Opening doors: CalCPA chair creates opportunity, focuses on diversity.

• Author: Ascierto, Jerry
• Position: California Society of Certified Public Accountants - Cover Story

When Chris Yahng began his CPA career in 1976, Enron and WorldCom didn't exist, advertising was forbidden for CPAs, professional rules governed what a CPA firm could name itself--and only a small percent of CPAs were women or ethnic minorities.

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"The profession is evolving," says Yahng, 2005-06 CalCPA chair. "Today, more than half of all practicing CPAs are women, as are 56 percent of those entering the profession." What's also encouraging is that "the ethnic make-up--the diversity of the profession--has also increased, particularly among younger CPAs." Yahng, a partner and co-founder of Oakland-based BAYCPA, is the first Asian-American to serve as CalCPA chair.

Yahng's journey to CalCPA chair began in China, and his initiatives for the coming year aim to help CalCPA cross cultural and ethnic borders by aligning CalCPA's leadership with the profession's growing ethnic diversity.

"I believe the CalCPA Council is not a true representation of CalCPA's membership," says Yahng. "While we have greater numbers of women and ethnic minorities filling the ranks of the profession than we did 30 years ago, we aren't seeing the corresponding shift into leadership positions."

To boost that representation, Yahng's ideas include reviving CalCPA's Leadership Institute and working more closely with individual chapters to identify and encourage future leaders.

"As chair, part of my position is to reinforce the message that CalCPA is not a closed book," he says. "During my term, I'll make many visits to individual chapters to encourage those at the beginning levels to start on a leadership path."

Yahng's own leadership path began in the turmoil of wartime China.

EARLY YEARS

With World War II raging, Yahng--the third of four brothers--was literally born on the run in Yutu, a small village in the countryside near Shanghai. It was there his parents took refuge as they fled from Japanese forces.

When Yahng was five, his family moved to New Haven, Conn. It wasn't the first time in the United States for Yahng's parents, who were educated in the United States and had met upon their individual returns to China. Yahng's father earned his juris doctorate from New York University, while his mother earned a bachelor's degree from Vassar College and a master's from the University of Michigan.

Growing up, Yahng was no stranger to the accounting profession. Rather than practice law, Yahng's father attended night school and earned an accounting degree. The family moved from Connecticut to Kentucky when Yahng was 11 after his father accepted a job as treasurer at Berea College.

Yet despite the paternal influence, accounting was not Yahng's first career choice. He received a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of the South, a small Episcopal school in Sewanee, Tenn., then continued to Emory University in Atlanta, where he earned an MBA with a concentration in marketing. After he graduated, like many young men in the 1960s, Yahng was drafted into the Army.

Two years later, after being discharged, Yahng caught the eye of Crown Zellerbach Corp. at a job fair in Atlanta. "They asked me if I would move to San Francisco, and they didn't have to ask twice," Yahng says. "I threw everything I owned into the back of my 1966 Barracuda and drove out."

Yahng worked at Crown from 1970-76 as a systems analyst and customer service office coordinator. But a chance meeting in 1976 re-introduced him to the possibilities of a CPA career.

EARLY CAREER

While working at Crown, Yahng shared an apartment with a few co-workers. When one of his roommates left, a young CPA named John Benson, a fraternity brother of another roommate, filled the vacancy. Neither man could guess the effect this...