Ryan

Tolson

Vice President of Accounting & AI Strategy

Corporate Responsibility

Ryan Tolson serves Commonwealth in an accounting leadership role, primarily responsible for financial operations, reporting, and process improvement across client portfolios.

Ryan joined Commonwealth in October 2012 and has more than 13 years of experience with the firm. He began his accounting career in public accounting in 2010 and brings more than 16 years of accounting experience overall. He is a Certified Public Accountant.

Ryan has focused his career on real estate and hotel accounting, financial review, process improvement, and the practical use of technology to improve reporting and workflow efficiency, with extensive experience leading system integrations and advancing automation and AI initiatives to strengthen operations.

Experience

Education

Accomplishments

What Matters

What does being a true partner to your clients mean to you? 

Being flexible in our processes and reporting to provide the deliverable they need.  This often creates a little more work on our end to adjust a process to produce that end result, but it's part of what makes working at Commonwealth a dynamic and exciting place; every day is unique and there is a new problem to solve, and I get a lot of pleasure from helping come up with those solutions.

What's a moment where you made a meaningful difference for a client?

When we took over management for an institutional client a couple years ago, upon wrapping up the year-end close financial reporting process, they reached out to let us know that it was the best year-end close in several years.  Given they are publicly traded, they need quality financial information quickly, and their previous management company was just not able to deliver that level of service.  I always love getting that kind of feedback; it's a clear indicator we're providing the exceptional service we strive to deliver for all of our clients.

What role does collaboration play across Commonwealth's service lines?

This is where one of core values, Team First, really stands out and set us apart. Property management, lease administration, and property accounting all have roles and responsibilities, but there is overlap and coordination needed to produce quality results to our clients.  Real estate can be extremely dynamic and given our tailored approach to client deliverables, it really does require that Team First mentality and supporting one another to work together on a given task to ultimately provide high quality service to our clients.

What kind of people thrive at Commonwealth?

I would describe them as entrepreneurial.  Someone who has exceptional critical thinking skills and is able to adapt and solve problems and wants to take leadership and make a difference.  Every day presents new challenges at Commonwealth, so if someone prefers a rigid, structured corporate environment where every day is more or less the same, this is not the place for them.  But it's exactly that kind of dynamic, fast-paced work environment that has kept me excited and engaged to work with this company over the last thirteen years.

What motivates you outside of work?

AI and just the rapid pace of change in technology right now.  I think we're in a very interesting transitional time and it seems like every day we're seeing a new, minor breakthrough.  So that's exciting to me and I enjoy learning as much as I can and integrating that into my personal and work life.  

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