Latest / The Accounting Podcast / Exploring Non-Traditional Accounting Careers in Government
Transcript
- Attention: This is a machine-generated transcript. As such, there may be spelling, grammar, and accuracy errors throughout. Thank you for your understanding! Blake Oliver: [00:00:09] Hey, everyone, and welcome back to the show. I'm Blake Oliver, David Leary: [00:00:12] I'm David Leary. Blake Oliver: [00:00:13] Our guest today is Cody Turley. Cody is a certified public accountant and a certified fraud examiner. He is currently a staff accountant at the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Atlanta regional office. Prior to this role, he served as the Chief Accountant of Enforcement at the Arizona Corporation Commission, where he led a team of forensic accountants investigating securities law violations. Cody's experience also includes working as a forensic accounting associate at ancora and interning at the SEC during his college years. Welcome to the show, Cody. Cody Turley: [00:00:44] Thanks. It's good to be here. Blake Oliver: [00:00:46] It's so great to have you. And the reason you're on the show is because we had an email back and forth. You were listening to one of the episodes where we talked about, uh, going Big Four versus going industry when you come out of school. And you said, it's not fair to compare Big Four to going into industry in general, because you've got to compare Big Four to top companies. Could you elaborate more on that? Cody Turley: [00:01:12] Yeah. So I think one of the benefits of going into Big Four, I don't want to say that that's not a good career path or good career choice, but it shows that you want are competitive in getting a job at a prestigious company that's well known, and work produces great work. And then it also shows that you have a deep accounting knowledge, and that you've been in a place where that's been able to develop. But I kind of really dislike the idea that that's the only place that you can do that. I didn't do that. I went to the SEC in an internship and then just started going in a midsize consulting firm and just had my career go exactly where I want it to go since then. Um, I also think that, you know, if you went and worked for Ford, I think I used the example or Microsoft or any big fortune 100 company that's going to show the same thing if you get in their audit group or not, their audit group, but one of their accounting groups, just any one of them really that you're interested in. And I think you're going to get that same resume bump from the name of the company. I think you're going to get the experience you need to develop your skills, and I think you can find that a lot more places than just the big four. David Leary: [00:02:26] So you said you, uh, interned with SEC. Yeah. How did that happen? Because there's so much noise on campus of big four. Big accounting, and they're buying people chick fil A and pizza parties. Like, how did they reach you or bubble up through all that noise? Cody Turley: [00:02:41] So I really liked the show suits, um, about attorneys, you know, just being super shady. And at one point they get in trouble with the SEC. And that just kind of peaked my mind about, oh, like, I'm interested in forensics. I should go and look at what that is. And I just applied online and I got a call back and that that's it. That's how I got that internship. I did a single interview and they're like, at the end of the interview, they're like, come intern with us. Blake Oliver: [00:03:12] That's great. So you're at the SEC again after interning and then going elsewhere. You're back. What's your job there at the SEC? Yeah. Cody Turley: [00:03:22] So I get to make auditors lives worse. Um, no. So at the SEC, you know, we regulate public companies, and that includes the auditors that do it. Um, and we also regulate just investments in general. And so I, a lot of my work is dealing with what we call offering frauds, which are when they sold the investment at the beginning, there was some sort of fraud. That means, like Ponzi schemes, you know, they're not telling you it's a Ponzi scheme that's an offering fraud. So we're investigating Ponzi schemes. I'm doing the asset tracing, finding where the money goes, and then I'm looking at financial statements, uh, audited financial statements, finding errors in them, or getting or getting tips from the public that, hey, you know, something looks wrong here. And then we'll dig into that deeper. We'll call the auditor, we'll call the company, send subpoenas out and just get them in for interviews and start looking at paperwork. Blake Oliver: [00:04:18] How did your internship at the SEC open doors for you? Cody Turley: [00:04:22] Yeah. Um, so if you ever get a call from the SEC as an auditor, you're going to respond, right? And so getting that internship at the SEC, that's just a name that the big four recognizes, that big audit firms, accounting firms, any accounting professional that's served at, worked at a high level is going to recognize. And it also just showed I had the accounting skill set needed to, you know, review the work of the big audit firms of the big accounting firms. And so just everywhere I applied to even now, I still get asked about my internship where I've had, you know, multiple jobs on my resume. And that was my first internship in college. Blake Oliver: [00:05:06] Is that intimidating at all? Here you are. You're you seem fairly young to me. Cody Turley: [00:05:11] Yeah, I'm. Blake Oliver: [00:05:11] 29. You're 29, and you're reviewing the work of the biggest professional services firms in the world, doing billions and billions of dollars of revenue. I would find that a bit intimidating. Like, how do you get over that hurdle? Cody Turley: [00:05:26] Yeah. Um, it's it's one of those things, you know, how they talk about, like, your parents always say, you know, oh, a wild animal is just as bad as afraid of you as you are of it. Yeah, that's kind of the situation you're in when you're talking to the auditors, like. Blake Oliver: [00:05:40] Oh, I got it. Cody Turley: [00:05:42] I don't have like I'm talking to partners, obviously, regardless of where I'm at currently. Like they're gonna have a really good handle on GAAP. They're gonna have a really good handle on the. Audit that they've done, they're going to know more about the company. And I just have to recognize, you know, I don't have to be better than them at this instance. I just need to know what they know and get their information. And it's, um, and so it's really just you look at the whole thing as a learning process and don't worry about. What really is going on, I guess. Blake Oliver: [00:06:15] How's the work environment at the SEC? It looks like you are coming to us from home. I take it that's not your your office. Cody Turley: [00:06:22] This is not my office. Blake Oliver: [00:06:23] So, you know, do you get to work remotely? Is it a hybrid thing? Cody Turley: [00:06:28] So it is two days in the office. A pay period is required. Um, which means once a week, essentially, on average. And, yeah, it's really flexible. Um, it's really great. You have a ton of support from your, your teammates and your supervisors, um, all the way up to the national level. Like, the, uh, DC office is super supportive of us, even out here in Atlanta and one of the mid-sized offices, I'm able to work from home with no complaints from my supervisors most of the time and move my schedule around as necessary. It's it's really supportive. Blake Oliver: [00:07:05] How are the hours? David Leary: [00:07:07] Beat me to it. Cody Turley: [00:07:08] So on the rare occasion I have to go over 40 hours. Um, we get leads for every hour we work over that. So. Blake Oliver: [00:07:18] So you work a couple extra hours and then you get to take that as paid time off later. Yeah, it seems fair. How much, uh, how much PTO do you get every year? Cody Turley: [00:07:30] Um. Six hours? Uh, well, I don't know about a year, but it's six hours. Uh, pay period, I think so. Blake Oliver: [00:07:37] So six every two weeks? Speaker4: [00:07:39] Yeah. Blake Oliver: [00:07:40] Okay. Yeah, that's. I'd have to do the math in my head, which I have learned not to do on this show because I'm inevitably wrong. And it's very embarrassing. Cody Turley: [00:07:47] So, like 120 ish hours. Yeah. Speaker4: [00:07:53] Cool. David Leary: [00:07:53] So what type of work did you do when you were interning for the SEC? I'm sure you had friends that were working, doing boring audit work, reconciling bank statements when they were doing their internships. What were you bragging about at the time? Cody Turley: [00:08:04] Yeah, so I just I was working in one of their offices that did it was the Office of Market Intelligence, and they just kind of review everything that comes in. So, you know, the tips, the complaints, referrals from other agencies, and they just kind of look at them and say, is this something we want to investigate and to, you know, do we does it actually look like a crime? And is it worth us investigating or should we refer it out to someone else? And so I just got to look at all these complaints in there. Um, I was in the accounting group, obviously, and I just looked at complaints against, you know, everything from the top companies in the country to random little frauds happening on the street. And I just looked at it and said, it's a little bit of research, said, yep, this looks like something we should investigate and handed it down. Blake Oliver: [00:08:53] So you've had a bit of, uh, you've had an opportunity to work in forensic accounting in your career as well. What was that like, leading a forensic accounting team in your 20s? Yeah. What? Like what were you doing? Cody Turley: [00:09:09] So this was at the Arizona Corporation Commission? Um, they're the securities regulator for the state of Arizona as well. So it's very similar work but centered in the fraud. And investigations are centered in Arizona. And it was the same sort of thing, just, you know, going after on a much smaller scale. It was going after like the street criminals, street criminals of white collar, you know, ripping off people's retirement funds, grandparents, some fairly large Ponzi schemes too, and just making sure that the companies that. We're accused of doing something wrong. You know, sometimes they weren't. But then we would just go in and dig through and make sure everything was was right. And, you know, leading that team was was really rewarding. I had everyone that I led was older than me, which I think I remember on one of your podcasts a while ago, talking about older individuals getting an accounting. It's just sometimes a struggle. But I found it as a young person, extremely rewarding to supervise people well, older than me. They had a lot more, you know, business experience. Some of them had a lot more years of forensic accounting and just to learn from them, but then also learn how to use them properly is just was great. Blake Oliver: [00:10:20] So you've mentioned Ponzi schemes and schemes now like multiple times. Are there just still a lot of Ponzi schemes going on in this country? Cody Turley: [00:10:29] All the time? All the time? Um, you can just Google Ponzi scheme and SEC and like five, five companies we've just charged will come up. Um. Speaker4: [00:10:41] It's. Cody Turley: [00:10:44] It's really sad, but it just it happens consistently because people see these big numbers and they think they can get, you know, a 10% return in a month. And if they just keep rolling it over, you know, that's their retirement in a year, they're done investing. And it happens. It happens all the time. It's it's really sad. And it's also surprisingly hard to pull some of the victims out and convince them that, yes, you are a victim. You need to work with us. Speaker4: [00:11:10] Mhm. Blake Oliver: [00:11:11] Right. Because the further in you are, the harder it is to admit that you made a terrible mistake. And that's a huge. Yeah. Speaker4: [00:11:20] That's a. Cody Turley: [00:11:21] That's a huge mental barrier for them. And then you know. Con artists are very good at their job. That's another thing is like, you have to realize that. It's these people's jobs. And you don't get a big Ponzi scheme unless you're good at conning people and they're good at making it seem feasible, seem real, seem like it can actually exist. And there are a lot of auditors that will help them do that too. David Leary: [00:11:48] So so what's obviously you've managed to grow some people skills and management skills. Did you also have to grow other skills to be good at forensic accounting like this. Like do you have to kind of have to. Do you have a little criminal in you? I guess maybe is a better question. Speaker4: [00:12:02] Yeah. Cody Turley: [00:12:03] So. It helps. Like this is a very personal thing, but it helps for me that I have Add because I, you know, I've go to court and testify and I think as I'm looking at my work, I'm like, what if the attorney asked this? And then what if they asked this? And then what if they asked this? And then what if they ask this and just keep going down these random little paths that my mind takes me on really helps me prepare for testimony in a courtroom? Um, because I just overthought and thought about every little thing that the attorney might ask me. And then, yeah, developing working with people with big egos is also a very good thing to become a forensic accountant, because the stereotypes about attorneys are often true, like very prideful, well-educated, smart people that just think they're the greatest thing. Blake Oliver: [00:12:59] And you have to stick to your guns, right? You have to. When you know you've found something that's not right, you can't let them use their charisma. Like those Ponzi scheme people, right? You can't let them roll over, you know? Cody Turley: [00:13:14] And it's also really important to be able to tell that to the attorneys that are on your side, too. You know, you talk about an audit, how it's sometimes difficult to go to the company and say, hey, we found this thing that looks wrong because, you know, you've worked with them for a while. It's difficult to have that sort of confrontation, and it affects your job and your work life. But as an accountant working with attorneys, I have to go to these attorneys and say, hey, this thing you thought and this thing you've worked on, writing a filing and paper over already. It's not right. We've got to start from scratch, or we've got to rework it, or we're not going to be able to prove this fraud. And so just being able to not only stick to your guns with opposing counsel, but with your own counsel is sometimes a bigger deal. Blake Oliver: [00:14:04] So you're working very closely then with the legal counsel, the lawyers at the SEC on these cases? Cody Turley: [00:14:11] Yeah. So it's just on it's just us, me and them on our cases going and doing the entire investigation, um, talking to victims, talking to company insiders. And it's it's great. It's really good to have that kind of difference and skill set. I really appreciate that. Blake Oliver: [00:14:31] Do you have a sorry. Go ahead. David. David Leary: [00:14:34] It sounds like this is very tedious work right. Like it needs individualized attention. It doesn't scale well, just like can you speak to the SEC? Are they overwhelmed and just behind by decades or years in the same way, like the IRS is right there just behind. They can't catch up. Like where's the SEC in that? Yeah. Cody Turley: [00:14:52] You know, I don't want to get into that too much. But we obviously are allocating our resources as we see fit. But we have great partners all over the country. You know, not every crime has to be investigated by the SEC. There's other federal agencies. There's other state agencies like I worked at in Arizona. So yeah, like it's not something that I feel particularly overwhelmed with, but there's always more fraud. Blake Oliver: [00:15:18] How long does a typical case take from when you open the file to when you, you know, close it. Cody Turley: [00:15:24] There's no it there's no set standard. Like there's no way I could give you a number. Like it can be a couple weeks to decades, not decades, but. Speaker4: [00:15:34] Years, years. Blake Oliver: [00:15:35] And years. Yeah. I mean, that's the ones we tend to hear about, right? The really big ones that take years to prosecute. Yeah. Um. Speaker4: [00:15:43] But I mean, you. Cody Turley: [00:15:44] Can look at, um, FTX, which that imploded fairly recently and the, um, um. The criminal side. They've already got him going to jail. So. Blake Oliver: [00:15:55] So how often are you going to court with the attorneys and providing testimony and, you know, getting on the stand. Speaker4: [00:16:02] Um. Cody Turley: [00:16:04] Probably once a year on average. Yeah. So it just kind of depends on how your cases end up. A lot of them will settle, some of them will not and go to court. So yeah. Speaker4: [00:16:18] Got it. Blake Oliver: [00:16:18] So it's mostly it's like getting all of the the case work together. Like putting putting together the case is basically what you're spending most of your time on. Cody Turley: [00:16:28] Yeah that's the vast majority of time. Um, yeah. It's like, I don't know, stapling the audit letter or audit report to the front of the financial statements is testifying for me. That's the very last thing that happens at the very end. Blake Oliver: [00:17:32] Cody, it's been great talking to you. Like this is fascinating. It's sort of an area of accounting that I never really met anyone, you know, who works at the SEC and does this. So thank you for sharing this with me and our listeners. And with David. Yeah. Um, do you have any advice for listeners who are students or perhaps young professionals who are interested in getting a government role, like what you do? Speaker4: [00:18:05] Yeah. Cody Turley: [00:18:06] Um, apply online like that's the government has much different hiring procedures, like even at a state level than the big four, um, or any accounting firm or any agency or company. That's much more about sometimes who you know or just getting in the door. But if you apply online, you're much more likely to get a call back if you're actually qualified, if you actually make it through the initial HR review. That's how I've gotten, you know, all of my government positions. And then. You know, government work too. You work in much smaller teams, which means you get to do a lot more, a lot quicker. So when I started at the Arizona Corporation Commission, I was only had a year of college or a year of experience outside of college, which after that, after I started there, my boss basically walked, handed me a case and said, hey, I want you to testify on this next month. So. Less than a year of experience, um, and I or a year of experience. And I'm testifying, which just doesn't happen at firms like. One of my managers at a firm I interned with. He had not. He was just doing depositions, which is just where the the opposing attorney talks to you after like eight years of work. My boss at the big consulting firm, they hadn't testified and they were like ten years into it. And, you know, it's not like the kind of pyramid base that accounting firms are at where the lower level does all the grunt work, and then it just gets a little bit better as you move up. I do everything from inputting stuff into Excel to analyzing it to testifying on it. And so if you can get into government, you're going to get exposed to a lot bigger stuff a lot quicker, but then you're just stuck doing the worst stuff longer to. David Leary: [00:19:57] But Cody, where do you see your career track headed towards? Obviously if you were to Big Four you're heading towards partner, but where's your career headed? Cody Turley: [00:20:05] Um, you know, I think I can keep moving up in government and just, you know, I might have to change agencies or, you know, go back to state and find a career at a higher level, manager career and one of the state agencies. But honestly, I think if I really wanted to, I could go and become a partner, you know, in a few years or just jump into Big Four if I wanted to get that experience. And so because you see that, you see a lot of people jump back between government and. Public accounting or private practice fairly regularly. I've just kind of stuck with. Government, but I don't see there being any barriers to me jumping in. Blake Oliver: [00:20:46] Yep. And then you'd have totally gone the the the total backdoor route. Yeah. To make partner. Cody Turley: [00:20:52] You know, I've, I've received offers from um I guess the biggest company I've received an offer from was Disney at one point to run one of the or to be on one of their internal investigation teams. And so it's not like I'm stuck at government. I've seen a lot of my coworkers go to internal audit because, you know, it's the same sort of thing. You're just digging through the documents looking for problems. Blake Oliver: [00:21:16] Yeah. That's so that's so great. You have so many career opportunities. You could go back to public accounting. You could do internal audit at a big corporation, be the, you know, chief internal auditor or whatnot. Yeah. Speaker4: [00:21:27] Um, so I could just. Cody Turley: [00:21:28] Stay here like it's not. Yeah. I'm doing like, it's great. I, I can't say I don't like working in government or else I would have moved out of it. So. Blake Oliver: [00:21:38] Cody, thanks so much for joining us and sharing, uh, your career path with us. I really appreciate it. Cody Turley: [00:21:44] Yeah, I really appreciate being able to talk to you guys. And just again, Big Four is not the only option out there. Figure out what you want to do and just kind of go and do that.