The Story
My diverse entrepreneurial experiences begin in the public accounting sector where I quickly advanced under the tutelage of several highly regarded mentors in various industries. My diverse experience in accounting and tax allowed me to make a powerful impact in several industries throughout my career. I began my accounting career in 1999 during the economic boom and worked with a lot of good and bad companies. For me, I think my real learning was from the bad companies, you learn what not to repeat. Leveraging these dynamic capabilities opened several doors to many successful projects for both commercial and government entities, internationally and domestically.
ACCOUNTING – Realistically accounting was taught at my first job in public accounting (large regional firm). Take-aways: learn, learn and learn. What? Accounting and how it works in a business. The real learning comes from 2 aspects: 1) Your mentors and the clients – how they operate and what is logical, and 2) Your peers. Beginning at an accounting firm, the cohorts that are sitting next to you doing the same things each day is a learning environment that will almost never be reproduced. Big picture these relationships grow into deep career opportunities and often times a spouse (I found my wife in public accounting).
STRATEGIC PLANNING: Equity structures and tax implications is what business owners really want to know. This has changed dramatically during my tenure and is taking a entire new direction with ICOs (Initial Coin Offerings) and STOs (Standardized Token Offerings). Understanding these structures to implement critical frameworks is the value-add. This creates an entire new dimension to accounting that the industry is ignorant to. My mentors (national firm partners with high pedigrees) do not understand, know crypto-currencies/blockchain and the economics! STOs are the future and all the major banks are exploring feverishly.
MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP – My start was in public accounting, I would recommend this for every accountant graduating college. Public accounting will teach you accounting, it does not teach you management. Moreover, at some point in public accounting almost everyone passes the CPA exam. Although it increases the accountant’s credibility, it does NOT increase their knowledge and often times promotes them into a management function (Senior Accountant or Manager in public accounting terms). These are NOT leaders, nor do they teach you to be a leader. I left public accounting after six busy seasons as a manager (I should have not been there two years), my leadership skills at this point were basically a myopic accountant. Don’t fall into this trap!
FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT – I began my career in 1999 and advanced to the CFO level in 2008. It was a long path for me and I do not necessarily think it was linear or easy. Cohorts have always told me I am smart, I achieved this role because I was a hard worker and learned from a lot of bad businesses. Pay attention. Why was I at the table, simply because I was an accountant. I was and am successful because I built relationships, communicated as much as possible and embraced change especially as it related to accounting.
SUCCESS – For me success in accounting was a result of hard work and taking ownership to each client that I supported. I am fortunate in that I had a lot of good and bad clients. The bad clients teach you want not do to, however, it was those relationships that resulted in a very successful exit for myself. The good clients and companies that I worked for taught me what to do and where to focus. Focus on the business and where the value is earned. Accounting provides a seat at the table, earning results when you earn the seat at the table for value-add participation.
Ryan D. Fuller
"Really smart and focused. Took our company and financially organized it for a successful exit. Easy to work with and I hope to have an opportunity to work with him again. Really amazing." Quote from CEO-Founder (Sell-side transaction).
