 I'm Rusty Komori and this is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. This show is based on my books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game, and it's about leadership, character, and creating a superior culture of excellence. My special guest today is a very successful leader and CEO of Accumulus. She is Stacy Katakura, and today we are going Beyond Accounting. Hey, Stacy, welcome to Beyond the Lines. Hey, Rusty. Thanks for having me today, and congratulations on making your 200th episode. It's exciting. Oh, I never thought I'd get there. It's kind of unbelievable. Stacy, you have had an unbelievable career so far in this in your young life, and I want to, before we get into the reasons why you have such a successful business and being a successful leader, I want to go back to maybe high school. I know that you graduated from Kaiser, and we've all had teachers in the past that have really impacted our lives in a positive way. Did you have a teacher at Kaiser that had a big impact on you? Yes, for sure. So my accounting teacher in high school, Mrs. Kubota, I took I think two years of accounting from her, and she was so inspiring that I decided that that's what I wanted to do in my career. So I, and there was actually a lot of students in her class that decided to major in accounting. Some stuck with it and some didn't. But I really, she really did inspire me to, she made accounting fun. She took the act out of accounting for me. And I decided to, that's why that's eventually how I chose the college that I attended, USC, because it was one of the top five universities in accounting at the time. Wow, I mean, going to USC, that's impressive for sure. And Stacey, I like hearing how that teacher had an impact on you to make accounting fun. I want to ask you about your parents. I mean, growing up, what's a valuable lesson that you learned from your dad? So my dad was so instrumental, I think, in shaping the way that I view the world and myself. I remember a story from when I was in the third grade at Kahala Elementary. And one of my classmates at the time asked me what ethnicity I was. I was eight years old at the time and I didn't know what she was talking about. So I went home that night and I asked my dad, hey, you know, one of my classmates asked me what ethnicity I was. And I didn't know what to tell her. So he just told me, you know, go back tomorrow and tell her you're American. And so I did, not knowing any better. And she said, you're not your American, but what are you really? I think you must be Japanese based on your last name. So I, you know, I went back home, I told my dad, and I asked him, you know, am I Japanese? And he said, well, he was your American. You are no different than anyone else. And I think that's why I think that kind of inspired me to live the way I live for the rest of my that kind of was an indicator of my upbringing. I didn't view myself as any less or any better than anyone else. I always felt that I was an equal. So as I grew up throughout my education, throughout my career, I eventually worked in a lot of very male dominated professions, both in accounting and in real estate and construction. And I never saw myself as any different and any less than the white males that I might have been in the boardroom with. I always was not afraid to speak my thoughts, my voice. And I think that contributed a lot to my character and who I am today. I love hearing this, Stacey, because, you know, I want to learn about, you know, what really shaped you into, you know, the leader that you are today. And I love hearing these insights and what's a valuable, important lesson you learned from your mom? So my mom, on the other hand, you know, my family grew up, well, as I grew up, my mom was actually the breadwinner in my family. And she made slightly more than my father did. She was a very hard worker, but she actually taught me the value of being financially independent. So as I graduated from college, the minute I graduated from college, I never took another dime for my parents. I always wanted to be independent support myself. I never wanted to rely on anyone else to be able to provide me that security and that financial blanket. So I worked hard to be successful and to make sure that I would always be able to stand on my own two feet and support myself and whatever lifestyle that I wanted to, that made me comfortable. Wow, that's impressive, financially independent right after college. And Stacey, you know, personally, what's a big adversity that you dealt with in your life? So not a lot of people know this about me, but I'm the big sister to my younger brother, Jared, who when he was five months old, he contracted spinal meningitis. And as a result, he lost his hearing at a very young age. She was only five months old. So he grew up, he completely lost his hearing. So he grew up deaf at a time when I think it was at a time when this disabilities weren't really accepted as much as they are today. And so I grew up, it taught me a lot of different things. One, I felt like I was always in his shadow supporting him because my parents were very, very supportive of him and wanted to make sure that he had as much, he had equal access to it as much as he could. But as a big sister, I was also very, I wanted him to shine and I wanted to be protected. I wanted to advocate for him. And so I learned at a very young age, I was six years old, I think, when he was diagnosed with a loss of, a complete loss of hearing. And from a very young age, whenever he started school, I was an advocate for him and I wanted to make sure that nobody treated him any differently than anyone else. And I think that's what kind of, I mean, that is, I think, what drives me to be the advocate that I am today for people who are possibly disadvantaged, underrepresented in our communities. And I think that does contribute. I carry that with me today, to being that advocate for others. No, Stacey, thank you so much for sharing that story about your brother. No, because these are all things, I can see how it's shaped you as a person. And I want to ask you about your accumulous team members. I mean, you've really brought a great team together at your business. Now, why did you start accumulous? So, why did I start accumulous? So I'll go back through the beginning of my career. I started my career after going to USC at a big four accounting firm, Ernest and Young and Orange County. I stayed there for about eight years and I was called back home to be a young CFO of Forest City, Hawaii. They were a real estate development and management company. I was there for 10 years. I grew the company from two employees to about 250 employees by the time I left. I feel like I left the company in really solid footing. And at that point, I was looking for a new challenge. The type of person that always likes to learn and grow and do different things. And so I was offered an opportunity to lead another outsourced accounting firm here in Honolulu as its president. And I saw during that time, I saw how valuable the services that we were providing to small and mid-sized businesses here in Honolulu. After three years of doing that, I came to a point where I felt like I wanted to chart my own course, make my own decisions, and just do my own thing. And that's when I decided to start Acumulus just about five years ago now. So over the last five years, I've assembled an amazing team that's been really supportive of where the company has grown and all of its growing pains. And I'm really, really proud that I have the team in place that I have today. No, that's really impressive, Stacey. And can you share what kind of services your business provides? Sure. So we are not your typical accounting firm in that we don't focus on audit and tax. We are a CPA firm, but we do outsourced accounting. So what outsourced accounting is, the way that I explained it to companies that I talked to, is imagine at a large business who has a full accounting department. So a lot of small and medium-sized companies here in Honolulu and beyond just don't have the resources to be able to hire talented accounting professionals to handle things like accounts payable, financial reporting, generating financial statements, reconciling, bank accounts, cash management, forecasting projections, all those types of things. And so that's what we do. I draw from my years of experiences being a CFO of a large company. And I take a lot of those skill sets and kind of apply it and be able to offer it to small businesses and nonprofits here in Honolulu. Well, Stacey, when I looked into a Cumulus, I'm thinking, wow, you guys are really on the cutting edge of helping so many of these small and medium businesses. And it seems like, I mean, what you guys offer, it just enhances the leadership team and the entire company, right? Yeah, I mean, I think, so one of the areas that we specialize in, we have become HONO's member benefits accounting partner. HONO is the Hawaii Alliance of Nonprofit Organization. So about 50% of our clients are in the nonprofit sector. And what I love about doing that is because a lot of nonprofits are underfunded, but they're so mission driven and a lot of nonprofit leaders really just want to focus on doing, accomplishing their mission. And they don't want to have to worry about who's paying the bills. They don't want to worry about, you know, doing the grant reporting to their grantors. And so it's a really good fit and that we kind of take that off of their plate and they can just feel that they don't have to worry about their finances and they can really focus on delivering the services that they need, that their community needs. Oh, Stacy, that's so great. And I like that you started, you know, because you wanted to do your own thing, man. You're doing your own thing is so profitable, but so helpful to so many people and companies. So really, really impressed with what you've done for the past five years now. And, Stacy, you're someone that definitely goes beyond the lines and you have both of my books and I want to ask you how you liked the books and if there were certain things that stood out to you in it? Yes. I mean, I love I loved your books and thank you so much for sharing them with me. I think one of the things that stood out to me the most actually there's two things, but one of the things that stood out to me the most was I love how you kept in saying you build champion athletes of character first and good tennis by your second. And I believe that so much and that when I look for employees, I look for good talent to bring into my firm. A good culture fit is really first and foremost the most important thing. I think you can teach people how to be a good accountant, but that culture fit and that character is what's going to represent my company and what my clients are going to see. And I completely agree that that character is really one of the most important things that actually not one of the most. It's the most important trait that any employee can provide a company. And secondly, how I really enjoyed your chapter about overcoming or welcoming adversity. I think that's something that I've loved by throughout my life. I've overcome not only the adversity of my brother being deaf, but there's so many challenges that you overcome and becoming a second of a publicly traded company to becoming a business owner and entrepreneur. There's so many challenges to overcome. But with each challenge, it makes you and made me a stronger and better person. Whenever I have a team member that makes a mistake, I know they feel awful about it, but I always say, you know, a mistake is not worth making unless you learn something from it. And that's what makes you the person that you are today. I never like to make mistakes that I don't learn from. I always welcome challenges. And because like I said before, I love to learn and grow and do different things. And that's the best way. I'm not the best way always, but making mistakes is kind of what makes people better. Oh, I like that you highlighted those two things. The mindset is so important to really look forward to challenges because challenges are inevitable, as you know. And yeah, character. I mean, that's all part of creating that superior culture of excellence that you have at a cumulus now. And Stacey, if you really self reflect on you, okay, what are some reasons why you are a successful leader? I think kind of going back to the culture, building a culture of my company. And I think so by the core values that we have at a cumulus are teamwork and collaboration, honesty and integrity, growth oriented and innovative. And I think really being recruiting people who have who share those same values and that same mindset is really, really important. I think the other thing that made me that has made me successful is that I always focus on doing what's right. And I never end the day reflecting back on the day and not feeling good about myself. I always try to carry myself with the most level of integrity. And I treat my clients and my staff the same way. And I can say that I've had about how I've handled the situation and how I've treated people. And I think the people, my clients and my team members hopefully will agree. Yeah, no. And Stacey, I know that you have a very unique CFO in your company, your chief financial officer, your dog Bogey. And Bogey, I know that you won the Best Small Business Award, which is super impressive. Now, how gratifying is that for you to be recognized in that way? It was amazing to be recognized that way. And that was Bogey, by the way, who was making those noises. So we won the Best Small Business Award in 2021 last year after a very, very challenging yet rewarding year during the pandemic. I think that contributed to the reason why we won the award. So we started the pandemic during a series of webinars twice a week, educating people about the financial options that were available to them to take advantage of to help employers and businesses get through the pandemic, the PPP, the EI deal loans. And I think that was probably one of the first resources that got out after our team saved Hawaii jobs and businesses. We had a lot of people following us and I still to this day will run across somebody on the street who just will say thank you for what we've done. And I really, I'd never realized at that time how much of an impact we were making on the community. But I was, I really, that was probably one of the things that I'm most proud about in the five-year history of my company is just the way that we handled our pandemic response. And beyond that, we were lucky to be asked to, I think because of the way that we responded with the webinars and the support, the pro bono support that we provided through those webinars towards the later part of the year when the state and local governments were trying to create and support programs for businesses that were affected by the pandemic. We were invited to be a part of a few other programs supported by the CARES Act that I was really, really proud to be a part of. I thought there was some really innovative projects programs that were created to support. One was the Aloha Connects Innovation Program. It was supported by, it was a contract that was administered by DVET within the state of Hawaii. But what we did was we brought in over 600 participants who were negatively impacted by the pandemic. They were mostly affected by maybe being a tourism, the hospitality industries, and were on unemployment. And what we did was we paired them with over 150 companies that were in different sectors, non-tourism, non-hospitality sectors like energy, energy agriculture, technology, all types, all sorts of businesses throughout the local community. And we actually had businesses on all islands, including Niihau. We placed these participants with these businesses that kind of restilled them and upscaled them to different, to get ready for their next step in their careers and possibly in an industry that was not so not so affected by the pandemic. And we had some really, really great stories out there about one of my favorite was this guy who went away to college to study computer science. And during his time away, his father passed away. So he had to come back home and not finish his college education to help support his mother and his family. And in order to do so, without a college degree, he was working three jobs at hotels and all in the tourism industry. And when the pandemic hit, he was laid off from all of his three jobs. But we were able to recruit him into our program, pair him with a company that actually taught him how to do game development and design games and game developer. And once our program ended, he actually obtained a job, a remote job in the Bay Area, being able to design games full time with a really good paying salary. So I was really, really happy to be able to support people to do, to do what they wanted to do initially. That's why he went away to college to be a computer science major. But in a long runabout way, he ended up accomplishing his dream through our program. Well, Stacey, you know, for me, I mean, I always like to try to inspire people to turn obstacles into opportunities. And I think that's exactly what you did with that guy, you know, losing his jobs, but then really finding a different path to really look at that obstacle or three obstacles, losing his job, you know, in the hotel industry, really find that great opportunity. So I think that's a great story for people to really realize that, you know, you got to look at these obstacles as opportunities, these roadblocks that we might perceive it in that way. Stacey, I want to ask you, currently, what's a big challenge or challenges that you're dealing with your business right now? I think what we still are feeling the fact of the great, what is it called, the great resignation and actually more so, I should say, the staffing challenges and finding good, identifying good talent. And I think one of the challenges that a lot of business owners face as well is just balancing, you know, the growth in the company with being able to support that growth and hiring and recruiting qualified professionals. I think especially what has been happened throughout the pandemic is that, you know, accountants tend to be a little bit more conservative and not knowing what the future holds. I think a lot of accountants are kind of staying put in the jobs that they have. And lucky for them, I think accounting is such a needed resource that they, I think that field has been probably least impacted. So nobody wants to let go of their accountants when you don't know what the future holds, because you need somebody to tell you how much money you have in the bank and pay your bills. But as a result, it's been really hard to recruit good professionals that will support the future growth of our company. And our services, thankfully, it's so much demand and there's such a need for it that we have been growing quite quickly. And it's just been, it's hard to, we've been finding creative ways to keep up with that growth, but it's been challenging. Well, you know, when I meet with tons of CEOs and they're all telling me that they're having the same issue like you are, I mean, just to really find employees to hire. And then when they have quality employees, they're really trying to keep those quality employees with them. And Stacey, what would be, what guidance would you offer to other business owners or entrepreneurs? Other business owners, you're entrepreneurs, I would say, you know, when I first started my company, I was lucky in that I had the support of some key clients who helped me navigate through the challenges that I had that I did to overcome some of the challenges, my fears. And I was lucky or I don't know that I was able to be, to launch my business pretty easily with not a whole lot of obstacles to overcome. And I think, you know, just believing in myself, believing that I could accomplish that and having the perseverance to work through any challenges that were, that I needed to overcome in that first year was a big payoff. But I think anyone, any business owner, I think, I think that's the biggest thing, believe in yourself, find your passion, which I know you talk about in the book as well. But if you, if you, I think as long as you're doing what you're passionate about, you persevere and you believe in yourself, I think you can accomplish a lot. But I think those things are very, very important in being successful. Completely agree, Stacey. And in your opinion, why do some businesses fail? Kind of on the flip side of that, I think businesses fail because the business owner might not have that, might not have found a business that they were passionate enough about and want to do anything that they can do to succeed. Other things that I've seen as, you know, I mean, I'm, you know, what we, some of the services we provide as being able to provide business owners with visibility on their financials and where there are, what they need to do to grow, where their growing pains are, all those things you see very clearly when you, when you understand how to read financials. And so I think it's always, always important to understand where you are and be able to be nimble and adjust and pivot accordingly. Just and make decisions quickly. If something, if you've made a bad decision, that that's not, that's not providing you with the returns that you had hoped, you need to be able to pivot quickly and adjust so that you're not chasing a loss leader and spending too much time on it. I totally agree, Stacey, and, and besides family, who, who's a leader that you admire and why? Who's a leader that I admire? So somebody who has become a very good friend of mine, she's actually running for a higher, for a political office for the first time, Sherry Minora McNamara, who is the CEO of the Chamber of Commerce. She has been a long, a long time friend of mine and she supported me throughout my career. She's always believed in me. She's always pushed me to do, to do things beyond my comfort zone. And when I started a cumulus, she became one of, the Chamber became one of my first clients. And I appreciate that she, she really believed in me and trusted the Chamber's financials with us. But I've seen her, I've seen her grow in her own career. And I really admire the way that she always holds herself with so much integrity, honesty, she follows through with everything that she says she's going to do. And I just really admire that about her. She always, as a female entrepreneur, I've seen how that she really supports other female entrepreneurs. She supports female owned small businesses, small businesses in general, but she's really, she has really made it a point to support other women and myself included. And she's walked the talk and really goes out of her way, I think, to support, to make sure that these small businesses, small businesses are successful and they have the tools that they need to succeed. So she's, yeah, she's a good friend of mine, but that's why I, that she's somebody that I admire a lot in the, in the fact that she's taken some calculated risks, but she has also been just a great, a great leader as well. You are absolutely correct about Sherry. I mean, she's such a terrific person and a fantastic leader. And so are you, Stacey. And I really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. Thank you, Rusty. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Stacey. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com and my books are available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. I hope that Stacey and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at ThinkTechHawaii.com. Mahalo.