Always the Teacher

While some professionals know from the start that they want to be CPAs, others end up there after going in another direction. Still, others never stop using their original talents and simply apply them to their new accounting roles. That’s the case with Jay Lauretta, CPA, director of risk strategy at ADP.

While Jay chose not to be an art teacher like he originally planned while attending Monmouth University, he has decidedly been “teaching” most of his life. At ADP, Jay enjoys being the advisor to an audit staff on all things related to Sarbanes-Oxley and career development. Previously, as an audit manager at Baker Tilly, he developed a specialty in healthcare and performing audits of employee benefit plans (EBP), eventually representing his region as part of the firm’s EBP Center of Excellence Group. There, he annually trained all levels of associates, including partners, and trained others on auditing standards and data analysis software.

What he likes best about auditing is the “dynamics of it, or the problem-solving.” According to Jay, “I like being the guy who helps people figure out their problems so they can go and execute on what they need to do.” At ADP, he enjoys “taking people under his wing and understanding the why of how we do something,” he says. “I’m constantly educating people or advising them. As an auditor I get to do that almost every day.”

When starting out in his career, Jay was unsure if he wanted to be an auditor or tax accountant. By the time he joined Baker Tilly, he knew he wanted to be an auditor. “I like the way accounts are balanced, exact and precise. I’m a very detail-oriented person, which served me well in accounting, but auditing taps into my social skills,” he says.

His love for teaching was further evidenced at his volunteer work at the NJCPA. Since 2008, Jay has been an NJCPA career awareness program speaker, where he presents the benefits of becoming a CPA to high school students around New Jersey. He was also the leader of the Emerging Leaders Council from 2013 to 2018, where he helped those new to the profession develop their careers.

Where it All Began

“I did a lot of painting and drawing,” explains Jay, noting that he went from wanting to become an art teacher to math teacher then science/pre-med before settling in at Monmouth University’s music industry program. Either by coincidence or by fate, half of that program was filled with business courses. “I took accounting because it was required by the music industry program,” he adds. “I remember sitting in the class on the first day thinking I’m probably not going to like this,” remembering the horror stories of his friends who hated accounting.

But he couldn’t have been more wrong. “I gravitated towards it pretty naturally and I really enjoyed it,” he says, noting that he could tell he liked it since it was the first homework that he did every night. When the professor found out that he wasn’t an accounting major, he phoned Jay directly to say, “You’re an accountant. The way you are in class, the way you do your work, you are an accountant. When you finally come to that realization, you let me know.” Jay eventually did switch majors.

Giving Back

Even his love for video games is still put to good use. For the past eight years, Jay has helped raise money for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals through its “Extra Life” 24-hour video game marathon. “Video games are probably my favorite hobby. I knew this was something I could do and ask my friends to be a part of,” he says. Helping sick children also gives him more appreciation for his own family — wife Kyleen; daughters, Abby, 7, and Zoey, 4; and son, James, 10 months.