomever they need me to audit, as long as when they land that first entertainment client, I'm on the team.

Q Who was that first entertainment client that Touche landed?

A KADY-TV out of Oxnard and the ITC Entertainment Group in Studio City. Those were my two big clients. Unfortunately, it never really expanded too much beyond that. After a year and a half, I thought it was time to work for an entertainment company. I hired a headhunter and started looking for other opportunities.

Q And your next gig was Sony?

A That's correct. They created a title for me--assistant manager of special projects in the motion picture division of Columbia Pictures. It's a fancy title meaning whatever the controller needed done.

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