Before Scott Showalter took the stage to open the fifth annual Jenkins MAC Lifelong Learning Summit on Sept. 25, the packed ballroom at NC State’s Talley Student Union buzzed with conversation as 138 accounting professionals, alumni, students and faculty gathered for a day of learning and connection.
That energy carried through seven sessions as speakers from government, industry and the accounting profession shared insights on issues ranging from AI to energy policy. Throughout the day, their discussions explored what accounting and finance professionals need to understand beyond the numbers — and why people remain central to navigating change.
Showalter, director of the Jenkins MAC program in the Poole College of Management, says the breadth of perspectives and opportunity for connection set the summit apart from a typical professional development event.
“Our goal is to cover topics our participants don’t hear anywhere else,” he said. “This year, our Annual Summit Advisory Board shaped the agenda around doing business in North Carolina, guided by one question: ‘What are the most pressing issues facing your business today?’
“Those conversations helped us bring together timely perspectives on emerging business issues, technology, current events and personal growth.”
Lessons From the Locker Room
In “Leadership Across Arenas,” Doug Warf, former president of the Carolina Hurricanes, opened the summit in conversation with Showalter. He shared nine leadership lessons from his career, exploring how team culture, feedback and adaptability shape success.
At the highest levels of professional hockey, even the stars seek advice from someone who sees what they miss. For Warf, now senior advisor for business engagement in the North Carolina Office of the Governor, that willingness to listen offers a lesson for any workplace: Expertise matters, but so does being open to other perspectives.
“It’s good to question things,” Warf said. “There’s also got to be a healthy way to do it where it’s not negative.”
A few negative voices can undermine an entire locker room, he said, while effective leaders recognize different strengths and make expectations clear.
He also shared a reminder from longtime Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford: “It’s not always fixed when you’re winning. It’s not always broken when you’re losing.”
For business leaders, the lesson was to stay objective through successes and setbacks, and be ready to change course when a carefully developed plan meets reality.
Building Opportunity Across North Carolina
Kenny Flowers, chief deputy secretary of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, connected business growth to the communities and workers who make it possible.
His session, “North Carolina’s Approach to Economic Development,” outlined the state’s First in Opportunity strategic plan, with priorities spanning infrastructure, innovation, community well-being and workforce development.
“Nothing is more important in economic development than workforce,” Flowers said.
He emphasized partnerships among government, universities, community colleges and industry, along with investments that help rural communities compete. Sustaining growth, he said, requires preparing communities for opportunities while considering their infrastructure needs and quality of life.
Will People Still Matter?
In the third session of the day, Matt Parson, SAS executive vice president and chief financial officer and Jenkins MAC Program alumnus, addressed a question increasingly familiar to accounting professionals: What happens to their work as AI becomes more capable?
“People have never been more important than they are right now,” Parson said. “There’s no question this is a pivotal moment, but it’s also just another moment in time when technology is scaling human ingenuity.”
In “Will People Matter,” he explained why organizations must understand AI’s limitations, build safeguards and assess whether a tool can deliver trustworthy results for the decisions at hand.
Joining him were SAS colleagues Sam McManus, principal internal auditor; and two Jenkins MAC alumni: Annalee Moore ’04, controller; and Kristina Manley ’03, finance operations director. The panel described AI applications ranging from accounting research and variance analysis to reviewing vendor contracts and identifying inconsistencies in financial statements before external auditors receive them.
One example came from summer interns who helped build an AI agent to flag contract clauses, requiring closer review. The technology directed analysts’ attention; people still reviewed the agreements and handled negotiations.
“It’s really about understanding when AI is going to be used best and when it’s going to add value,” McManus said. Manley, referencing AI-assisted contract review, agreed, saying, “It doesn’t take the human out of the loop.”
The discussion showed how AI can free time for more valuable work while preserving the need for professional judgment, critical thinking and interpersonal communication skills. According to Parson and his team, the answer to their session’s question is a resounding “yes.”
“From the very beginning of time, human ingenuity has always been the engine behind every breakthrough that’s really changed the world.”
Rethinking Complex Problems
In “Butterflies, Population and Bad Policy,” Mark McIntire, Duke Energy’s director of government affairs, energy, the environment and stakeholder engagement, asked participants to look beyond familiar assumptions.
He described the challenge of modernizing North Carolina’s power grid while keeping it operating and meeting growing demand. His discussion examined the roles of renewable energy, natural gas and nuclear power in balancing reliability, cost and lower emissions.
“You’ve got to maintain that critical thinking,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to solve problems without leaning on something that somebody created.”
McIntire recalled a water-treatment project in Jordan where a local goat herder suggested turning discarded glass bottles into the filtration material the project needed. The solution upended his assumptions about where expertise resides.
When it comes to discovering solutions to complex societal challenges, he said, “They all involve people. But there are solutions that aren’t that complex that we’ve just got to find. And we’ve got to find them together.
“At the end of the day, everything we do is about people.”
Protecting Trust in the First Hour
An operational problem can quickly balloon into a crisis that threatens an organization’s reputation, said Chuck Norman, owner and principal of S&A Communications.
In “The First Hour,” Norman explained how to recognize an escalating crisis and organize an early response. He urged participants to consider who could be harmed, how quickly the situation might spread and whether the organization can contain it.
“If the operational response is weak, no perfectly written statement will restore trust among your stakeholders,” Norman said.
Norman’s framework for the first hour of a crisis begins with stabilizing the situation and assembling a small team with the authority to act. The next step is to verify the facts, drawing on expertise across the organization. Operations may know what has stopped working, technology teams can assess affected systems, and human resources and legal counsel can clarify employee impacts and obligations.
Accounting and finance professionals bring another critical perspective: determining what information can be confirmed, assessing the financial exposure and identifying reporting or disclosure requirements.
“Your responsibility may simply be knowing when and where to raise the flag,” Norman said, “and that can be just as critical as solving the problem at hand.”
A Voice in the Profession’s Future
Robert Broome, vice president of advocacy and outreach for the North Carolina Association of CPAs, delivered an advocacy update that examined tax policy, changes to CPA licensure and the political landscape of the 2026 midterm elections.
He emphasized that policy decisions impact business planning and the profession’s future, making individual participation critical.
“There can be serious consequences when the affected parties don’t have a seat at the table,” Broome said. “Getting that and keeping that seat at the table is so terrifically important. The way you do that is by raising your voice … and getting involved.”
The day concluded with an ethics session led by Hunter Cook, a retired Forvis Mazars partner and NCACPA ethics facilitator. The session, which allowed participants to earn the annually required ethics CPE credit hour, explored how understanding people’s perspectives and responses to rules can encourage compliance and more ethical behavior.
Together, the sessions reinforced a practical challenge for lifelong learners: Keep asking questions, seek perspectives beyond your own, and bring informed judgment to the decisions others depend on.
“After five years of holding the Lifelong Learning Annual Summit, we have developed an engaged following of alumni who look forward to the event as a way to keep up to date with emerging topics and engage with fellow participants,” Showalter said. “We are proud to continue delivering an experience that checks those boxes — and a lot more.”
