By Steven Krolak
(NEW ALBANY, Ind.)–Lisa Book, lecturer in accounting in the IU Southeast School of Business, has received the award of IMA Champion from the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA), a global association of some 140,000 members in 150 countries focused on advancing the management accounting profession.
The award recognizes IMA members who have shown volunteer and leadership skills above and beyond what might be expected. Book is one of only five IMA members in the world to receive the 2022 honor.
“Out of thousands of volunteers across the globe, it is an honor to even be nominated–let alone selected–by my IMA colleagues for something like this,” Book said.
Book has been involved in the IMA for 12 years. In that time, by her own reckoning, she has done everything from taking reservations for events to planning conferences to training chapter officers. She currently serves as Vice Dean of the organization’s Leadership Academy Faculty, in addition to serving on its CMA Exam Review Committee. She served as a member of the IMA Committee on Ethics from 2012 to 2014, chaired the Volunteer Leadership Committee as a member of the Global Board of Directors, and is a past president of the Louisville Chapter and Lincoln Trail Council, among countless other involvements.
Significantly for IU Southeast, she reorganized and reinvigorated student participation, executing a successful campus Student Nights event on campus in 2012, 2013, and 2016 that drew over one hundred participants. For Book, it is critical for students to develop contacts to the industry early on, so they can not only learn the art of professional networking, but explore the full range of options available to them within the field of accounting, a journey she had to make on her own.
“It has been important for me to help make that journey easier for my students and create awareness of the many paths available,” Book said.
To that end, she has leveraged her relationship with the IMA to host the organization’s Student Night on three separate occasions, and to create over ten roundtables at which professionals from different areas of finance and accounting shared their career experiences with students. She and the accounting club hosted an interactive ethics workshop that enabled students to interact with professionals, and spurred further engagement by bringing students to a conference of the IMA Louisville chapter. In additon, she has invited industry professionals to speak to her classes, and helped bring local professional associations to the Accounting & Finance Career Day event.
“When we improve, no matter if it is a big or small initiative, the team is more fulfilled, and it inspires the next generation of volunteer leaders,” Book said.