In a little more than one year, Krista McMasters will become chief executive officer of Clifton Gunderson LLP, a certified public accounting and consulting firm currently headquartered in Peoria, Ill.
When she takes the helm of Clifton Gunderson on June 1, 2009, the company’s headquarters will be shifted to Milwaukee and McMasters will become the first woman to lead one of the 25 largest CPA firms in the country.
“I think the fact that she’s female is just a coincidence,” said Rick Goldenson, managing partner with Clifton Gunderson. “I could speak for hours about her qualifications – she’s smart, dedicated to the firm, she has a very visionary mindset, she’s a hard worker, a team player who is a leader and role model and is well-respected both in our firm and within our profession. It’s just phenomenal what she is capable of doing.”
Barry Melancon, president and CEO of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, a trade association of CPAs, agreed. “She’s there as it relates to her skills, regardless of her gender,” Melancon said.
Clifton Gunderson has more than 2,000 employees in 45 offices throughout the nation. The company posted $250 million in revenues in 2007, up from $210 million in 2006.
McMasters’ work as the company’s chief practice officer – which includes oversight of its growth goals, strategic plan, compliance, quality assurance, new product launch and human resources – has prepared her to lead the firm.
McMasters has worked for Clifton Gunderson since 1978, when she was hired by Carl George, the company’s current CEO. George managed the company’s Danville, Ill., office at the time, and McMasters was a recent University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign graduate.
At the time, McMasters lacked real-world experience, George said. However, she possessed the rare combination of solid accounting book knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge in real-world situations with clients, he said.
“You could tell that she is very intelligent but she also understood how to apply her intelligence to our clients’ situations,” George said. “She’s got the best of both worlds. I saw in her that she could apply her book knowledge with clients – she’s able to solve problems almost immediately.”
McMasters was admitted as a partner at Clifton Gunderson in 1985 and became its director of assurance services in 1989. She currently serves as chief practice officer.
She has worked from the company’s Milwaukee office since 1994. Her husband at the time, Mark Kaland, also a partner at Clifton Gunderson, was promoted to lead the Milwaukee office.
However, Kaland passed away in 2003.
McMasters remarried in 2006 to Rob McMasters.
When George announced his intended retirement last year, the company formed a CEO selection task force, Goldenson said. Although the company considered multiple candidates, McMaster’s qualifications were clearly evident, he said.
“Frankly, it was an easy choice to make,” Goldenson said. “She’s been a part of the senior management team for years and she’s very passionate about the practice and the firm. She has many people that she’s responsible for, including our audit practice and forensic services. The quality control in our firm is known for its high quality. We are routinely selected as a peer review firm for other (CPA) firms, and Kris is a good part of the reason for that process.”
Instead of taking credit for her achievements, McMasters credits Clifton Gunderson’s corporate culture for giving her the opportunity to grow into leadership roles.
“It certainly is about the firm and not about me,” she said. “I think that Clifton Gunderson has always been a progressive, forward-looking firm that allows anybody to develop into the position that I am in, male or female.”
People focus
McMasters has been integrally involved in Clifton Gunderson’s strategic planning, new product launches and ensuring compliance for years. She also has been deeply involved in the company’s human resources department, helping it develop, implement and maintain its employee recruiting, training and retention program.
In 1998, Clifton Gunderson was having a tough time attracting and retaining employees. The company’s employee turnover rate was around 30 percent.
“I knew that we were not keeping the people we needed to keep, and ultimately I was vocal about that and had a lot of discussion with our CEO at the time,” she recalled. “He told me to write a strategic paper about our HR functions and what we should do differently.”
The white paper eventually became a framework for Priority One, an initiative within Clifton Gunderson’s human resources department focused on hiring, training and retaining workers.
“What Priority One did and continues to do is make us engage our functions to be really about developing our people,” McMasters said. “It’s really about recruiting the best people we can find and providing the skill sets to get them to succeed at CG and doing everything we can to keep them.”
Priority One also stresses training and mentoring employees, McMasters said.
“It is everybody’s priority at Clifton Gunderson to develop themselves and the others that work for them,” she said. “We have many different programs to help manage people and develop their strengths.”
Priority One was implemented in 1999, and it lowered the company’s turnover rate to about 15 percent in three years. Clifton Gunderson has maintained its retention rate since.
“For our profession today, which is extremely competitive, the demand for accountants is way higher than the availability,” McMasters said.
Priority One has helped Clifton Gunderson become a company that routinely wins awards for its human resources programs, said Lauren Malensek, chief human resources officer of the Priority One program.
“All of these human resources programs are new and have been developed over the last eight years,” Malensek said. “They’re multi-generational, innovative and progressive. To me, that defines Kris and who she is. That’s one of the reasons I came here to work for her. Kris is an accountant and CPA as a trade, but she’s so much more than that. She’s a true business professional leader across so many other functional areas in the firm.”
McMasters’ ability to assemble working teams based on individuals’ strengths will help both her and Clifton Gunderson when she becomes its CEO, Malensek said.
“She’s absolutely amazing,” Malensek said. “She has a unique ability to position people to their strengths – she’s able to build and strategically lead high-performing teams around her. And she trusts her people.”
Building women leaders
McMasters also has helped Clifton Gunderson’s human resources department develop its focus on attracting, developing and retaining female employees. Clifton Gunderson’s full-time workforce is now almost 54 percent female.
Flexible scheduling has played a crucial role in the company’s ability to retain talented women, she said.
“If we had not embraced flexible work arrangements, it would be very difficult to develop women into leadership roles in the firm,” she said. “It’s just difficult for them to balance (their lives) in a traditional schedule from January to April because that’s where a significant portion of the work takes place.”
Several high-level female employees use the flexible scheduling, McMasters said.
“We have a female partner, and she is on a flexible arrangement,” she said. “We have several female senior managers and managers that are on flexible work arrangements here. And each one of their schedules is different, depending on their individual needs.”
Clifton Gunderson recently formed a task force to improve its programs to attract, develop and retain female workers. The task force is examining how the company can stay connected better with women who are out on maternity or other leaves of absence, McMasters said.
The CPA industry is starting to promote more women, Melancon said. About 52 percent of the industry’s entry level workers are now female, and about 20 percent of all partners in CPA firms are women, Melancon said.
“What we’re seeing is more people obtaining experience over time,” Melancon said. “And Krista and Clifton Gunderson have been on the leading edge of that. (Her promotion), it’s a great honor for her to achieve that.”
Eye on growth
When McMaster becomes CEO of Clifton Gunderson, the company’s corporate headquarters will move to Milwaukee. Most of the company’s firm-wide functions such as human resources are already here because McMasters oversees them.
The 27,500-square-foot Milwaukee office has 104 employees.
Although the Milwaukee office will only add a few employees when it becomes Clifton Gunderson’s corporate headquarters, the company will likely be in the market for new office space soon, McMasters said.
“Gradually, we are going to need more space because this is a growing, vibrant practice in Milwaukee,” she said. “We’re almost at the limits now.”
If Clifton Gunderson considers new office space, it will seek to stay near the Milwaukee County Research Park, where it is currently located.
“I think we’re really happy in the Research Park,” McMasters said. “It’s centrally located. Almost all of our practice is us going to where the client is, so we want to be convenient to our employees.”
Clifton Gunderson also is eyeing several other markets around the nation for expansion.
Many of Clifton Gunderson’s employees are based in offices in Baltimore and metro Washington, D.C., on the East Coast, in Colorado and Arizona in the West, and in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin in the Midwest. The company is considering strategic expansions and acquisitions within those markets, McMasters said.
“It takes a lot of resources to go completely into a new market unless it’s a pretty big opportunity,” she said. “We’re really focused on growing what we have more than anything.”
Clifton Gunderson also has an office in Austin, Texas. Although the office is not an area where the company has a large number of workers, the area is one the company believes it can have significant growth, McMasters said.
McMasters will help lead Clifton Gunderson to significant growth in the future because she has helped plan the company’s strategic plans and she understands all of the company’s functions and departments, George said.
“There are a lot of people that have to be on the same page to take it to the next level, and what you need is a leader with tremendous vision who understands the competitive and client environment,” George said. “And she does. You take her understanding of the environment, her vision and values and understanding of our (corporate) culture, and the sky’s the limit. I think you will see Clifton Gunderson go to the next level and a number of levels during her tenure as CEO.”
Krista McMasters Clifton Gunderson LLP
Chief practice officer (will become ceo on june 1, 2009)
Duties: Leads firm-wide strategic initiatives, implements growth plans, management of service and niche leaders, risk management, manages implementation of new products and services, oversight of human resources.
Professional activities: Member of Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Council (2007-present); member at large of the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts Council (2006-present).
Education: Bachelor’s degree in accounting, University of Illinois
Hometown: Catlin, Ill.; lives in Brookfield now.
Family: Husband, Rob McMasters
Hobbies: Exercise – running, aerobics, free weights and cardio machines.
