IMA names new president.

Keith Bryant, Jr., PhD, CMA, became the first academic in 15 years to become president of the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Dr. Bryant, the associate dean of the School of Business at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, succeeded Leo M. Loiselle, CPA, as head of the 85,000-member organization as of July 1.

Bryant said in his one-year term he would like the IMA to reach out to government, the private sector and academia to raise the visibility of the management accounting profession and "be more responsive to changes in the IMA's membership."

"The world expects very high standards from the public accountants who work outside of corporations," said Bryant. "I want to see management accountants earn the same respect for their abilities and their ethics. Just as the CPA designation is all but mandatory for public accountants, the certified management accountant designation should be expected of management accountants."

One major focus of Bryant's efforts will be academia, where he sees the nation's colleges and universities preparing students for careers in public accounting even though two-thirds of them will end up working as management accountants.

"The American Institute of CPAs has been doing an excellent job of helping schools' accounting departments develop curriculums aimed at public accounting," Bryant said. "The IMA should be doing the job as well as the AICPA does."

A springboard for the IMA's efforts to build bridges between corporations and academia will be a forthcoming report, a joint research project of the IMA and the Financial Executives Institute, on what corporations want to see in entry-level accountants.