Eric Thomas

Bio

Eric is a Consulting partner with more than 20 years of experience serving nonprofit and for-profit organizations. Since joining Armanino, he has focused on helping nonprofits with their finance and accounting needs, so they can concentrate on developing their organization and delivering on their mission. He works with a diverse group of clients on their digital transformation and believes that regardless of size and age, organizations can benefit from incorporating enterprise best accounting practices through a solution that uses cloud technology and paperless processes.

Prior to joining Armanino, Eric led accounting and finance functions at Robert Half, Analytic Services, and Serco NA. He received a B.S. in business administration from West Virginia University.

Q&A

What attracted me to consulting was the variety of challenges, the problem solving and the opportunity to help people. Consulting lets you see a positive impact on companies and employees, and there’s a sense of reward in that.

I looked at other firms that were great to work for and had a great culture, but Armanino’s startup culture combined with the stability of an accounting firm was most attractive. The quality and positivity of the people I work with are what keep me here. I really do have the opportunity to work with the best people in the field.

I predict that we are only years, if not months, away from a large chunk of accounting processes becoming automated. We’re already starting to automate processes with robotic process automation and AI, and this change is going to happen much faster than everyone expects. The impact won’t be that it reduces the amount of time people spend on accounting, but rather that it will increase the amount of analysis people can put into their financials and provide better information for the decision-making process.

Throw yourself into the work, understand that you don’t know what you don’t know, and try to learn as much as possible, as fast as possible. Understand whatever you’re doing now is going to be very different in five or 10 years.

From a team development standpoint, I do my best to be a coach, not a manager, and do whatever I can to support the professional and personal development of my team. It’s a very collaborative approach. We talk through challenges and I encourage them to come up with solutions so they can develop themselves while helping their clients. From a client standpoint, again, it’s collaborative. We get to the heart of what their challenges and issues are and have open, candid conversations to address the challenges head-on.

Personally, it’s marrying my wife, and having two daughters and seeing them grow into scholar-athletes. Professionally, it’s seeing the staff I’ve hired get promoted to manager and then develop their own staff. It’s also seeing clients we helped first get funding, then grow and be acquired.