The installation of a new accountant business leader at Intuit translates to a refreshed focus on ProAdvisors, with Ted Callahan’s watchful eye making sure the company innovates with them in mind, and provides the right training to help them be successful.
Callahan believes the importance of Intuit's partnership with accountants has never been greater. “I view my charter as to deepen our relationship globally, developing features they need to power workflows that serve their clients,” he said.
The specifics of Callahan’s new role are significant. Intuit has promoted him to the role of accountant business leader for Intuit’s Small Business Self-Employed Group. Callahan previously worked on the QuickBooks Self-Employed customer experience, and he also led the launch of QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping two years ago. With Callahan’s move to the new role, QuickBooks Live is being folded into the same group as Small Business and Self Employed. Callahan will continue to run Live as a separate product, but he will report to Ariege Misherghi, vice president of the QuickBooks Experts Business and the Small Business Self-Employed Group, combining focus to better serve QuickBooks accountants.
QuickBooks Live, which connects small businesses and sole proprietors to accountants for project-based or ongoing work, made a splash when it debuted. The concern was that the platform would compete directly with Intuit’s own ProAdvisors. But the company quickly course-corrected, promising to only hire ProAdvisors for Live, at least in the early stages.
“Ariege and I always agreed on the importance of Live as a win-win; we’re growing the market for professional services with Live,” Callahan said. “We see the power of what happens when you connect small businesses to accountants.”
In his new role, Callahan will be responsible for developing new innovations specifically for accountants across the QuickBooks platform, improving Intuit’s current accountant offerings, including QuickBooks Online Accountant, and developing the ProAdvisor Program to include more and better benefits, and small-business connections.
“I see us doubling down on innovation on behalf of accountants and across the Intuit ecosystem, and making sure they have knowledge and skills they need,” Callahan said. “The ProAdvisor Program is one of the key ways we’ve built relationships with accountants, providing community, training them on products and helping making that move from the books to trusted advisor. I continue to see an opportunity to improve how we train, what we train on, and how we empower accountants to do what they’ve yearned to do — which is be that coach to small businesses.”
In 2021, Callahan will be working with teams across the QuickBooks platform to improve QuickBooks Online Advanced, QuickBooks Payroll, as well as the ProAdvisor Program.
Misherghi, meanwhile, will continue to prioritize accountants across the QuickBooks ecosystem, and is now also responsible for driving innovation for QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping for accounting professionals that deliver the service and the small businesses who use it.
