I've been preparing to mentor a much bigger audience in 2023 and have A LOT of knowledge to share around launching and growing your cannabis accounting practice.

There are 30,000+ legally licensed cannabis businesses in operation today throughout the United States. Cannabis is the largest and fastest growing industry in the world. Many businesses need accounting professionals who specialize in this under-served area. This is because proper accounting for a cannabis business is unlike accounting for any other industry, due to its complex compliance issues, banking laws, tax limitations and reporting requirements.

My company, the National Association of Cannabis Accounting and Tax Professionals (NACAT Pros), provides an accelerated online program that makes accounting professionals experts in this niche. My program is open to CPAs, CFOs, Bookkeepers, Controllers and tax professionals who not only want to specialize in this area, but choose the clients they want, charge competitive fees, and work remotely. With our program, our students can open their own accounting firms and specialize in this one lucrative area.

NACAT Pros is a “plug and play” solution, providing videos, workpapers, templates, processes, resources, weekly Q&A calls, tax law instruction (including how to navigate the complex IRC Section 280e and 471 tax rules) and software recommendations.

We understand that marketing is not everybody’s forte, so we also teach people how to find and lock in clients in this industry. 

To learn more about how your accounting practice can fill this under-served market, connect with me here on LinkedIn or join the association at nacatpros.org.

I take a personal interest in my clients and specialize in helping them find solutions to all of their business and individual needs. This means that my clients trust me on a wide range of legal and financial issues that affect their daily lives.

After an early career as a professional pianist, I began to do Tax Preparation for myself and my fellow musicians. This experience is one component of my ongoing practice of providing legal representation to individuals in contracts. I also saw the necessity of protecting assets through Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning.

In addition to my tax and legal expertise, I have ten years of experience as a Special Education Teacher with NYC Teaching Fellows. Because of this, I have seen firsthand the importance of providing legal representation for those with special needs. The problems faced by these individuals are not abstract concepts to me.

I am a graduate of Brooklyn Law School with a Certificate in Intellectual Property, Media, and Information Law. While in law school, I won the Center for Urban Business Entrepreneurship (CUBE) competition for  an app design to help Indie Filmmakers in developing contracts. Additionally, I won Regional Law School Mediation competition. This award alone is indicative of my ability to find solutions.

Phil Valvardi has spent most of his career leading innovative businesses within the highly regulated financial services industry and more recently in the highly regulated cannabis industry.  Most recently, Phil was the CEO of Highroad Consulting Group, a leading cannabis consulting firm.  Prior to that, Phil served as CFO at GlobeOne, a financial technology company developing a mobile financial platform.  Phil also served as CEO of Maverick Network Solutions and presided over its acquisition by Fiserv.  Phil was also President of the MAC Network, one of the largest debit networks in the U.S., which was sold to Concord EFS/First Data for approximately $900 million.  Early in his career he held executive positions in the payments and financial divisions of CoreStates Financial Corp., now part of Wells Fargo Bank.

Phil sits on the board of Haub School of Business at Saint Joseph’s University. Phil earned his BA at Saint Joseph’s University, and his MBA at Drexel University.

Driven to improve the profitability and sustainability of the cannabis industry at large, Rocco Petrilli serves as CEO, IMPACT Powered by NCRPS. IMPACT offers the cannabis industry an enterprise-wide business operational health assessment and improvement process. Outputs of the assessment provide the client with a series of categorized health results scored and measured against established best in class business practices. These outputs are analyzed and presented in a report that effectively provides a gap analysis and customized corrective action syllabus. The Health and Recommendations report further defines processes and practices which direct the client to prioritize based on their criticality to business operations, cost control/reduction and continuous improvement objectives. The upshot of full execution of this roadmap is a long-standing positive I-M-P-A-C-T on the company’s overall performance.

Mr. Petrilli is also Chairman of the NCRMA. IMPACT Powered by NCRPS recently combined

with the NCRMA and will serve as the lead brand while NCRMA managed association membership and the NCRM Academy’s educational and certification offerings. In addition, he championed the startup of insurance captive management company that offers the TRICHOME branded products.

A 35-year business executive and veteran of the automotive components manufacturing industry, Mr. Petrilli has extensive experience in all aspects of global and multinational business planning and development. He also specializes in formal continuous improvement and talent optimization, achieving multiple team victories in more than a dozen business startups by creating the proper organizational architecture and driving out operational inefficiencies.

Mr. Petrilli earned a BSc in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Dr. Curatola is the Joseph F. Ford Professor of Accounting at Drexel University in Philadelphia. He is the Tax Column Editor for Strategic Finance since 1992. He has served as the editor of the Journal of Legal Tax Research and currently serves on the editorial review board of several journals, and has held a variety of leadership positions, including current national service with the Institute of Management Accountants. He has published over 250 articles in journals including Journal of Financial Services Professionals, Journal of the American Taxation Association, Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting, Oil, Gas, & Energy Quarterly, and Tax Notes to name a few. Dr. Curatola was a co-editor on IRA Answer Book by Wolters Kluwer and author of the EA Review course for Surgent Publishers. Dr. Curatola externally funded research findings have appeared in media such as Forbes Magazine, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and other media outlets.

Zachary Gordon is a CPA with over fifteen years of professional experience across multiple industries and functions. He serves as the fractional CFO, strategic and tax advisor for a portfolio of crypto, cannabis and tech companies. 

Zach focuses on tax planning and optimization, financial modeling and advisory services, business structuring and transaction support. He has also advised clients in the real estate, healthcare, nonprofit, fintech, media and consumer goods sectors.

Zach holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Binghamton University. He is a member of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA) and the New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA).

Zach sits on the NYSSCPA Board of Directors, Cannabis Committee, and Technology Assurance Committee. He is the current Chair of the Digital Assets Committee and was Chair of the Cannabis Industry Committee for three terms. He was named to the Society’s inaugural Forty Under 40 in 2020. He also sits on the AICPA National Cannabis Committee and was named a Forty Under 40 CPA by CPA Practice Advisor in 2021, 2022 and 2023. He is an advisor to CoFounders Lab’s Accelerator Program, advising startups on financial and operational matters.