Session Descriptions

This is a very current assessment of the US economy at the time of the presentation and a forward-looking analysis of trends to watch.

This session explores the rich insight that analytical procedures provide regarding fundamental aspects of an enterprise. We explore ways to better understand and control your organization’s operations by illustrating how analytical procedures can connect financial and non-financial measures. This session provides practical examples in addition to providing ideas for developing unique procedures for your company.

In today’s fast-paced corporate landscape, mastering the art of effective meetings is a crucial skill for leaders and teams alike. Meetings are often cited as the biggest drain on corporate staff’s time, but it doesn’t have to be this way! This course will transform the way you plan, execute, and extract value from your corporate meetings. Designed for professionals at all levels, this interactive session will provide actionable insights, strategies, and tools to turn your meetings into powerful engines of collaboration, innovation, and productivity.

Leading peers is crucial to breaking down silos in your organization and preventing them from occurring in the first place. Yet, it’s the most complex and underrated form of leadership because there’s no role power between you and your peers. Effective peer-to-peer leadership depends entirely on expanding your influence. This session will show you how to develop healthy, productive working relationships with peers. Learn how to build alignment and alliances that will move key organization-wide priorities forward and elevate your chances for promotion to an executive level.

With approximately 500 functions now available in Excel, some newer and more powerful tools are easily overlooked. But, if you do that, your productivity will suffer. In this session, you will learn how to take advantage of many of Excel’s more advanced features – some new and some legacy – to elevate your productivity to higher levels.

In this session, you will learn about many of Excel’s newer tools, including XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, SWITCH, and STOCKHISTORY. Also included in this session are discussions of advanced financial functions, such as IPMT and PPMT, and how to retrieve summarized data easily using GETPIVOTDATA and CUBEVALUE. Additionally, you will learn how to make sophisticated calculations easier with Dynamic Array formulas, harness the AGGREGATE function's power, and create more accurate forecasts with Excel’s FORECAST.ETS function. Regardless of your experience working with Excel, participating in this course will help you work more efficiently and effectively in Excel.

This course explores actual fraud circumstances through the lens of potential prevention. We examine selected fraud to see how they were accomplished so we can consider what controls may have prevented fraudsters from performing their nefarious acts. Participants also will exercise their own professional judgment as we explore case-based scenarios. This course ultimately provides practical, action-oriented insight that can be implemented by accounting professionals in both industry and public practice.

Remaining calm in the storm is the foundation of high performance – whether you’re leading a team, navigating change, meeting tight deadlines, or dealing with demanding clients. This engaging, practical session blends mental conditioning strategies with modern tools for emotional agility, mental strength, and sustained focus. Learn how to stay grounded under pressure, bounce back from setbacks, and train your mind like a pro.

Coaching has become a crucial tool for professional development. Early career workers increasingly seek it from their leaders and view it as a workplace benefit. Yet, many leaders misunderstand even the basics of coaching and lack essential coaching skills. Discover the essence of coaching, why it is uniquely effective for developing your team, and how to develop valuable coaching skills.

This session teaches professionals how to move beyond theory and start using AI to work smarter, faster, and more accurately. This hands-on session explores how public accounting and industry finance teams can use AI tools for tasks like reporting, forecasting, audit analytics, and client service. Participants will see real-world examples of automation, gain practical implementation tips, and learn how to balance innovation with professional responsibility. Discover how to measure your AI ROI, enhance productivity, and position your firm or department for success in the AI-driven accounting era.

Professional skepticism isn’t just for auditors and accountants in public practice. This session explores the benefits of professional skepticism for professionals in business and industry. We use insights from auditing, accounting, and other professional guidance to illuminate best practices for developing, maintaining, and utilizing a mindset of professional skepticism.

In a profession defined by deadlines, data, and daily demands, it’s easy to feel stuck in routines that drain your energy or slow your progress. This hands-on workshop brings the book Atomic Habits to work life, showing how small behavior shifts can drive big results in focus, organization, productivity, and personal performance. Using examples and scenarios tailored to the finance world, attendees will learn how to build systems for success, reduce friction in their workflows, and replace inefficient habits with high-impact ones – without needing more hours in the day.

Critical thinking drives value in your day-to-day work and in the high-value projects and decisions that enable you to deliver greater impact. Build a repeatable habit stack for better judgment under pressure and deadlines. Learn to scan context, ask smarter questions, label trends versus anomalies, and uncover root causes. Explore concrete tools to test assumptions, review trends and patterns, and translate analysis into decision-ready recommendations. Employ AI as a tool to enhance, not replace judgment by adding context, questioning outputs, and converting results into your own words.

Fraud continues to plague businesses at epidemic levels, and technology control failures are a significant reason fraud occurs. Using a case study approach, in this session, you will learn about the pervasiveness of fraud, the control failures contributing to fraud, and what you can do to mitigate fraud risk.

A specific focus of this course is applying information technology general controls and information technology application controls. In this course, you will examine numerous reported fraud cases and identify the general and application control failures that contributed to each fraud. By learning through these real-world case studies, you will be positioned better to reduce fraud risk.

This course allows you to get reacquainted with the statement of cash flows. We refresh your skills regarding both the preparation and utilization of the statement of cash flows. Significant emphasis will be placed on the informational role of the statement of cash flows and insights that can be obtained by using the statement of cash flows in concert with the other elements of a company’s accrual-basis financial statements.

If you’ve ever felt frustrated that your financial message didn’t land, you’re not alone. The gap between financial fluency and everyday understanding is real. Why? Because accounting and finance is a special language. Your expertise has made you fluent in this language, but many of your listeners aren’t – other departments, associates, customers, or clients. This fun, practical workshop will help you bridge that gap, turning financial details into clarity your audience can understand and act on.

Quiet quitting. Grumpy Staying. The Great Resignation. The Turnover Tsunami. Career Cushioning. Coffee badging. WFH. WFA. RTO.

Whatever the moniker of the moment, there’s no doubt leadership gets more challenging by the minute. A shrinking labor pool, generational differences, evolving workplace models, artificial intelligence, and rapid, constant change confront leaders like never before. How will you meet these challenges? Only with Your Best Leadership, day in and day out, throughout your entire organization.

In this inspirational keynote presentation, Jon shares two profound leadership lessons from his first job as a teenager. Explore vital practices to become the leader everyone wants to follow. Discover the secret of showing your team members you have their best interests at heart—while working together to accomplish crucial business results. Employ a simple tool to consistently deliver Your Best Leadership.

Generative AI and “ransomware for hire” have helped cybercriminals thrive in the post-pandemic period – but how do they do it? This all-new session is a series of case studies that examine actual criminal filings and news accounts and use them to highlight some of the actions you can take to limit your exposure to similar schemes. Attend this session and learn more about how high-profile control failures occurred so you can be more effective at preventing crimes such as theft, malware, ransomware, phishing, and hacking.

Burnout isn’t the problem. What drives it is—and that’s what Vanessa transforms.

This isn’t another burnout talk. Leaders and organizations already know about boundaries, self-care, and saying no—but they’re still answering emails at midnight and calling it dedication. Vanessa McNeal helps audiences get to the root of their survival patterns by uncovering the core questions driving their behavior—and guiding them to discover new empowering questions that spark authenticity, alignment, and sustained high performance.

Through a brain-based framework, she teaches audiences how to recognize stress and survival patterns in real time and shift them into energy, focus, innovation, and deeper connection. Packed with practical strategies and inspiring stories, this keynote equips participants to perform at their best without burning out while strengthening self-awareness and team cohesion.

The toughest leadership moments rarely come with clear answers. They typically come with pressure, competing priorities, diverse personalities, and difficult conversations. In this ethics keynote, we explore what really drives ethical decision making and actions when emotions and stakes are high. You will discover how personality styles influence how we interpret situations, respond to conflict, and communicate under pressure, often in ways we do not fully recognize. More importantly, we will focus on options in those moments, including how to navigate ethical gray areas, and how to address challenging situations so you can act with confidence. The "hybrid idea" concept will be presented to resolve conflict in a way that aligns with both personal values and business interests. You will leave with practical ideas, much greater self-awareness, and respect for other’s needs. Strategies you can immediately apply to lead with confidence, ethical credibility, and maintain personal integrity. We will illustrate several of these interesting strategies with unique ethical conflict resolution skits. 

Corporate risk management is under increasing scrutiny from auditors, regulators, and shareholders. Properly managed, an organizations risk management process embraces opportunity and avoids hazards. When risk is improperly managed, the organization’s value can plummet and key executives resign in disgrace. While nominal risk management responsibility rests with the board of directors, boards increasingly turn to the CFO to lead risk management efforts.

Two unique aspects are combined to build and maintain high performance teams. Leaders must be skillful in both matching the right people to the right tasks based on natural talent and personality style matching. This session provides illustration and examples of how these two principles can be applied for high performance teams. Both speakers will share their personal stories and team building successes using these two principles.

New to Al? Start here. This beginner-friendly course explains how generative Al works, what terms like "LLM" and "agentic Al" really mean, and how CPAs can safely put these tools to use. You'll leave with a solid understanding of Al fundamentals and how they apply to accounting, tax, and finance.

Most management reports are misunderstood and misused. Reports are dull and have been presented in the same manner for decades. Do your audiences sometimes fail to get the message? Learn how to grab your audiences’ attention and deliver an actionable message. Discover the power of “The Trifecta” and the five secrets of effective reports and presentations. Learn how to make your messaging a “rememberable event.” Learn how to give the users what they need to know. We will discuss how to make your reports useful and understandable to your audience. If management does not understand the financial reports they receive, and most do not, this seminar will provide keen insight to make your reports useful. Be the hero who delivers informative reports. We will show great examples of what to do and how.

Leaders are under constant stress. Often times they neglect their own self-care. They need to maintain mental sharpness and physical energy so they can keep themselves in top condition for those they lead. This session introduces the motivational high point system of daily/weekly energy management. How to start your day on a high note, maintain top performance throughout the day and how to wind down at the end of the day for restful, regenerative sleep. Both speakers will share their experiences using this system and amazing results from others who adopted this method. Research from the Rochester Institute of Technology on mindset and health will also be shared.

Believe it or not, Al is not the only mega trend in the information technology landscape. There are many other trends that enable and leverage the power of Al. As a CPA professional, it is imperative that you develop a baseline understanding of the key technology trends that are impacting businesses across the board. This course will provide the update you need to help you understand the nature of the key technologies and the role they play.

Since we operate in a dynamic, ever-changing market, why do we typically use static capital budgeting models? Traditional, static models are not enough. An integrated capital budgeting approach will result in greater overall returns and stronger impact to the bottom line.

In this interactive, in-person session, you’ll discover the unique value you bring in a world increasingly shaped by AI. You’ll explore practical ways to lean into your strengths to support both personal and professional growth. Together, we’ll create a simple, sustainable plan you can confidently stick to as you elevate the areas where you most want to grow.

Microsoft 365 is likely the most underutilized software investment in your business. This course will show how to tap it to many of the lesser known features of the Microsoft 365 ecosystems of apps to maximize your productivity and produce better outputs. Through a series of practical case study demonstrations you will learn how to leverage the full potential of Microsoft 365 in your organization.

Worldwide trends can impact our business. In general, accountants are so detail oriented that we sometimes don’t pay attention to the “bigger picture” and don’t see the impact emerging business models, innovative technologies or global competition have on our organizations. This session discusses six mega-trends and how they can crate both hazards and opportunities for your company.

An overview of North Dakota’s distinctive fiscal strengths and the budgetary challenges that shape the state’s financial landscape.

When team members feel safe in any feedback exchange, that is where the real magic of elevated teamwork, performance, and success happens. In this session, your team will learn the art of feedback in an easy, effective way.

Believe it or not, Al is not the only mega trend in the information technology landscape. There are many other trends that enable and leverage the power of Al. As a CPA professional, it is imperative that you develop a baseline understanding of the key technology trends that are impacting businesses across the board. This course will provide the update you need to help you understand the nature of the key technologies and the role they play.

Behind every professional achievement are people who made it possible: mentors, colleagues, and supporters who “packed your parachute.” In this reflective session, Gian Paul Gonzalez challenges participants to lead with gratitude by recognizing those who invested in their growth. Living ALL IN means honoring these relationships, fostering a culture of appreciation, and creating space for empathy, connection, and mutual respect across teams and organizations.