Thank you.

• Author: Macfarlane, Sandy
• Position: Tax Executives Institute - President's page

When I began preparing for my year as TEI International President, I reached out to several past presidents to gain a general sense about their experiences, what was especially memorable, and what, if anything, they may have done differently. I was especially interested in two particular dimensions. First, the goal-setting process, and second, how to balance my "day job" with my TEI duties. Now, as my presidential term comes to a close, I would like to share their counsel, as a way both to express my sincere thanks for their guidance and to pass along their suggestions to those who will assume the duties of TEI president in the future.

First, they said, don't bite off too much. The presidential year flies by and thus the ability to see projects through from initiation to completion would likely present challenges. Candidly, because I've never much cared for starting things without being able to see them through, this piece of advice was encouraging. And, second, all reminded me that everyone on my leadership team was a TEI volunteer, regularly juggling competing professional and personal priorities and deadlines--wholly apart from TEI.

With those thoughts in mind, I embarked on building what would become a set of goals called "Building for the Future." These goals largely focused on making progress on several ongoing initiatives and bringing closure to and making decisions on a number of others. Common to all these efforts was adding member value and enhancing the member experience.

Emerging Tax Professionals

As I take a measure of our successes, I am pleased to report that our efforts to embrace emerging tax professionals continue at every level within our organization. Educational, orientation, and outreach programs have taken place at the chapter, regional, and Institute levels. Under the leadership of Emerging Tax Professionals (ETP) subcommittee co-chairs Emily Whittenburg (Houston Chapter) and Kris Rogers (Oklahoma City Chapter), TEI has embarked on an aggressive "train the trainer" program to expand our outreach to ETPs. Most recently, Kris led a presentation on that topic for our incoming chapter presidents at the Leadership Foundations Seminar.

Membership Recruitment

As of this writing, the Access Granted membership campaign is in full swing. This campaign operationalizes the recommendations of the membership recruitment task force to expand TEI's membership base through coordinated efforts that detail the benefits of Institute...