Innovative Thinking

Now is the Time for New Innovations

This week Intuit hosted our annual Investor day. We usually hold it in person at our Mountain View headquarters where our leaders gather to walk through the latest work we are doing for customers, and we share our plans for the year ahead. Like so many other companies, we held the event virtually this year.

Written by Sasan Goodarzi
Published Sep 23, 2020 - [Updated Nov 9, 2022]
4 min read

This is a challenging time for so many of our customers. The pandemic has shifted the velocity of many societal trends into fast-forward mode. The overnight switch to a virtual world has forced many small businesses to reinvent themselves on the fly, including selling in new ways and on new channels. And for consumers, the economic downturn triggered by the pandemic has made it more important than ever to find ways to save money and get out of debt.

At Intuit, we are obsessed with solving our customers’ most important financial problems. That commitment has never been more important than right now. It’s critical that we find new ways to put the power of technology, and especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), on the side of our customers. At our Investor Day, I was proud to highlight some of the new innovative ways our team is serving customers and wanted to share some of that information here:

One of the biggest problems our customers face is lack of confidence to do their own taxes and to manage their business. We are helping them increase their confidence and gain control over their financial future by connecting people with live experts available on our platform. With TurboTax Live and QuickBooks live, the experts now come to you, on your terms so you don’t have to do everything yourself. This two-sided platform also creates a new income source for the experts that are helping our customers, and we continue to use AI to improve the experience for both consumers and experts.
Struggling with not knowing or fully understanding where they stand with their finances. With Turbo, we are putting more money in their pockets by connecting them to higher yield savings accounts, giving them faster access to their hard-earned paychecks and using the power of AI to deliver insights that empower them to make better decisions about their money.
One of the biggest challenges small businesses are facing right now is how to expand the way they sell their products. To help them meet this challenge, we’ve launched QuickBooks Commerce to help product-based businesses grow in an omnichannel environment. Through QuickBooks Commerce, small businesses are able to manage multiple online and in-store sales channels, better maintain inventory, and know which channels perform best – all from one central hub.
Another way we are helping small businesses is with QB Cash, a free bank account that provides small businesses with full visibility into their current and future financial picture, the ability to move money instantly, and an attractive interest rate. With the challenges facing small businesses today, we’re excited to get this offering into our customers’ hands to help remove friction in how they manage their business and empower them to make sure their money is working for them.
Intuit has always been dedicated to delivering on our mission to power prosperity around the world. Part of this important work is brought to life by our product and services, but we also recognize the responsibility we have to contribute to the communities we serve. We are focusing our community efforts in: job creation and job readiness; climate; and diversity and inclusion. We were proud to share measurable targets to track our progress, including: creating over 7,000 jobs in underserved communities; committing to making a positive climate impact equal to 50 times greater than our own carbon footprint by 2030; and targeting having 16 percent of our total workforce composed of under-represented minorities. We know there is always more we can do, and we will make progress against these important efforts with the same passion we use every day to deliver for customers.

For more information on these and other ways we are delivering for our customers during this challenging time, you can go here.

We are living in unprecedented times. None of us know what the future holds. What I do know, though, is that everyone at Intuit will continue to put in the long hours and hard work to do everything in our power to help our customers prosper.

Sasan Goodarzi is the chief executive officer (CEO) of Intuit, where he leads the company in delivering on its mission of powering prosperity around the world.

Upon becoming CEO in 2019, Goodarzi declared Intuit’s strategy to be an AI-driven expert platform with data and artificial intelligence fueling innovation across the company. Under his leadership, Intuit has transformed from a tax and accounting platform to a global financial technology platform.

During Goodarzi’s tenure, the company has delivered record revenue growth and been recognized by Fortune and others as one of the world’s best companies to work for. Intuit has also been recognized as a diverse, inclusive, and innovative workplace.

Previous to becoming CEO, Goodarzi successfully led Intuit’s two largest businesses – its consumer tax business and its Small Business and Self Employed group. Previously, his roles at Intuit included serving as Intuit’s chief information officer, as the general manager of Intuit’s ProTax organization, and as the general manager of Intuit’s Financial Services Division.

Before Intuit, Goodarzi worked for Invensys, a global provider of industrial automation, transportation, and controls technology, serving as global president of the products group. He also held a number of senior leadership roles in the automation control division at Honeywell and served as the CEO and co-founder of a technology startup, Lazer Cables Inc.

Born in Tehran, Iran, Goodarzi immigrated to the United States as a child. He earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering at the University of Central Florida and a master’s in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Goodarzi is also a member of the board of directors at Intuit and Atlassian.