Teresa Mackintosh, who had an almost 20-year career in the tax and accounting software business, has become CEO of Trintech. Based in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, area, Trintech markets cloud-based applications that manage the record-to-report process.

Liberty Tax has named Laura Contreras Rowe as COO of its SiempreTax+ business, which is designed to provide tax preparation and other services to the Hispanic market. While Liberty, which operates a franchised store chain for tax preparation, announced her hiring in the last week, Contreras Rowe has been on the job since August.

As we delve deeper into 2016, I thought I'd share my radical predictions. Here goes:

10) Cloud Technology is going to get more advanced. There will be more players in the space as I have already seen some of their heads pop up. New business owners and next generation customers will continue to embrace and expect it.

We're only 19 days into the new year and already my clients (accounting firms) have provided the following insights for me. 1. Being a 'thought leader' isn't a term that brings clients the results they need in their practices. Being an 'outcome leader' does.