Non-Equity Partners Have Important Role to Play

Businesspeople having a meeting over coffee sitting together at a table discussing a document, young man and two middle-aged women presentPercentage of women in partner roles is on the rise, but they’re still underutilized.

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Partner positions in CPA firms are ever so slightly going increasingly to women and non-equity partners, who have some of the same authority and prestige as full partners, but don’t hold equity stakes in their firms.

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Non-equity partners are in place at 49 percent of all CPA firms with multiple partners, up from 46 percent the year before, while women hold partnership positions at 16.4 percent of firms in 2013, up from 15.6 percent, according to the current “Rosenberg Survey: The National MAP Survey of CPA Firm Statistics.”