Brady Banken
Volunteer Excellence Award
Julia Shiota, MNCPA communications coordinator | October/November 2024 Footnote
The CPA talent pipeline and discussions around how to best reach younger generations to get them interested in accounting have revved up the past few years.
For Brady Banken, CPA, a nonprofit manager at CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, this has been a key focus for much of his career. As an MNCPA member since 2018, Brady has brought his passion for the industry to high school students through his work as a mentor for the MNCPA’s Scholars Program. Since its inception in 2018, Brady has worked with a new student mentee each year.
The program provides an opportunity for high-achieving high school students from marginalized backgrounds to see what a career in accounting may look like through firm visits, specific student-facing programming and engaging with a mentor. Because the program runs the entire academic year, mentors commit to supporting their mentee for the entirety of the program. To put it simply: It’s a huge time commitment to make for one year — let alone five consecutive years!
But Brady is quick to wave away any praise for his hard work, with his usual smile and a slight shrug.
“I’m not sure where I’d be without having a mentor in college,” he said. “I’d like to think the scholars who participate in this program feel the same way.”
His passion is infectious; not only has Brady volunteered each year as a mentor, he also often brings another colleague from CliftonLarsonAllen LLP with him! But the impact on students truly showcases his commitment, as mentioned by his most recent mentee, Ebrahim.
“Working with Brady on a weekly basis helped me take a deeper look into the field of accounting,” Ebrahim said. “During the program he showed me different high school activities and internships I could get into to go further into the accounting world to see what I thought about it.”
Brady’s genuine desire to support students, and positively impact the industry as a whole, has earned him the Volunteer Excellence Award, recognizing members who have volunteered for five years and have provided leadership or significant contributions to the society.
