In a recent episode of Making Waves, David Toth, Chief Growth Officer of Winding River Consulting, sat down with Christina Ricke, Principal and People Strategy Leader at Pinion and MPB | Leadership Accelerated Alumni. Below is a summary of their conversation.
What does it take for an entire firm to embrace AI, not because leadership says so, but because there is real buy-in across the organization? It's a question Christina Ricke has been tackling head-on as the People Strategy Leader at Pinion.
Christina has spent more than three decades at Pinion, one of the nation's leading advisory and accounting firms serving the food, agriculture, and related industries. With a presence across all 50 states and international operations, Pinion has been in business for over 90 years and is consistently recognized as a top workplace and as a trailblazer in human capital strategy.
But Christina's path to leading people strategy wasn't a straight line. She started as an accountant, spent years in the firm’s banking practice, and eventually became partner-in-charge of the firm's community banking group. Today, she oversees HR, learning and development, recruiting, internal communications, and a team of in-house talent advisors who effectively serve as executive coaches to Pinion’s leaders.
When Christina joined Pinion right out of college, she never imagined she'd one day be leading the firm's people function. Initially her career followed a typical trajectory: preparing work, reviewing it, managing it, and selling it, before working her way up to become the Partner-In-Charge of the firm’s financial institutions practice.
Looking back, she sees a thread running through her career. Christina served on the HR committee, helped with new employee training, and always found herself drawn to the relational side of the work, both internally and externally.
"I feel like I've traded my banking clients for internal clients, which are really the current and prospective employees at Pinion," Christina reflects. "Having sat on the other side of the desk, I know what it's like when something new gets rolled out that impacts our professionals."
That perspective has proven invaluable. Most of the people on Pinion's people team aren't accountants. Christina bridges that gap, bringing expertise in the people realm while maintaining a deep understanding of the realities facing the firm's professionals.
For Christina, people strategy isn't just about HR policies and recruiting tactics. It's about understanding who your firm is, what you stand for, and where you're headed, then aligning your talent strategy accordingly.
Early in her transition to this role, Christina confronted something about herself: she's inherently a people pleaser. And while that's a strength most of the time, it can become a gap when leading people strategy. The temptation is to try to be all things to all people.
"One of the things I learned early on is getting clear about what's great about our firm and how we operate," she explains. "There are lots of great firms and companies out there. What's important is to tell your authentic, genuine story so that you can attract others that want to be in the same space."
That clarity becomes the foundation for everything else. When new challenges emerge, whether it's AI, M&A, or private equity, Christina and the rest of Pinion's C-suite ask the same question: What does this mean for us, given who we are and how we want to serve clients?
When it comes to AI, Pinion has taken a distinctly people-first approach. Rather than mandating adoption, the firm has invested heavily in raising awareness and creating exposure for its people.
Christina describes Pinion's framework as a spectrum. On one end: "I don't like AI, I'm never going to use it, you can't make me." On the other end: "It's the greatest thing since sliced bread." The goal isn't to force everyone to the far end. It's simply to move people one click to the right.
"We started at the top with the principals and said, wherever you're at on this spectrum is totally fine," Christina explains. "We just want to raise awareness, exposure, and education. Some will get all the way there, some will only get halfway there, but we're just looking for progress."
The tactics have been varied and creative. Pinion ran Copilot training sessions that drew 200 signups from their 600-person firm. They've participated in Microsoft's Great Copilot Journey program. And they've committed to including an AI component in every learning and development event.
The results speak for themselves. A year ago, about 30% of Pinion's people were accessing Copilot once a week. As of October, that number had jumped to 60-70%.
For firms considering their own AI strategies, her advice is clear: "I’m not saying that everyone has to love it, or that everyone has to get all the way there, but to not recognize it's happening is a failure path." Pinion’s approach hasn’t been to force AI adoption: it’s been to meet people where they’re at and sprinkle in ways it can help augment their existing workflows.
Looking to 2026 and beyond, Christina identifies three major priorities.
The first is the next chapter of AI evolution. Pinion is focused on training its mid-tier employees to embrace and use AI effectively. And there's a new dimension emerging: AI agents. "Managers are going to manage humans and they're going to manage agents," Christina explains. "That's one of the big things on my mind: what kind of training and development do we need for that?"
The second priority is M&A integration. Pinion is in growth mode, but Christina is quick to point out that the work truly begins when a deal is closed:
"You agree to come together and then people think that's the event. But really the year or two after that is the real heavy lift around bringing people together. How do you capitalize on two plus two as something greater than four?"
The third priority is going global. With operations now in Australia and a growing remote workforce, Pinion is navigating what it means to operate across time zones, cultures, and regulatory environments.
Christina attended MPB | Leadership Accelerated in 2024, and she credits the experience with reinforcing the value of peer connection and continuous learning.
"Anytime you can get together with others like you in the industry, I just think nothing but good comes from that," she reflects. "We're all trying to solve a lot of the same problems."
Christina also maintains her CPA license, a commitment she plans to keep until retirement. "It's not an easy thing to get. When I got it, I signed my Christmas cards that year with CPA," she recalls. For someone leading people strategy at a major accounting firm, staying connected to the profession remains essential.
Join Leaders Like Christina at MPB | Leadership Accelerated
Applications for the next round of MPB | Leadership Accelerated are now open. Join us in Chicago for a rigorous bootcamp focused on building the next generation of leaders in the accounting industry.
Register your interest today.