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Allan Koltin: What Elite CPA Firms Do Differently | Gear Up for Growth
The best firms build accountability cultures, develop climbers, and make tough calls.
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil | See Today’s Special Offer
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
for CPA Trendlines
“Some firms dream of being great but only are willing to make the commitment to be good,” Allan Koltin, CEO of Koltin Consulting Group, says in the new episode of Gear Up for Growth with host Jean Caragher. “Leadership is the delta that separates all.”
MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth here | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network here
Koltin says the gap between elite firms and average firms keeps widening, and leadership is the defining factor. Widely recognized as one of the profession’s top consultants, he argues that firms chasing high performance must stop avoiding hard decisions, embrace accountability, and rethink what leadership means.
“You can have the same clients, same talent pool, same market opportunities, and one firm ends up in the upper quartile while another struggles,” Koltin says. “The difference is leadership.” READ MORE →
Private Equity’s Big Bet Faces an AI Shake-Up
But scale may matter more, not less, in the accounting and legal markets.
By CPA Trendlines Research
The same technology that promises higher margins could weaken the billable-hour economics that made professional services so attractive.
MORE Private Equity
Private equity’s rush into law and accounting is running into a new question: What happens to a roll-up strategy built on professional labor when artificial intelligence starts doing more of the work?
Steve Stagner: From Mattress Firm to CPA Firms
Before Rolling up CPA Firms, Stagner Built a Retail Empire on Acquisitions — Then Watched It Buckle.
By CPA Trendlines Research
Steve Stagner now runs Current, the accounting platform that has gathered more than 40 firms in roughly three years under backing from Thrive Holdings and describes its holding period as effectively permanent.
MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: What $1 Billion Buys in Today’s CPA Business
MORE CPA PE Deal Tracker™: 13 Firms Rolled Up in May. 92 So Far this Year | All 466 Deals for the Last 10 Years | Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems | CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform |
But before he arrived in the profession, Stagner spent a 23-year run building, taking public, selling and then rescuing the largest mattress retailer in the United States — a company whose climb and near-collapse trace almost entirely to the same instinct now reshaping the accounting business: growth by acquisition.
What Happens to Your Firm If You Don’t Come Back Monday? | ARC
After a near-fatal skiing accident, three accounting leaders confront the uncomfortable questions every firm owner should answer before a crisis strikes.
Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil |
See Today’s Special Offer
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Originally published March 26, 2026
Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation
Business continuity planning often lives in the realm of “someday.”
Until it doesn’t.
In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, tackle a topic many professionals avoid: what happens when the unexpected actually happens.
The conversation opens not with theory, but with a moment that makes the stakes unmistakably real.
MORE Accounting ARC: Bad Bosses or Bad Habits? The Truth About Workplace Failure | Why Relationships Still Drive Career Success | The Real Problem with AI in Accounting | AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |
Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, recounts a recent skiing accident in which she fell roughly 200 yards and collided with a tree at high speed. She survived with a broken leg—but the incident forced a sobering question: What would have happened to her firm if she hadn’t?
How Siblings Can Derail a Family Business
Succession plans can be tricky … for the advisor.
By Ed Mendlowitz
Call Me Before You Do Anything: The Art of Accounting
Someone has to be the boss. When the founder is active, he or she is usually the boss. But what about parents who step aside to have their children run the business? Particularly where there is more than one child working in the business?
MORE by Ed Mendlowitz
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I’ve seen some situations where two siblings can run the business as equals. And then, there are other situations where they can’t. What do you do?