The Human Advantage: Why Trust and Accountability Matter

In episode 196 of The Woodard Report Podcast, Heather Day is joined by Kenji Kuramoto, managing partner in residence at Basis. Kenji is the founder and former CEO of Acuity, a CAS, advisory, and tax practice that grew into one of Accounting Today’s Top Firms for Technology and a Top Firm to Work For before merging into Sorren in 2025. He is also the cofounder of 404 Invests and has served on advisory councils for several accounting technology companies.

Heather and Kenji discuss his path through accounting, the evolution of CAS, how AI is changing professional expertise, and why accountability and client relationships may become even more important as technology advances.

Building Acuity from the advisory side

Kenji began his career at Arthur Andersen before moving into a controller and CFO role at a technology company. He later combined that experience with his interest in client service to launch what became Acuity.

The practice started with fractional CFO work for technology companies. Kenji soon realized that higher-level financial work depended on having reliable underlying data, so Acuity expanded into controller services and bookkeeping. Over time, the practice grew to about 150 people serving thousands of clients.

Kenji said the growth happened somewhat organically. What began as an effort to solve accounting problems for CFO clients eventually became one of the early models for what the profession now calls CAS.

Watch Episode 196 here

There is more than one path through accounting

Heather and Kenji compared their very different paths through the profession. Heather began in data entry and bookkeeping before moving deeper into accounting and advisory work. Kenji entered entrepreneurship from the other direction, starting with CFO services before adding transactional accounting.

That experience changed the way Kenji viewed the hierarchy that sometimes develops around accounting work.

He said advisory is valuable, but it should not be treated as the ultimate destination for every accounting professional. Acuity’s bookkeeping and controller work eventually became larger than its advisory practice, and Kenji gained a greater appreciation for the professionals responsible for the underlying data that makes higher-level analysis possible.

AI changes the work, but not the need to adapt

The conversation then turned to AI and the concern that automation will continue moving beyond transactional accounting into areas once considered safer from disruption. Kenji said accounting professionals doing highly repetitive manual work should take that shift seriously. “The genie is out of the bottle in terms of AI,” he said.

Accountability still belongs to people

Kenji identified accountability as one area where he believes people retain an important role. AI can produce a recommendation or build a sophisticated model, but it does not bear responsibility for the result. A client still looks to a person to interpret the information, stand behind a recommendation, and respond when something goes wrong.

Relationships remain part of the value

Kenji also pointed to relationships as another area that technology cannot fully reproduce.

AI can act as a thought partner and generate language that sounds empathetic, but Kenji drew a distinction between simulated empathy and an actual relationship built over time.

Using AI to create more room for better work

Heather raised another possibility for AI adoption. Automation could give accounting professionals more time to investigate issues they previously had to set aside because the work was not material enough to justify the time.

Kenji agreed, but cautioned against using every efficiency gain simply to take on more of the same work.

Accounting as a profession of trust

Heather and Kenji also discussed how accounting professionals should explain their value as clients gain more direct access to AI tools.

Kenji described accounting as a profession built around trust. Accountants have responsibilities to their clients, but their work can also affect lenders, investors, regulators, and others they may never meet. He believes that history puts accountants in a strong position to play a larger role in AI oversight.

“This may be a great time for accountants to step up and really lead the way,” Kenji said, particularly around AI safety, judgment, and determining whether automated systems are working as intended.

What Kenji is working on next

Kenji closed the episode by sharing details about his upcoming podcast, In Practice.

The show will feature leaders from accounting practices of different sizes and will be recorded in person in New York City. Kenji said that the face-to-face element is intentional, particularly for a show being produced within an AI company.

The goal is to give listeners a closer look at how practice leaders think while preserving the human interaction that remains central to Kenji’s view of the profession.

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