Kelly Ward, CPA, CGMA, EA, MBA

Age: 32

Employer: Robinson & Ward, PC

Title: Principal/CPA

City/State: Fairbanks, Alaska

Twitter: kellywardcpa

Professional Associations/Memberships:

AICPA- Financial Literacy Committee; Student Recruitment Committee; PCPS Young Owners/Decision Makers Networking Group member

Alaska Society of CPAs – President-Elect; Financial Literacy Committee, Chair; Leadership Committee; Relations with Education Committee

Alaska Society of Independent CPAs

National Association of Professional Women

I have been fortunate to experience so many amazing things during my career thus far. One of the things I enjoy most is presenting at workshops, seminars, or conferences. This summer I had the opportunity to teach 20 4^th-6^th graders in a week long “Money Camp” hosted at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I thoroughly enjoyed not only getting to know the kids, but seeing the excitement as they learned about where money comes from, budgeting, and about mini-societies. While lots of games and activities were included, I feel that they were able to see that money can be a positive and empowering part of life if we just control our money instead of it controlling us.

I have been fortunate to be an Adjunct Instructor in Accounting for the UAF Community and Technical College for nearly 10 years where I get to work with students wanting to be bookkeepers and accountants, but also small business owners or employees looking to make their organization better. In addition, small business education is very important to me and I present multiple workshops throughout the year through various organizations and our firm focusing on financial literacy topics as well as topics to help individuals and small business owners better understand the importance of their financial decisions, starting small businesses, and other success skills.

Favorite influencer(s) (authors, bloggers, mentors, speakers, etc.)

I’ve been a big fan of Dave Ramsey since I was a kid listening to him with my mom. As an adult, I embrace a lot of his principles in my profession with clients, especially for budgeting. In addition to Dave, several of his other advisors and speakers are great for inspiration and their books break complicated topics into manageable applications. Chris Hogan, Christy Wright, and Rachel Cruz are all on my bookshelf.

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Read about the other 40 Under 40 Honorees for 2017.

Accounting