EPISODE 7: Setback to Setup | Liz Stapleton

Liz Stapleton’s career took an unexpected turn early on due to the fallout from the biggest accounting scandal in US history. Today, we’ll hear how that setback actually set Liz up for the success she enjoys today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Liz Stapleton's career took an unexpected turn early on due to the fallout from the biggest accounting scandal in U.S. history. Today we'll hear how that setback actually set Liz up for the success she enjoys today.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

The one thing about Lease Accounting that my team and I always talk about is just like how it's really a great independent role. You know, if you're somebody who likes to work independently, you know, likes to be specialized, likes to be a subject matter expert, what a great career.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Welcome to New Lisa, where we talk about the latest in least accounting and least administration and share stories of changes in perspective and new beginnings. I'm your host, Matt Waters. Let's dive in. Liz, welcome to New Lisson. Thanks, Matt. Well, first off, Liz, will you tell us a little bit about what you're up to these days?

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yes. I'm currently and have been for the past eight years, a director of accounting at Texas Roadhouse. And one of the areas of focus that I have is lease accounting. So my team accounts for over 600 leases, over three different brands. And we do that for all company-owned stores and in the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Cool. Yeah. Wow, 600 leases. So I guess that's mostly real estate, mostly restaurants.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yes, mostly land leases, correct.

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Yeah, cool. Well, I love Texas Roadhouse. That's one of my favorite stops, especially when I'm driving. Seems like there's they're scattered around in convenient places.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Oh yeah, absolutely. 49 states.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Oh, wow, cool. That's awesome. And of course, can we still throw peanuts on the floor? Is that still cool?

SPEAKER_02 2:01

I think you can. Yeah, I think you can.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:05

Undow myself.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Okay, yeah. This is one of those things where I think people just take for granted leasing, right? I mean, when I when I talk with people, you know, just in the normal course of life and they ask me what I do, I mention lease accounting as one of the top things that I work on. It takes them a minute. They're like, wait a minute, lease accounting. I say, Yeah, I mean, just think about a big retailer, right? Like Home Depot, where I used to work. Or think about Texas Roadhouse, 600 leases to keep up with. And then there's accounting rules that go along with it. These are publicly traded companies, so it rolls all the way through to the 10K. It's just super complex and important work that I think a lot of people just drive around and they they see these brands everywhere, they see these signs. But unless you've been in this industry, you don't automatically think about all the work that goes into lease administration and lease accounting.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, nowadays we're putting these leases on our balance sheet for many, many years, and um it's a very large material number and of significance and definitely something that we need to stay focused on. It doesn't always come top of mind and it doesn't carry the business, but it is important work and um and requires some subject matter expertise.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, no doubt. So, Liz, I know that you, like many of us, you did not start your career in lease accounting, right? So tell us a little bit about your journey, about some shifts that you've made along the way. How'd you end up here?

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah, I actually started the way a lot of people finish, in that I was a consultant. I worked for Arthur Anderson right out of school, right out of college. We all know what happened there. And for me, it happened in the first year of school. And so that really shaped a lot of, you know, me stepping back and thinking about what I like to do and, you know, what really drove me. And one of the things I learned through, you know, working for such um boutique type consulting company is that I really liked implementing. I wanted to be an implementer. I really wanted to get my hands dirty and be building something. And so, you know, that took me into my next career, which was really more around systems. I was not an accounting major. Uh-huh. I should probably preface with that. I was not an accounting major and was not a CPA, but I loved to build financial systems. And so in time, I ended up going back to school to get an accounting degree or the equivalent of, and then ultimately a master's. And all the while I was working and building a lot of financial systems and, you know, working on ERPs. And, you know, I think after a while, I felt like I had kind of done that. So done enough systems work and really wanted to get truly into accounting. By then, I had become a CPA and um just got really excited to utilize some of these new knowledge I had. And I happened to take a job as a fixed asset and lease accounting manager. This was back under ASC 840. So really was able to get my feet wet on lease accounting under different guidance and then learned, you know, about the new guidance that was coming out, you know, as I went and took different roles at the same company around procurement. So learning about contracts and agreements and clauses, and, you know, that ultimately is what led me to my current position, which blends a lot of those things, you know, your systems, your procurement and contracts, and your accounting. And it's really exciting to work with real estate and legal and various areas of the business that I may not have worked with and our operations team understanding, you know, what we're signing from a lease perspective. So it's really been a great fit for me.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

That's awesome. You know, uh, you said we all know what happened with Arthur Anderson, and you're right. I I know what happened, and a lot of people know. However, yeah, some people who have entered the workforce recently maybe don't know what happened with Arthur Anderson. So can you tell us just you know briefly the story there?

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Yeah, well, I mean, Arthur Anderson was indicted by the SEC because of a client that they had, Enron, and fraudulent activity that had occurred at Enron and being their auditors, you know, that ultimately took the firm down. And they essentially disassembled and, you know, various parts of the business were sold to other companies. And that really all happened in the first year that I was there. It's like right out of college. And I actually lived in Washington, DC. So I marched on the steps of the Capitol to really like stop all of this action from occurring. But I think there were so many people who lost, you know, their retirements and and their livelihood from Enron. Um, that I think that the government just called for repercussions that really extended far beyond the the company and those who made decisions.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Yeah. I appreciate you retelling that. And you're right. I mean, it was in many ways, it was just super sad, right? Because a lot of people lost their jobs, a lot of people lost all their retirement savings. And I was actually one of the ones affected as well. I didn't work at Arthur Anderson, but I was a consulting intern at EY at that time. And the partner called me into his office. He's like, Hey, we're not sure we're gonna be consultants anymore because of what's happened at Enron, right? Because EY, of course, derived a lot of revenue from being an auditor, and that you know, they were kind of thinking, while we're not going out of business, we might change the way we do business. So I lost my first big opportunity at EY because of Enron as well, right? So it was just so far reaching. But now I think of that as a blessing because really that whole Enron situation and and the SEC scrutiny on off-balance sheet financing ultimately led to lease accounting.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Now I would agree.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

You know, which is why we have jobs today, right? You know, so so it kind of came around full circle. And you know, I think in in many ways, I think that's encouraging because you never know. I mean, you you and I both had bad days at work around the 2001 time frame, right? Yeah, but now that actually led to big opportunities for both of us.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah, absolutely. Who would have thought I'd be in living in Louisville, Kentucky, working for Texas Roadhouse?

SPEAKER_01 8:59

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

From the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yeah, yeah, amazing. So, how did all that change, right? We just talked through your diverse background and how it's all kind of led you to where you are today. Can you tie that in? Some of the diversity in what you've done, you know, with the systems and and the consulting and and other things, how have those uh unique experiences prepared you for what you do now?

SPEAKER_02 9:25

I mean, I think I'm still on a journey of experiences for sure, but I definitely think that having, you know, taunt worked and spent time in building systems, it helped me, you know, as we were adopting ASC 842 and ensuring that our systems were stable, you know, our reporting was accurate, you know, that we felt comfortable uh and we managed our, you know, systems vendor well. So that was one area. And then understanding contracts and uh working with our legal and real estate teams and having spent some time, you know, reading agreements and understanding, you know, that side of the business really helped as well. And then obviously just the hands-on accounting experience. So those are just three of the few that I'm, you know, I'm still working on learning and you know, helping to round out what I can provide the value I can add in in this role. Um, but those are definitely three areas. And I think that if you know, you stay in one area all the time, then you're really not, you know, how do you learn ultimately as you become more of a leader, you know, and and you need to be able to coach others. And you can only do that if you have those experiences yourself.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

Cool. Well, yeah, thank you for that perspective. So, as you can imagine, we've got some people who listen to this podcast who who might be interested in the CGLA program, the certified global lease accountant program. And most people probably do not know, however, Liz was the very first person to sign up for the CGLA program. So, certificate number one, she was also the first person to pass and finish the program. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_02 11:08

All right.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah, yeah. So you have certificate number one, so to speak. And so I thought we'd just do a lightning round here and uh, you know, just to add your perspective around the CGLA program. And so I'll just run through a few, again, lightning round questions. Liz, what inspired you to earn the CGLA credential?

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Yeah, so post-adoption of ASC 842, you know, we, you know, we adopted ASC 842 and we were, you know, like, you know, you want to get it in, it feels stable about you know what you're doing, work on your controls, processes. But then I think at some point my boss and I were just like, gosh, what could we do to really make sure that, you know, we have everything covered? We feel really strong in this area. And it was just, I think this was really just right around the time you were rolling this out and the, you know, I was looking at the content. And I thought, I think I know all of these areas, but maybe I don't. Like, what if I don't? What if there's something I can learn here? Um, and that's why I did the program. I do feel like, you know, a lot of the topics were topics that I knew about. But what I really liked about it was that it just it brought it all together. If you think about it, especially through my career, a lot of those topics I've learned over the years, but I've never really thought of them all comprehensively. And so I feel like it kind of gave me these like building blocks to just step back and say, you know, am I really tying, you know, everything together the way that I could? Maybe am I even communicating it and sharing with my accountants in a way that's like logical and meaningful for them? So that was why I did it. I felt like it was really helpful to just ensure sometimes it's good to know that you know it, you know it, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

So that's really where it was for me.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

So you think the program, the CGLA program met those objectives for you?

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

Awesome. Well, so would you recommend the CGLA program to others?

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Yeah, I would recommend it. I would recommend it to anyone who's gonna focus on lease accounting because it really does bring together lease administration and accounting, accounting concepts into kind of like and it builds on each other. So you may know a specific area, but then it will take it to the next level for you or think about how to apply it specifically for lease accounting. So I really I actually have a new lease accountant right now, and I'd really like them to do the program. It's just a matter of getting that training scheduled for them.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Cool. Oh, I love it. So, what was your favorite part of the CGLA program?

SPEAKER_02 13:54

So, my favorite part, Matt, was your examples about your previous experiences. I think part of it is making sure that the way that we apply the concepts, you know, to business, right? To our everyday examples. And so I felt like you did a really good job of that through the course content. And, you know, I don't know if you remember, but I actually work for Home Depot as well. I was an intern. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:22

So when you would say, you know, when I was at Home Depot, I would be like, oh, when I was at Home Depot. So and I just think the company is one that, you know, people can understand a little bit more about, you know, what they do, how they do it, and how they could have certain business challenges.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Cool. I love it. Thank you. Yeah. Last question how will you leverage the CGLA credential in your career?

SPEAKER_02 14:48

It's a great question. Yeah, I think for me, like I felt confident about what I knew. You know, our business is is always changing. And, you know, it's one thing to know that you're accounting for operationally, you know, correctly. But what if an unusual transaction comes up or a different situation? I feel a little bit more comfortable that going through that program that I would know to say, wait a minute, let me let me think about this differently, or let's go back and read what we learned so that we can to make sure that we're accounting for it correctly.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Great.

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Liz, thank you so much for joining us today. I know um the listeners have really enjoyed hearing about your experiences and any final words for us, um, any words of encouragement for people maybe starting out in their journey.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

Oh gosh, yeah. I would just say, you know, the one thing about Lisa Counting that my team and I always talk about is just like how it's really a great independent role. You know, if you're somebody who likes to work independently, you know, likes to be specialized, likes to be a subject matter expert. What a great career. It really does have, you know, various levels of complexity and can offer just a very, in my opinion, flexible career. So I definitely would encourage it for the right person.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

Absolutely. Well, thank you, Liz.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Thanks, Matt. Have a great one.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

You too. Thank you for joining us. I'd be grateful if you would like and subscribe wherever you listen. Perhaps today is your day to get a new lease on. Would you like to learn more about lease accounting? Check out the CGLA program. That's Certified Global Lease Accountant. You can earn 16 hours of CPE credit, study at your own pace, and earn the CGLA professional designation. Find out more at CGLA Institute.com.