Here’s what you’re looking for: Dominic Piscopo

GROWTH STRATEGIES

Springline’s Tim Brackney: Expect Accounting Firm IPO | Big 4 Transparency

“This isn’t a flash in the pan. This is an actual structural change in the profession.”

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Private equity in public accounting is often reduced to a caricature – buy, cut, flip.

Tim Brackney, CEO of Springline Advisory, says that framing misses what many accounting investments are actually trying to do: fund a growth thesis built around expanded capabilities, talent development, and modernized service delivery. Springline, backed by Trinity Hunt Partners, is a “buy-and-build” platform that has completed nine deals across CPA and advisory firms as it works toward becoming a national and eventually global firm with “all of the capabilities inside our four walls that our clients will need.”

MORE Big 4:  Dominic Piscopo | MORE Brackney: Don’t Blame Private Equity. Blame the Accountants  | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Brackney’s path to the CEO seat isn’t the “serial PE operator” stereotype. He started at PwC as an auditor, then moved into advisory and BPO work, and later spent two decades at Resources Global Professionals (RGP), a publicly traded Deloitte spin-out, ultimately serving as president and COO. He describes an 18-month mutual diligence process with Trinity Hunt, emphasizing that the goal wasn’t a quick arbitrage play. It was building an enduring firm, potentially by bringing in future investors over time rather than forcing a rapid exit.

A key early lesson, Brackney says, was that 2023 still required “Private Equity 101” education for many sellers.

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INNOVATION & CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Loyalty Tax: Accounting’s Lose-Lose Incentive System | Big 4 Transparency

Employees lose stability and firms lose money. So why do we do it?

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

A growing body of compensation data suggests that accounting firms may be unintentionally penalizing their most loyal employees.

In a recent solo episode of the Big 4 Transparency, founder Dominic Piscopo unpacks what he calls the “loyalty tax” — the pay gap between internally promoted employees and externally hired peers performing the same role. Drawing on 2024–2025 compensation data from thousands of U.S. and Canadian professionals, Piscopo outlines how this structural imbalance is reshaping career incentives across the profession.

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The loyalty tax, as defined in the episode, is the percentage difference in pay where externally hired employees earn more than internally promoted employees at the same level. According to the data, that gap is far from trivial. In the U.S., first-year senior associates hired externally earn roughly 6.3% more than internally promoted seniors, while first-year managers see an 8.9% premium. Even at the senior manager level, the gap persists. Canadian data shows a similar pattern, with especially pronounced spreads at the senior and senior manager levels.

The disparity is even more striking in consulting and advisory roles.

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INNOVATION & CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Jaimie Nichols: She Left Firm Life. Two Years Later, She Works Less Than 20 Hours a Week. | Big 4 Transparency

“I make more money now, but more importantly, I’m not miserable.”

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Jaimie Nichols expected her accounting practice to grow faster. Two years after leaving firm life, she is glad it didn’t.

Nichols started the practice around the time she learned she was going to become a mother. Now, she tells host Dominic Piscopo on The Big 4 Transparency, she has earned more than she did at her former job while spending far more time with her young son.

“It was the best decision ever,” she says.

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Nichols reports $120,000 in revenue and roughly $10,000 in expenses for 2025. She says she worked fewer than 20 hours a week, even during tax season, and fewer than 10 hours a week outside it. Family members helped with childcare for several weeks during tax season, but she had no paid childcare that year. She estimates that saved her at least $35,000 in infant care costs.

The numbers are striking. Nichols is just as interested in what they leave room for. READ MORE →

INNOVATION & CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Michael Hoover: Growth Without Discipline Comes at a Cost | Big 4 Transparency

Disciplined choices, talent investment, and cultural alignment matter more than chasing every opportunity.

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

As private equity reshapes the accounting profession, Bennett Thrasher is making a different kind of bet. The top 100 firm intends to remain independent.

Michael Hoover, Bennett Thrasher’s chief growth and strategy officer, joins host Dominic Piscopo on The Big 4 Transparency Podcast to explain why the firm considers independence central to its growth strategy—and why saying no may be one of the most important disciplines a growing firm can develop.

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“The biggest bet,” Hoover says, “is just remaining fiercely independent.”

That commitment shapes how Bennett Thrasher approaches everything from new service lines and acquisitions to recruiting and compensation. Rather than pursuing growth for its own sake, Hoover says the firm is working toward a long-term strategy for 2030 and scrutinizing whether each opportunity advances that vision.

In a market where firms are searching for new revenue streams, the temptation to pursue the latest “shiny object” can be powerful. But every new initiative consumes capital, leadership attention, and talent. Hoover argues that firms must examine not only an opportunity’s potential revenue, but also what they may have to postpone or abandon to pursue it.

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INNOVATION & CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Jen Cryder: From Membership Model to Market Maker | Big 4 Transparency

State societies can evolve into engines of innovation, education, and workforce resilience.

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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

At a time when the accounting profession is undergoing its most rapid transformation in decades, Jen Cryder, CEO of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants (PICPA), is quietly redefining what a state CPA society can (and arguably should) become. 

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In this episode of the Big 4 Transparency Podcast, Cryder joins host Dominic Piscopo to discuss how advocacy, revenue diversification, and technology investment are converging to reshape the future of the CPA profession. 

Cryder, who spent 15 years in public accounting before joining PICPA more than a decade ago, now finds herself at the center of national conversations around licensure reform, continuing professional education (CPE), and the evolving definition of what it means to be a CPA. While state societies have historically focused on a relatively narrow set of services, Cryder argues that the profession’s accelerating rate of change has expanded that mandate dramatically. “For most of our 130-year history, the definition of a CPA was fairly static,” she notes. “In just the last few years, that list of issues has become infinite.” 

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CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

Stewart Spiers: What Local Firms Can Do that the Big 4 Can’t | Big 4 Transparency

Faster, Leaner, Closer to the Client, and Two Hours to an Engagement Letter

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Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Former Deloitte colleague Stewart Spiers tells Dominic Piscopo about leaving the Big 4 partner path to help build a tax planning practice at TAAG – why SMB clients pulled him back, what changes in speed and autonomy, and how partner economics differ between large and small firms.

Spiers spent roughly 15 years at Deloitte, starting as a co-op and rising through Private Company Services, before making a move many Big 4 professionals debate but rarely execute: stepping off the partner track to double down on the SMB clients he’s always gravitated toward. In this new episode of the Big 4 Transparency show, Spiers tells host Dominic Piscopo that his decision wasn’t driven by a bad experience at Deloitte, but by a career crossroads and a clearer answer to one question: What kind of work does he want to be doing in the future?

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For Spiers, the most energizing part of the job has consistently been working with owner-managed businesses, entrepreneurs, second-generation operators, and local companies where the accountant-client relationship is long-term and high-trust.

While Deloitte can deliver immense value, he described a growing friction between Big 4 structures and what many smaller businesses actually need. The firm’s push upmarket, bundled service-line model, and high billable rates can make it harder to serve “everyday” businesses where the ask is often bookkeeping, core accounting, and practical succession and planning – not ERP implementations and multi-service-line engagements.

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ABOUT US

How AI Upends CPA Firm Pay Structures: Bloomberg Talks with Piscopo

Big 4 Transparency founder Dominic Piscopo makes featured appearance on Bloomberg.

By CPA Trendlines

Accounting firms are being forced to rebalance compensation structures—shifting pay and incentives away from entry-level staff and toward managers and reviewers—as artificial intelligence reshapes how work gets done, according to Dominic Piscopo, host of Big 4 Transparency on the CPA Trendlines Streaming Network.

MORE Dominic Piscopo and Big 4 Transparency | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Piscopo’s full discussion on AI, compensation trends, and the future of accounting talent is available on Bloomberg Tax’s Talking Tax podcast. His ongoing analysis of salary data and workforce trends is featured on the Big 4 Transparency show, streaming on CPA Trendlines.

“Having transparency in those models and being willing to talk about it with people —not just have this very kind of cold process where a number is thrown out—can make all the difference, even if the number is exactly the same,” Piscopo tells Bloomberg Tax reporter Jorja Siemons.

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CLIENT ACCOUNTING SERVICES

Matt Tait: Why Franchising Is the Next Big Thing for CAS | Big 4 Transparency

Why private equity may accelerate – not kill – entrepreneurship in accounting.

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Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Decimal CEO Matt Tait joins Dominic Piscopo to explain why his CAS firm is franchising its playbook, how it drives 50%-plus margins with queue-based delivery and daily book maintenance, and why private equity may accelerate – not kill – entrepreneurship in accounting.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Tait says the biggest accounting story right now isn’t just AI, it’s the industry’s next operating model.

On the Big 4 Transparency, Tait says Decimal started as a “different” CAS and bookkeeping firm while simultaneously building an internal operating system for running a modern accounting shop. In under six years, Decimal has served 1,000+ businesses and grown to 100+ employees – and now it’s taking its playbook to market through franchising. READ MORE →

ADVISORY & CONSULTING

Jody Padar: The New Playbook Is AI-Powered and Human-Centered | Big 4 Transparency

AI Won’t Replace Accountants. Instead, It Will Rewire the Business Model.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Big 4 Transparency
With Dominic Piscopo, CPA

Jody Padar, widely known as “The Radical CPA” and author of Radical Pricing, argues the future of accounting won’t be won by automation alone, but by a business model shift that elevates human judgment, advisory, and client relationships.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | AI | Pay & Compensation

In the new episode of the Big 4 Transparency Podcast, Padar joins host Dominic Piscopo to trace her path from early cloud-firm pioneer to venture-backed operator and to explain why her newest venture, Xcel Labs, is focused on training CPAs to think and lead differently in an AI-first world. Xcel Labs’ Navi aims to build empathy and leadership at scale.

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MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS

Jeremy Dubow: Raising the Bar for Talent | Big 4 Transparency

Why equity is the new standard for talent retention.

This is a preview. The complete video episode, with commentary and transcript, is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!
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Big 4 Transparency
By Dominic Piscopo, CPA
For CPA Trendlines

Jeremy Dubow, CEO and co-founder of Chicago-based, private-equity-backed Prosperity Partners, explains how entrepreneurship in accounting has shifted from demand-driven to capacity-constrained, and why transparent equity programs are becoming the new standard for talent retention.

MORE Dominic Piscopo | MORE Private Equity | MORE Pay & Compensation

Dubow joins Dominic Piscopo on Big 4 Transparency to discuss how accounting-firm entrepreneurship and the operating model required to scale have changed since he co-founded NDH in 2003. NDH later sold to private equity and rebranded as Prosperity Partners, which Dubow described as a case study in how firms are adapting to labor constraints, expanding client complexity, and rising expectations around technology and talent strategy.

Quotables
“The demand for accounting services is greater than it ever has been. The challenge is providing the service at a high level in a labor-constrained environment.”
“AI in and of itself is not right now the solution to solve all our problems. Using automation and offshoring gives us the operational leverage to create that capacity.”
“I recognize that my people are being attempted to be poached every single day of the year.”
“Why have a stock price if you don’t disclose what it is?”
“‘’If I worked that 80-hour week, you should too.’ Well, guess what? That doesn’t work anymore.”

Dubow argues the profession has shifted from a demand constraint to a capacity constraint. Client needs continue to expand, but firms increasingly struggle to staff and deliver services proactively at scale.

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