PODCAST

Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | Gear Up for Growth

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And why culture matters more than ever.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

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Alan Whitman isn’t trying to build a better CPA firm. He’s trying to replace it.

At Nichols Cauley, the former Baker Tilly CEO is recasting the traditional accounting practice as a “financial services company”—a structure that blends tax, insurance, risk, and transaction advisory into a single, continuous client relationship.

MORE ALAN WHITMAN: PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Moss Adams-Baker Tilly Merger: Bigger Isn’t Better. Better Is Better.| Unlocking the Secrets to Smart Growth 

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | MORE Gear Up for Growth | MORE CPA Trendlines streaming videos and podcasts here

The goal, he tells Jean Caragher in this episode of Gear Up for Growth, is not to expand services around the edges, but to collapse them into one integrated model designed to “manage, protect, and grow” client wealth in a recurring loop.

The shift reflects a broader rethinking across the profession, in which private equity capital, client demand for one-stop advisory services, and advances in AI are pushing firms beyond the partnership model that has defined accounting for decades.

Having previously led transformational growth at Baker Tilly, Whitman rejects the notion that rapid growth damages culture.

“That’s hogwash,” he says. “Culture comes down to one word: trust.” READ MORE →

When “What If” Becomes Reality | ARC

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A near-tragedy sparks a critical conversation on business continuity, risk, and responsibility in accounting firms.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil |
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The step-by-step operating guide for firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

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: 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 | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone |  Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn’t Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC 

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?

READ MORE →

Oz Demirdoven: Why U.S. Firms Lag the World in Advisory | The Disruptors

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Success breeds complacency – and obsolescence.

Sponsored by True Advisor: The Definitive Success Guide for Client Advisory Services by Hitendra Patil

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Success, long the defining strength of U.S. accounting firms, is fast becoming their most dangerous liability, according to Oz Demirdovan, a PKF executive with a global portfolio.

Flush with steady profits, deep client rosters, and decades of compliance-driven demand, many firms see little reason to change—just as the ground beneath them shifts, Demirdovan tells Liz Farr in this episode of The Disruptors.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors  | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time |

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The paradox is stark: the very stability that built the profession now insulates it from the urgency to adapt, leaving some of its most successful players at greatest risk of falling behind.

Demirdoven has worked in accounting worldwide, spending more than five years at Allinial Global. From his perspective, the most striking difference between accounting in the U.S. and the rest of the world isn’t just our complex regulatory environment.

“The biggest difference isn’t only regulation, it is mindsets,” he explains. “I would say, in North America, especially in the United States, firms are still very compliance anchored.”   READ MORE →

Nick Pasquarosa: Advisory at Scale Requires Systems, Not Heroics | Holistic Guide

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Bookkeeper360’s rise to 1,000 clients shows how workflow, AI, and remote talent—not individual effort—power modern CPA firm growth.

Sponsored by The Balanced Millionaire: The Advisor Edition by Dr. Jackie Meyer | See Today’s Special Offer

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With Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!

When firms talk about innovation in accounting, they often start with technology. But in my conversation with Nick Pasquarosa, founder and CEO of Bookkeeper360, it became clear that technology was never the starting point for his firm. It was the result of listening closely to small business owners and building systems to solve their most persistent problems.

MORE Rory Henry and The Holistic Guide | BOLT: Bookkeeper360 Launches Mobile and Web App Featuring AI-Powered Virtual CFO

Pasquarosa founded Bookkeeper360 in 2012, long before cloud accounting was the norm. What began as a door-to-door side hustle helping local businesses reconcile their checking accounts evolved into a nationwide cloud accounting firm serving nearly 1,000 small business clients with a team of more than 75 professionals across 26 states.

“I started this in high school,” Pasquarosa tells me. “It really started with an interest in helping small businesses stop running their business off their bank account balance and [instead] giving them timely, accurate books so they could make real-time decisions.”

READ MORE →

Should I Leave Public Accounting? | Accounting Voices

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How To Decide If Public Accounting Is Still Right For You.

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Accounting Voices
With Rob Brown

The step-by-step operating guide for firms building, pricing, and scaling advisory services that clients value—and pay for.

You know a profession is under pressure when strangers online ask the same question every week. And in accounting, right now, that question is this. Should I leave public accounting?

MORE Accounting Voices with Rob Brown | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

It shows up constantly on our YouTube channel. People write things like. I cannot survive another busy season. Is it normal to feel like this job is crushing me? I love accounting, but I hate public accounting. Does it ever get better, or do I need to escape? READ MORE →