Blake really isn’t letting this one go and I don’t blame him:
Some PE-owned firms are telling CPAs to remove their credentials from email signatures.
Where does this stop? Taking our certificates off the walls?
CPAs worked for years to expand our role, but now we’re being marginalized.
— Blake Oliver (@BlakeTOliver) May 13, 2025
An earlier tweet of his confirms what we’ve also heard that LinkedIn profiles are being scrubbed of those three letters at the behest of accounting firm employers as well. That’s the real story here, not firms telling you what to do with your email signatures but the authoritarian overreach of dictating what you put on your Facebook-for-work profile. Some firms have been telling staff not to put CPA in their email signatures for some time now, long before PE. But LinkedIn? FOH.
How does this housecleaning help recruiting? Hey kids, how about you invest five years in college (thankfully 150 is no longer the only option in several states with more on the way), spend thousands of dollars on prep and exam fees, sacrifice sleep and friends and romantic relationships for two years and then you don’t even get the bragging rights? Sounds great doesn’t it! Oh and there’s no proper partner carrot either, best we can do is non-equity partner.
Never thought I’d see the day that the CPA credential is widely treated like a shameful secret but here we are.
