Kimberly Ellison-Taylor has been in rooms most people never get access to. NASA. KPMG. Oracle. The chair of the AICPA. A founding member of CHIEF. She has watched the accounting profession talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion for decades, and she has a clear-eyed view of why the needle moves so slowly.

Kimberly joins host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to cut through the buzzwords and get into what firms actually need to do: remove the bias baked into hiring and promotion systems, build leaders who know how to create real belonging, and stop treating inclusion as a separate initiative from the talent strategy it actually is.

The talent shortage is not going to solve itself. Firms that continue ignoring who they are losing and why will find the problem getting harder to fix, not easier.

What you'll take away:

• Why the talent pipeline problem and the inclusion problem are the same problem
• How unconscious bias in hiring and promotions compounds over time
• What it means to lead inclusively in practice, not just in principle
• Why firms need to communicate clearly about fairness and anti-discrimination even when it feels uncomfortable
• How mentorship and professional networks change advancement outcomes for underrepresented professionals
• What it costs firms long-term to deprioritize workplace inclusion

Resources & Links

• Connect with Kimberly Ellison-Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberly-n-ellison-taylor-b1a13a2/
• Learn more about KET Solutions: https://ketsolutions.com
• Participate in the MOVE Project: https://accountingmoveproject.com

About MOVE Like This MOVE Like This is the podcast for accounting firm leaders building more equitable, competitive, and people-first firms. New episodes drop bi-weekly during survey season and monthly in the off-season. Hosted by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk.

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A lot of the decisions firms are making about DEI right now are driven by fear of legal exposure. Employment attorney Aislinn Sroczynski thinks that fear is mostly misplaced, and in some cases, it is actually creating the risk firms are trying to avoid.

Aislinn joins host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to lay out exactly what the law says, what has changed, and what has not. Core federal anti-discrimination laws remain fully in effect. Most inclusive practices that were lawful before are still lawful now. The firms that are dismantling programs wholesale out of political anxiety are not playing it safe. They are making a different and potentially more costly mistake.

The conversation is grounded, practical, and exactly what firm leaders need before making any decisions about their DEI strategy in the current environment.

What you'll take away:

• Why the legal landscape for DEI is more stable than the political noise suggests
• What firms can confidently continue: inclusive hiring, bias training, open ERGs, supplier diversity
• Where the actual legal lines are and how to make sure your programs stay on the right side of them
• Why reactive rollbacks create new legal and reputational exposure rather than reducing it
• How documentation and regular program review protect your firm regardless of which way the political winds shift

Resources & Links

Connect with Aislinn Sroczynski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aislinn-sroczynski-637179b0/

Royer Cooper Cohen Braunfeld: https://www.rccblaw.com

Participate in the Accounting MOVE Project: https://accountingmoveproject.com/

About MOVE Like This MOVE Like This is the podcast for accounting firm leaders building more equitable, competitive, and people-first firms. New episodes drop bi-weekly during survey season and monthly in the off-season. Hosted by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk.

🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode

Sarah Elliott started her career as a CPA. Then she noticed something: the profession was excellent at developing technical skills and almost completely unprepared to develop leaders. So she built Intend2Lead to close that gap.

Sarah joins host Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to walk through the Conscious Leader model, a framework built on mindset, skill set, and habits that moves accounting leaders away from control and toward something more powerful: human-centered leadership grounded in empathy, courage, and genuine curiosity.

The conversation takes a sharp turn into new Intend2Lead research on recently promoted partners, and the findings are uncomfortable. New partners are frequently surprised by the economics of partnership, receive limited feedback after the promotion, and often feel more isolated than they expected. The fix, Sarah argues, starts long before the promotion and requires sustained investment well after it.

What you'll take away:

• What separates leaders who build cultures of trust from those who build cultures of fear
• How the mindset, skill set, and habits framework develops leaders at every level
• Why new partner transitions often go sideways and what firms can do to prevent it
• How belonging and psychological safety translate directly into performance and retention
• Why the leaders best equipped for what's coming are the ones who stay relentlessly curious

Resources & Links

Connect with Sarah Elliott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahelliottcpaacc/

Learn more about Intend2Lead: https://intend2lead.com

Participate in the Accounting MOVE Project: https://accountingmoveproject.com/

About MOVE Like This MOVE Like This is the podcast for accounting firm leaders building more equitable, competitive, and people-first firms. New episodes drop bi-weekly during survey season and monthly in the off-season. Hosted by Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk.

🔔 Subscribe so you never miss an episode