Ronald J. Baker’s mission is to, once and for all, bury the billable hour and timesheet in the profession. Mr. Baker started his CPA career in 1984 with KPMG’s Private Business Advisory Services in San Francisco. Today, he is the founder of VeraSage Institute—the leading think tank dedicated to educating professionals internationally—and a radio talk-show host on the www.VoiceAmerica.com show: The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy.
As a frequent speaker, writer, and educator, his work takes him around the world. He has been an instructor with the California CPA Education Foundation since 1995 and has authored fifteen courses for them, including: You Are What You Charge For: Success in Today’s Emerging Experience Economy (with Daniel Morris); Alternatives to the Federal Income Tax; Trashing the Timesheet: A Declaration of Independence; Everyday Economics; Everyday Ethics: Doing Well by Doing Good; The Best Business Books You Should Read; Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value; Measure What Matters to Customers; and Innovating Your Business Model.
He is the author of seven best-selling books, including: Professional’s Guide to Value Pricing; The Firm of the Future: A Guide for Accountants, Lawyers, and Other Professional Services, co-authored with Paul Dunn; Pricing on Purpose: Creating and Capturing Value; Measure What Matters to Customers: Using Key Predictive Indicators; and Mind Over Matter: Why Intellectual Capital is the Chief Source of Wealth; Implementing Value Pricing: A Radical Business Model for Professional Firms; and his latest book, The Soul of Enterprise: Dialogues on Business in the Knowledge Economy, co-authored with Ed Kless.
Ron has toured the world, spreading his value-pricing message to over 120,000 professionals. He has been appointed to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountant’s Group of One Hundred, a think tank of leaders to address the future of the profession; named on Accounting Today’s 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 Top 100 Most Influential People in the profession; voted number six and nine of the Top ten Most Influential People in the profession in 2012, 2013, and 2014; selected as one of LinkedIn’s Influencer Bloggers; and received the 2003 Award for Instructor Excellence from the California CPA Education Foundation. He graduated in 1984, from San Francisco State University, with a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a minor in economics. He is a graduate of Disney University and Cato University, and is a faculty member of the Professional Pricing Society. He resides in Petaluma, California.