Cosmin co-founded Accrual in 2024. He previously served as Brex’s Chief Technology Officer, where he helped scale the company from 40 to over 1,000 employees and hundreds of millions in annual revenue. Prior to Brex, Cosmin worked at Stripe as an early leader, building core global payments infrastructure and launching the Stripe Terminal product. He began his career at Microsoft, working on the early versions of Azure and Office365.

Joe Woodard is the founder and CEO of Woodard®, a company that empowers CPAs, Enrolled Agents, professional bookkeepers, and other business advisors with education, coaching, resources, networking communities, and consulting services.

As a seasoned author, consultant, business coach, and national speaker, Joe has trained over 150,000 accounting and business professionals in practice development, technology trends, strategic consulting, and optimizing the use of accounting software. Joe is also the host of Scaling New Heights®, one of the world’s largest and most respected conferences for accountants and bookkeepers.

Each year, for the last 10 years, Accounting Today has recognized Joe as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting.

Joe is a published author with Accounting Today, The Journal of Accountancy, Insightful Accountant, CPA Practice Advisor, and McGraw-Hill. Additionally, The Woodard Report™ reaches over 100,000 readers annually within the accounting and bookkeeping space.

Nathen McEown has been a vital part of Whitley Penn for more than two decades, beginning his journey as an intern, steadily advancing to Audit Partner in 2015, and assuming the role as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) in January 2025.

As the former Energy Practice Leader, Nathen worked with many private equity-backed energy companies and led various initiatives, including the creation of Whitley Penn’s Client Accounting and Advisory Services (CAAS) Energy Outsourced Accounting, Land Administration, and Mineral Management service lines. After moving his family from Dallas to Houston in 2016, Nathen served as the Partner-in-Charge of the Houston office from 2016 to 2022. In 2022, Nathen transitioned away from audit to join the firm’s management committee, assuming the role of Partner-in-Charge of Consulting.

In 2024, Nathen expanded his responsibilities taking on the role of Chief Growth Officer where he identified and led the incorporation of two acquisitions, further expanding the firm’s consulting practice. As CEO, Nathen continues to lead the firm’s Growth Champions training initiative helping future firm leaders make the transition from Senior Manager to Partner.

Nathen co-authored “PPC Practice Aids for Audits of Oil and Gas Entities”, published by Thomson Reuters as part of their Checkpoint brand. In 2015, he was selected as the Dallas Business Journal’s “Who’s Who in Energy” and was awarded “Forty Under Forty” by the Dallas Business Journal. Additionally, he is a graduate of Leadership Dallas class of 2014, and currently sits on Texas Tech’s Accounting Advisory Council.

Beyond his professional achievements, Nathen is committed to driving growth and creating a positive impact within the broader community. He co-founded the Bayou City Houston Chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) and currently serves as its Learning Officer. Additionally, he is the Audit Committee Chairman for the American Council on Exercise (ACE) Fitness nonprofit organization and, together with his wife, supports the Houston March of Dimes.

Daniel Hood has been editor-in-chief of Accounting Today since 2011; he joined Accounting Today as managing editor in 1998. A graduate of Georgetown University, he has also served as a business editor for the New York Daily News, and as a production editor for The Wall Street Journal Europe. He is the author of five novels and a guidebook to New York City.

Gale Crosley is a well-known strategic revenue growth consultant, who has helped over 500 CPA firms over the past 25+ years. She has worked with their managing partners and other leaders transform their firms to high growth environments, achieving exceptional organic growth. Nine of the top 20 fastest organically growing firms have been her clients. For 19 consecutive years she’s been recognized as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today, and for 16 years selected one of the Top 10 Most Recommended Consultants in Inside Public Accounting’s Best of the Best.

Early in her career Gale spent several years in executive level management in sales, marketing and product management at IBM and tech start-ups, after beginning her journey as an auditor at Arthur Andersen and PwC. She brings all these experiences to the current transformation facing the accounting profession.

Seth Fineberg is an accounting industry consultant & Content Strategist. He has been an editor and journalist for over 30 years, the vast majority of which has been spent overseeing the accounting profession’s evolution. To this end, he has served as Technology Editor at Accounting Today and the head of AccountingWEB’s US team. Through his current business, Accountants Forward, he aims to see the accounting profession progress through the creation of quality practical and useful content from vendors, industry organizations and accounting firms themselves. He plays a variety of roles in such content’s creation and execution, be it articles, podcasts, webinars, white papers or even live events. He is also a regular contributor to CPA Trendlines, Karbon Magazine, Insight Magazine, a known speaker at industry events, and an advocate for the advancement of the accounting profession.