Why Even The Best and Biggest CPA Firms Are Losing Their Best and Brightest Talent

Despite paying top dollar for top talent, old-line firms are losing Gen Y staffers with bigger ambitions.

Derek Davis, The Shared Economy CPA, talks about launching the first app-first CPA firm

By Rick Telberg
CPA Trendlines Research

With CPA firms locked in a battle for top-level talent, wages are advancing at record rates in desperate efforts to both retain and recruit highly-prized professionals, according to CPA Trendlines research.

Partners and staffers alike, feeling stifled and underused at their current firms, are finding a broad array of new opportunities at other firms. And where they can’t find the right position at another firm, they are creating their own.

Los Angeles CPA Derek Davis, for example, left a career at a Big Four firm to start his own practice. But his first hire wasn’t an assistant. And his first partner wasn’t another CPA. Instead, Davis teamed with a software designer. And they didn’t open an office, they launched an iPhone app.