Meet the Experts!

This course was developed with the expertise and contributions of:

Amanda Aguillard 
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Bio: Amanda Aguillard decided to become a CPA when she was 16, and never looked back. She started Aguillard Accounting LLC in 2012, committed to running a cloud-based practice from anywhere in the world. She was the Xero Evangelist of the Year in 2016 and used her experience as an instructor of the Xero Certification Course to co-found Elefant, a software training company. She has been a Hubdoc Top 50 Cloud Accountant for the last two years and regularly speaks at state CPA societies and industry technology conferences like Accountex, Clio Cloud Conference and Xerocon. She is also the Senior Xero Editor for Accountex. She spends any spare time cooking for her two kids and reading historical fiction. While she holds a Masters Degree in Taxation from the University of Denver, she would much rather craft and implement ecosystems for small businesses, and help other advisors build and grow cloud-based practices.

Amy Franko
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Bio: Amy Franko is a strategic sales expert working with professional services, insurance, and technology organizations to accelerate sales results. She’s a keynote speaker, sales strategist, and author specializing in B2B sales and sales leadership development. With over 20 years of client-facing sales experience, Amy began her career with global companies IBM and Lenovo before pivoting into entrepreneurship. Her book of business includes some of the world’s most recognizable brands. Amy’s book, The Modern Seller, is an Amazon best seller and was also named a 2018 top sales book by Top Sales World. In addition, Amy is recognized by Top Sales World as one of the top 50 sales bloggers in the world. Learn more and download a free chapter of The Modern Seller at www.amyfranko.com.

Clayton Oates
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Bio: Clayton Oates is an award winning and highly respected member of the Accounting | Bookkeeping and Technology Industries. He has been working in the Accounting Profession for more than 25 years. After starting his career as a Tax Accountant at PwC he went on to create and build a successful SoftwareAdvisory division in one of Australia’s leading Accounting firms. Today he devotes much of his time sharing his insights and experiences with Accounting professionals around the globe, inspiring others on how to embrace and implement technology in order to enhance quality of life for you and your clients.

Garrett Wager
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Bio: The Entrepreneurial CPA, Garrett Wagner CPA/CITP is an industry thought leader on a mission to fuel the entrepreneurial spirit and passion within the industry. With his ability to break free from the traditional CPA box, Garrett has embraced the entrepreneurial mindset and is on a mission to help others embrace the skills and knowledge needed to succeed.

Garrett focuses on monitoring the evolving technologies and best practices in the industry to achieve the highest degree of success without being afraid to break free from traditional methods. Garrett’s background includes working inside successful CPA firms, speaking at conferences and events, and consulting for CPA firms across the country helping them to ignite lasting change by understanding the unique needs of each firm organization.

Garrett believes that the public accounting landscape is undergoing a tremendous change and that by focusing on developing the next generation of leaders through education and leveraging technology any sized firm can be successful.

Geni Whitehouse
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Bio: Geni Whitehouse, CPA.CITP divides her time between working as a winery consultant at Brotemarkle, Davis & Co in the Napa Valley, working with MentorPlus.com to move the profession forward, and writing, speaking, and tweeting at EvenANerd.com. Her mission in life is to make boring subjects interesting and she is seldom at a loss for topics.

She is a regular keynote presenter at CPA and Technology conferences around the country and has been named a Top 100 Influencer by Accounting Today, one of 25 Thought Leaders in Accounting, and one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor. She was a member of the TEDxNapaValley organizing committee and was the first speaker at their inaugural event.

She is a co-founder of Solve Services, a remote bookkeeping business for the wine industry and is the author of “How to Make a Boring Subject Interesting: 52 ways even a nerd can be heard” which is available on Amazon.com.

Jason Blumer
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Bio: Jason and his partner have been leading their own firm, Blumer & Associates, CPAs , for over 15 years. The firm was one of the first to move from a traditional office to a virtual environment, where they serve various creative service niches. He and his partner focus heavily on business coaching and consulting with firms and agencies, while their team meets the technical and compliance needs of the client. Jason is the co-host of two podcasts, the Thrivecast and The Businessology Show and speaks and writes frequently for creative agencies. He has been honored as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting (Accounting Today).

Jeff Phillips
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Bio: Jeff Phillips is an entrepreneur and business leader who has spent the last 19 years in the recruitment industry. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Accountingfly, an online recruitment platform that matches accountants and bookkeepers with full time, remote and freelance jobs. He is also an advisor to Elefant, a practice management and technology training company for modern accounting firms. Jeff was previously with Monster.com where he delivered recruitment solutions for Fortune 500 clients. He was named among the Top 100 Most Influential People by Accounting Today for 3 consecutive years. Jeff has a Bachelors Degree in Economics from Baylor University and a Masters of Business Administration from Southern Methodist University.

Jordan Cooper
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Bio: Jordan has been a part of the Accounting Industry for his entire career. Working as an accountant, he has experienced the frustration that many business owners face when dealing with antiquated systems and cumbersome workflow processes. This ignited his passion for enabling accountants to spend more time on value-added activities for their practice and empowering their clients to focus on driving their business with the confidence that the financial data will be accurate, timely and readily available.

Lee Frederiksen
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Bio: Lee Frederiksen is a rare combination of businessman and research scientist. An award-winning marketer, Visible Expert®, and business strategist, he draws on his Ph.D. in behavioral psychology and his own deep experience as CEO and entrepreneur to help firms achieve high growth and high profitability.The author of six acclaimed books on marketing and business and the Managing Partner of Hinge, a marketing firm for the professional services industry, Lee can be found serving up wisdom in his humorous, straightforward style at speaking engagements around the country.

Tate Henshaw
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Bio: Tate has always been obsessed with problem-solving. It led him to major in mathematics at the University of Georgia, which led him to Polay+Clark. Whether it's helping design a proprietary royalty database, integrating a cloud-based merchandise fulfillment system for a Grammy-Winner, or running a Net Present Value calculation on a contract proposal for a NBA All-Star, he's yet to come across a problem he can't solve. He brings this love of efficiency to the cloud accounting landscape via custom-curated ecosystem's for his clients. This results in additional free time for his passion in music and quality time with his wife and two young daughters.