Business

Accountant Associations Launch International Group

The association for certified public accountants and the association for management accountants joined forces to create an international organization to serve all accounting professionals.

The American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the UK-based Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) are forming an international association to bring together professionals in the accounting field.

The new association will not replace the two groups, but instead members of both organizations will also become members of the new association—all while retaining their original memberships and benefits.

“We are excited about crafting a path forward that reflects how the world is changing,” AICPA President and CEO Barry Melancon said in a statement. “At the same time, we will be extraordinarily mindful of protecting our collective history and the strong reputation both organizations have built over the past century. This is about building on what is great—and addressing an exciting evolving world.”

The international association will keep the name of the AICPA/CIMA joint venture that began in 2011: Association of International Certified Professional Accountants (the Association).

“Our current joint venture with the AICPA has been extremely successful, so we are evolving this partnership,” CIMA CEO Charles Tilley said in a release. “In doing so we will support our members and students further, which means both greater resources, and the weight of a larger organization behind them.”

The Association will be designed to “integrate operations, resources, and management, and serves as an advocacy voice—which will be an advocacy voice of some 600,000 strong across multiple countries—and also to make sure we have the broadest platform for promoting the leading credentials in public and management accounting, CPA and CGMA,” said Janice Maiman, CAE, AICPA senior vice president of communications, media, news, and professional pathways.

Having an international association focused on the accounting profession will allow for “greater advocacy, greater resources, and greater relevance,” Maiman said. Specifically, by having an association that allows AICPA and CIMA to work together, they will be able to further invest in technology and resources to provide more value for the members, better navigate the global economy in terms of accounting, and monitor accounting regulations across borders to keep members informed.

“As we look forward, associations have an accountability to deliver value not just today, but for the next generation and to be real stewards of the profession,” Maiman said. “So I think this move is really about creating and positioning the membership bodies to remain relevant in the future, that the CPAs and CGMAs remain relevant in the future, that we are adapting to the environment as we need to to serve the next generation.”

AICPA currently has members in both public and management accounting, while CIMA is specifically focused on serving members who work in management accounting. The new association will deepen this alignment in one membership body. “Having the management accounting and public accounting experts even more closely aligned means that we are able to provide better resources to our respective members on the issues that affect them both,” Maiman said.

The new international association will officially launch in 2017 with leadership made up of representatives from both AICPA and CIMA.

(iStock/Thinkstock)

Alex Beall

By Alex Beall

Alex Beall is an associate editor for Associations Now with a masters in journalism and a penchant for Instagram. MORE

Got an article tip for us? Contact us and let us know!


Comments