IN Play: Profile of Sara Mikuta, CPA, CGMA, CIA, CRMA

Sara Mikuta has done it all. In the four decades since she earned her CPA license and joined the Illinois CPA Society, she has worked for public and private companies, in public practice and in industry, as a consultant and as an auditor, part-time and full-time. She has served as the chairperson of the CPA Endowment Fund of Illinois, the Illinois Board of Examiners, and the Illinois CPA Society, and has raised two sons—both CPAs.

The CPA profession has the 1970s recession to thank for pushing Mikuta into business school: She originally dreamed of being a journalist. “Because of the recession, I really started thinking about my future,” she says. “It was really practical considerations that led me to major in accounting—I saw it as something with a lot of options from which I could choose.”

While the decision may have been practical, Mikuta found that she had a talent for financial details and truly enjoyed deciphering the stories numbers told. After graduating, she worked for several years as an audit manager at Arthur Andersen, eventually leaving for a job with more flexible hours after the birth of her first son. She would spend the next two decades working for financial institutions—including Pinnacle Bank and the Leaders Bank—discovering new things that intrigued her in the world of accounting and finance.

“That work always held my interest because when something happens in the economy, the banks are the first businesses to be affected. You have to be very nimble,” Mikuta explains. “Then I learned the deeper truths of banking: how important it is to a community, to the small business world. It’s the provider of capital that really keeps most of this country running.”

Mikuta eventually returned to the accounting and consulting world, spending nine years as a senior manager and then partner at Wipfli LLP until retiring recently. But Mikuta will tell you that the latter half of her 42-year career is defined by her volunteer work, a passion she has no intention of giving up. She has spent—and continues to spend—time volunteering with various boards, including the CPA Endowment Fund of Illinois, the Illinois Board of Examiners, and the Illinois CPA Society, and serving as a committee member for both the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy and the AICPA. In these continuing roles, she looks forward to being part of the evolution of the CPA Exam.

In fact, looking back on all she has accomplished, Mikuta says her work with the CPA Endowment Fund of Illinois is one of the things she’s most proud of.

Mikuta was involved from almost the very beginning, helping the small fund founded in 1998 with a mission of paving the way for future CPAs—but with only fuzzy ideas of how to achieve that—grow into its current iteration, an impactful organization that annually awards more than $235,000 in scholarships and training programs to hundreds of diverse and deserving accounting students across Illinois.

“I’m really very proud of the ways the Endowment Fund has supported future CPAs, particularly the kids who show potential to be great CPAs and great businesspeople but were being held back by financial, cultural, or racial barriers. I’ve seen people blossom,” Mikuta says. “I’m hoping that somebody out there is going to have an amazing career like I did just because I was there to help spur them on."