She Counts brings together respected educators Nancy McClelland, CPA, and Questian Telka, EA, for candid conversations about what it’s really like to be a woman in accounting. Whether you’re in corporate, at a firm, or running your own show, this podcast offers a space to feel seen, heard, and understood. From taboo topics to everyday challenges, She Counts is more than a podcast—it’s a community where women in accounting, tax, and bookkeeping can come together and get real.
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Big changes rarely happen all at once. And when fear has been making our decisions for a long time, even the first small step can feel enormous. Nancy and Questian bring listeners two conversations from the Theater of Public Speaking “Curtain Call” retreat, recorded by Nancy with women whose stories start in different places and arrive at the same realization. Katie Helle spent seven years staring at the same spreadsheet before burnout finally pushed her to leave a stable CPA role and start her own firm; Mariana Alvarez spent years rebuilding her sense of self after heartbreaking domestic abuse, learning that forgiveness — of the people who hurt her and of herself — couldn't be rushed. Both chose to move forward while still scared, and discovered that you don’t need to see the whole path to begin walking it.
Two Sides of Leadership: Building Resilient Firms & Guiding Client Change
Episode 33
Wednesday, July 29, 2026 • Duration 01:01:32
Nancy and Questian compare notes on their two very different sessions from Scaling New Heights that turned out to have more in common than expected, leading to insightful lessons about leadership. Nancy's panel on Vulnerability as a Strength started with a deliberately invasive survey she gives accomplished leaders, designed to surface what they never say out-loud; Questian's session on Change Management with Ashley Rhoden dug into leading clients and teams through change. Talking it through afterwards, they realized both sessions kept circling back to the same two ingredients that impact our ability to lead — self-awareness, and the ability to recognize what someone else is carrying. They close with the question Nancy asked her own audience: who actually knows what you're carrying, and whose load could you help lighten?
Live from Wave Seattle, Nancy and Questian are joined by conference founder Erin Pohan to put the audience's own definitions of success on trial. Nancy explains why she'd rather work in her business than scale it, even after a vendor once told her she was leaving money on the table; Questian describes firing almost every client to become a firm of one built entirely around nonprofit CFO work. It's a room full of women in accounting answering the same question out loud: what definition of success have you personally outgrown?
Trashie Cassie aka “Why You Need an Alter Ego: Acting With Authority Before You Feel Ready”
Episode 31
Wednesday, July 1, 2026 • Duration 01:01:01
We all have moments that ask more of us than we think we're capable of giving: the difficult client conversation, the boundary that needs to be set, the meeting where it's time to speak up. It happened to Cassie Divine, too. In two decades leading at Intuit, she discovered that authority isn't something you earn once you feel ready. It's something you access when the moment demands it. Most career advice tells women to become more confident, more assertive, or more strategic. But what if you don't need to become someone new at all? Cassie joins Nancy and Questian to explore the idea of an alter ego—not as a fake persona, but as a way to access the version of yourself that's already proven she can do hard things. From the sixth-grade story that gave birth to "Trashy Cassie" to the executive conversations that later demanded her, they unpack why authority is a behavior, not a personality, and how to stop waiting until you feel ready.
Presence, Not Performance: The Confidence Others Feel Around You
Episode 30
Wednesday, June 17, 2026 • Duration 58:29
The need for “executive presence” is the vague phrase that shows up in performance reviews as the reason women don't get the promotion – even though almost no one can define it. Lindsay Patterson, co-founder and CEO of CPA QualityPro, joins Nancy and Questian to strip it down to something simpler and more meaningful: instilling confidence in others that you're the right person for the job. They dig into the double-standard that turns an assertive woman into "aggressive"; what to do when office culture rewards the loudest jerk in the room; and why walking away from a toxic culture is never failure.
• Guest on LinkedIn –• CPA QualityPro –• The Accounting Podcast – “Solving for CPA Mobility with Lindsay Patterson” –• Amy Cuddy TED Talk – “Your body language may shape who you are” –• – • Earmark CPE –
The Courage to Be Nominated: Wanting It, Dreading It
Episode 29
Wednesday, June 3, 2026 • Duration 52:52
Nancy and special guest Melissa Miller Furgeson, stepping in for Questian, get honest about the awards nomination cycle in accounting: the longing for recognition tangled up with the dread of asking to be nominated, the fear of losing in public, and the jealousy and imposter feelings most of us have but few admit. They reframe awards as visibility events rather than verdicts, and talk through why showing up, even when you feel undeserving, gives the people around you permission to do the same.
Nancy and Questian make the case for why conferences can have such impact for women in accounting, and how to get the most out of them when you show up. They share their industry favorites; what they look for when prioritizing certain events over others; how to define and reach your attendance goals; and the mistakes that sometimes keep people from getting full value out of the experience. Whether you're a self-described introvert who sets out to introduce yourself to just one other person, or a woman who could spend the whole week connecting in the hallways and soaking up education… there's a conference for you.
In a special crossover episode with the Unofficial QuickBooks Accountants Podcast, Nancy and Questian are joined by Alicia Katz Pollock to dig into why so many technically skilled bookkeepers struggle to charge what they're worth — and what it takes to bridge the gap between expertise and authority. Alicia gets candid about her own discomfort with pricing, using a real business pivot as a window into the self-doubt that holds back even the most accomplished practitioners.
The Big “D”: Divorce - Radical Acceptance and Rebuilding in Real Time
Episode 26
Wednesday, April 22, 2026 • Duration 01:01:57
When Questian read through 31 pages of divorce paperwork and added it to her Ta-Da List (see Ep. 25), it cracked open a conversation she and Nancy had been circling for a while. This episode gets honest about navigating divorce while running a business and raising kids — what it means to grieve something you chose, and why relief and devastation aren't mutually exclusive. They dig into radical acceptance, the DBT concept that two opposing truths can coexist, and what it looks like to keep showing up professionally while your personal life is in freefall.
Ta-Da! Celebrate the Little Things (They’re Actually Big)
Episode 25
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 • Duration 57:54
Questian and Nancy close out Season Two with Valerie Heckman, Accountant Community Manager at OnPay, and a deceptively simple idea: the “Ta-Da!” list. Instead of measuring your day by what’s left undone, what if you kept track of what you actually did? Valerie shares how this practice helped her interrupt burnout, why women in accounting are especially prone to dismissing their own wins, and how sharing those moments with others can change the culture of your firm. Although a Ta-Da list isn’t a cure-all, it is an effective tool that can shift how you end your day, how you see your work, and how you show up for each other. Because the little things? They're actually the big things.
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