The power of one.

• Author: Tucker, Jeffrey H.
• Position: A message FROM THE CHAIR

This past October, I was struck by what newly elected AICPA Chair Bob Bunting had to say during a luncheon at the AICPA Council meeting.

In his speech, he talked about individuals establishing the greatness of a profession. The responsibility of the individual, in other words "professional citizenship," is something that really got me thinking.

When we were in grade school or high school, most of us took some type of class to learn about being responsible, contributing members of society. We learned what it meant to be a good citizen; about our own responsibility to do the right thing.

We are in a time when we need to redefine and expand the notion of citizenship. Not only must we be contributing members of our society, we must make that same commitment to our profession.

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This professional citizenship begins with each one of us. One voice can make a difference. One voice can quickly become 10, then 50. Before you know it, there is a roaring stadium that cannot be ignored.

You don't have to look far to see the power of an individual. One of the reasons the profession's reputation recovered so quickly is because the public identifies with their individual CPAs. At the root, it was the influence of individual CPAs doing the right thing and impacting the people around them. Multiply that by a thousand, and you can change a nation's perception.

Leveraging Change

We need to build upon that foundation of strong professional citizenship to continue making this a great profession. We need to build on the past and leave a legacy for the future. Our profession has seen tremendous change in the past few years. We need to leverage this change to our benefit. But we can't stop there. We also need to seek out other changes that need to be made for the good of the profession and society. Proactively leading is far superior to waiting for others to make the decisions.

The peer review program represents this very opportunity to lead change rather than have others decide what is right for our profession. We are in an environment of rising expectations. The public and regulatory agencies are seeking greater transparency and disclosure in almost every area of the financial...