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Ken Witt

Technical Manager
AICPA (that's us)
Durham, NC

 

In college, Ken Witt lucked out. He had a “terrific” teacher for his Accounting 101 class—which he only took as an “experiment” when trying to decide his major. “I found that I had an interest and skill for accounting,” Ken says.

After that, he was hooked. His luck continued when he sat for—and passed—the CPA exam a week before graduating with an accounting degree. “When I graduated from college, I was attracted to the variety of experience that the audit practice of a public accounting firm offered,” Ken says.

He began his career with a former Big 8 firm. “My client experience ranged from one of the largest insurance companies to small manufacturing companies and a few not-for-profit organizations in-between,” he says.

Since then, Ken’s been an internal auditor at a tax shelter investment company, an Assistant Controller at a company owned by one of the wealthiest women in the world and has even taken a “career detour” when he pursued a degree in social work and spent several years working in psychiatry at a hospital in the Bronx.

Now Ken works at the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. “A day in my life is spent planning conferences, working on guidelines, serving on task forces and developing communications about topics and issues that our members in business need to be aware of in order to be successful in their careers,” he says.

But Ken always finds time to unwind from a busy day. “I am a serious bicyclist, an aspiring golfer, a not-so-serious tennis player and an occasional kayaker,” he says. Plus, he volunteers on the Board of Directors for his local public school Foundation and serves on the finance committee at his church.

So, if you want a bit of Ken’s luck to rub off on you, take a piece of his advice. “Pursuing the CPA will offer you a career that will be intellectually and financially rewarding, provide you with a community of peers, some of whom will become lifelong connections and open doors for you that you could not imagine.”

Got questions of your own? Ask a CPA.