Joey Havens, Executive Partner with Horne LLP, a large, regional firm with a national footprint, shared his time with us on Life In Accounting, the Where Accountants Go podcast.
35 years!
With the exception of the first few years out of college, Joey has spent his entire career with Horne LLP – 35 years at this point! Although Joey describes himself as a natural introvert, he made partner in only 8 years after joining the firm, and then became the Executive Partner in 2011. You will definitely pick this up in the interview, but it’s worth mentioning here as well: Joey is a very humble individual, and therefore a great leader. He didn’t want to talk too much about himself on the show, but we were able to stretch and get him to share some of the details of his career. It’s really is a good story.
Natural introvert
One of the key take-aways for this episode is the discussion of how those of us that are typically introverts can use that to our advantage in the business world. Joey says it better than I would in his interview, but some of the strengths he points out is that introverts process information well, and we make strong connections. I think many of us would automatically consider being an introvert a hinderance to moving up, but Joey very effectively nullifies that argument and gives us great pointers on how we can use that to our benefit in serving others.
Not soft or easy…
Another key discussion we delve into is the fact that technical skills are only a small portion of what it takes to be successful in accounting these days. There are many other skills that Joey cites as being integral to building your career. Among those are collaboration, anticipatory skills, critical thinking, and of course communication. In addition, the ability to accept and learn new technology is going to continue to be important as the profession changes. It’s interesting… although we tend to think of accounting as a ‘numbers’ field, it truly is still all about serving people.
I hope you enjoy this interview with Joey Havens. He was very gracious to take the time to record it, and I think there is something there for all of us.
Other episodes that may interest you: Lindsay Stevenson and Neha Patel
To listen to this interview with Joey Havens, please click on the player below:
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