Morgan Randolph, Global Head of Tax at Atlassian, joins Tax Leaders Unplugged to discuss whether AI is a threat or an opportunity for in-house tax teams.
Her answer is grounded in practical results. One AI-enabled workflow helped Atlassian's India tax team process thousands of airline receipts and invoices, saving 240 hours and turning a highly manual process into one that is almost instant.
Morgan also shares how AI made her own budget review 10 times faster and 10 times better, how her team turned a Section 382 research procedure into a working spreadsheet, and how a simple script removed a repetitive 25-minute step from a SOX control.
In this episode, we cover:
- Why people become more optimistic about AI when they stop reading about it and start experimenting
- How Atlassian combines a transformation lead, tax champions, broad tool access, workbook prototypes and a tax hackathon
- Why the best starting point is low-hanging fruit, not a full transformation programme
- Where custom tax apps can fail on scale, transferability, version control, assurance and audit reliance
- Why human review remains essential, particularly in high-risk processes such as the tax provision
- How Morgan progressed from Senior Tax Accountant to Global Head of Tax during nearly 11 years at Atlassian
- What strong mentors, honest feedback, team user guides and genuine professional relationships can do for a tax career
Key insights:
- Start with a recurring manual process the team already understands
- Give the whole team permission to experiment
- Use prototypes to make AI tangible
- Keep people accountable for accuracy, controls, documentation and auditability
- Design for scale before turning an individual script into a team process
- The long-term opportunity is more proactive thinking, earlier business decisions and more tax with less Excel
Where to find Morgan Randolph:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/morgan-randolph-cpa-91b74428
Where to find Stevi Frooninckx:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevifrooninckx
Tax Leaders Unplugged: https://podcast.loctax.com/
Loctax: https://www.loctax.com/
References and resources:
Atlassian ShipIt hackathons: https://www.atlassian.com/company/shipit
Confluence: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence
Loom: https://www.loom.com/
Claude for Excel: https://www.anthropic.com/news/advancing-claude-for-financial-services
Gemini in Google Sheets: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/14356410
Accordance AI for tax research: https://accordance.com/
Alteryx: https://www.alteryx.com/
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction: Morgan Randolph, Global Head of Tax at Atlassian
04:00 AI in tax: fear, excitement and why experimentation changes minds
07:30 How Atlassian organises tax transformation and team experimentation
09:30 Why tax leaders need to test AI themselves
10:10 How to run a tax-focused AI hackathon
15:00 Vibe coding, difficult workbooks and scaling prototypes
17:30 The invoice workflow that saved Atlassian's tax team 240 hours
19:00 Tax provision opportunities and why humans remain the reviewers
20:10 Custom tax apps, audit controls and the future of tax work
21:00 More tax and less Excel
22:30 Skills for the tax professional of the future
25:40 Four practical AI use cases for spreadsheets, research and controls
29:30 How small wins turn AI sceptics into active users
30:10 Morgan's path from Senior Tax Accountant to Global Head of Tax
36:30 Mentorship, feedback and trust in a global remote team
44:20 Career advice: build genuine relationships before you need them
