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Barry Melancon, called “the most important person in accounting” for his 30 years of leadership of its professional body in the US, sent a stern warning to his successors that they should not compromise the standards of effort which will attract more people to the profession. .

Melancon retired this month as the longest-serving chief executive of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, overseeing a profession transformed by new technology and private equity investment but finding itself in the throes of a recruitment crisis. .

With young people attracted to higher salaries and lower entry requirements in finance and technology, the number of people taking the CPA exam administered by the institute has fell hardand accounting firms are demanding reforms to make it cheaper and easier to qualify.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times, Melancon expressed skepticism about some of the companies’ claims, and said a race to the “lowest common denominator” could come back to haunt the profession.

“We’re a trusting profession and we live in a world that doesn’t have many touchstones of trust,” he said. “We have to respect the respect we get from the public and from the business community and from regulators.”

The lack of accountants has been blamed by some companies for potential errors in their financial statements, and some local governments and US companies have complained that it is harder to find auditors.

After initially resisting pressure from the profession, the AICPA in September proposed scrapping a requirement that accountants have the equivalent of five years of university education, known as the 150-hour rule — a year beyond the typical undergraduate degree of 120 hours of courses.

Melancon made it clear that he doubted the need for such a change. “The 150-hour rule elevated our profession, which in the 1970s was considered more of a business than a profession. It elevated the quality of people in our profession, and the standing of our profession, and to deny that is the denial of history.”

Melancon was the youngest president of the AICPA when he took the helm in 1995 at age 37, and he hasn’t stopped pushing for change ever since. He insisted on computerizing the CPA exam when some in the profession resisted, and made the qualification available worldwide. He also advocated for the creation of audit systems and other technologies that could be shared among companies. Accounting Today magazine regularly ranks him as the most influential person in the profession.

A new flashpoint is above the detail of on-the-job training that the AICPA designed as an alternative to the fifth year of university education for CPA candidates.

The FT reports that the group representing major accounting firms wants a simpler system than is proposed, which would require supervisors to certify that new recruits have acquired a number of specific skills, or “competencies”.

Critics say the plan is too complicated, expensive and subjective, but Melancon said ensuring new accountants have specific competencies is essential to prevent a “lowest common denominator problem ” where an unskilled practitioner can harm the profession.

“Companies don’t make their investment in the people they hire, so it’s not really a big change for most companies,” he said.

The proposed changes come against the backdrop of a rapidly evolving workplace, with little need for armies of junior employees performing repetitive tasks and new opportunity for accountants to use their business and financial acumen to help clients.

“Entry-level positions in our profession will be reduced . . . because of technology, and the traditional pyramid form of a public accounting firm will not be the structure of the future,” predicted Melancon.

“We need to develop investments in the development of competence that will more easily get people in the middle part of the company or the financial function, where the profession is very valuable.”

Also changing the shape of the profession is the arrival of private equity, which will acquire a third of the 30 largest companies in the US by 2022. As well as promising to finance investment in technology, the deal provides windfalls for older partners and equity to encourage younger ones. . Regulators, however, warn that the ownership of private equity threatens the objectivity of the audit work, while a need to maximize profits may lower standards.

“I don’t think the traditional fellowship structure is the only way our profession can function,” Melancon said. While he welcomed the experiment, he added that “anyone who thinks (private equity deals) everything will be a marriage made in heaven is wrong”.

Ultimately, accounting firms tend to find investors who can hold them for a long time rather than flipping them, he said.

For a final prediction before his retirement, Melancon used a quote he’s had in his office for decades. “Change,” he said, “was never as slow as it is now.”