Kassi Rushing is a nationally recognized strategist, speaker and facilitator who works at the intersection of vision, strategy, and people. She partners with CEOs, managing partners, executive teams, finance leaders, and boards across the United States to clarify long-term direction, translate complexity into actionable strategy, and build organizations designed to win in the future of the profession.
As founder of Kassi Rushing Consulting, Kassi specializes in strategic vision development and multi-year roadmap creation for public accounting firms and finance teams. She is known for helping leaders move beyond incremental planning and into bold, future-focused strategy that aligns business model decisions, talent strategy, succession planning, technology adoption, and cultural architecture around a shared and compelling direction.
Kassi works as a strategic partner with the AICPA-CIMA and their Business Learning Institute. She was the lead architect and master facilitator for the Association’s RISE 2040 project and advises on the Profession Ready Initiative.
As a teacher and trainer, Kassi specializes in the future-ready skills necessary for the profession’s relevance. Today, Kassi has worked with firms and finance teams across the profession, facilitated thousands of leaders through strategic planning processes and leadership academies, and been engaged by organizations ranging from small, local firms to the Big Four.
Before launching her consulting practice in 2020, Kassi spent more than a decade inside a Top 50 public accounting firm (which grew to a Top 25 firm) as Director of People, Growth & Engagement. She advised the managing partner, board of directors, and executive leadership team on culture strategy, leadership pipelines, succession readiness, and firmwide change initiatives.
Kassi holds a Bachelor of Art in Communication from Mississippi State University and a Master of Science in Corporate Communication from Mississippi College. She is Accredited in Public Relations (APR) and her CliftonStrengths® Top 5 are Strategic, Ideation, Achiever, Input, and Futuristic—aptly reflecting her passion for helping the accounting and finance profession see what’s coming and position themselves to lead it. To learn more, visit www.kassirushing.com.
Check out Kassi’s Introduction Video on BLI’s YouTube Channel:
Testimonials for Kassi Rushing:
- Kassi is now one of our top thought leaders at the Business Learning Institute doing training, consulting and strategic planning. Kassi has a background in public relations and communication which gives her superpowers with strategy, culture, and people. She has some great programs in receiving and giving feedback, employee engagement, and leadership. Kassi’s experience in a top 50 firm along with her background and expertise is a great addition to the BLI team and I enjoy working with her in our strategic planning practice at BLI. – Tom Hood, CPA,CGMA,CITP – EVP Business Engagement & Growth, AICPA-CIMA
- I’ve had the good fortune to work with Kassi on multiple projects over the last several years, and also during her prior career as a Director of People, Growth & Engagement. From my experience with Kassi, it is clear that she is genuine, supportive, and deeply cares about the accounting profession, but more importantly, deeply cares about the people in it. – Jim Wallace, CPA – Chief Executive Officer, BPM
- I highly recommend Kassi as a speaker for any event. She skillfully tailored her session ‘The Behaviors of Inclusive Leadership’ to our specific needs and conference themes, drawing on her personal experiences to deliver a presentation that resonated well with our group. Her insights on inclusive leadership behaviors were not only practical but equipped our leaders with actionable tools and ideas to implement immediately with their teams. Kassi was an active collaborator in our planning to ensure we achieved our goals and made the process both enjoyable and effective. – Becca Babcock, CPA – Assurance & Tax Learning Leader, Cherry Bekaert Advisory LLC