SUCCESSION & RETIREMENT

Whitman: New Firm Deals: Flexibility, Culture, and the Rise of “31 Flavors” | Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

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Firms that prioritize, listen, and align position themselves for better long-term outcomes.  

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By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

Phil Whitman, President and CEO of Whitman Advisory, works with hundreds of CPA firms and more than 230 strategic investors across private equity, family offices, wealth management aggregators, and publicly traded consolidators. He sees a profession undergoing unprecedented transformation, and Whitman has a front-row seat.

In this episode of Holistic Guide to Wealth Management, Whitman shares his observations with me from his unique vantage point.  

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Whitman points to 2021 as the inflection point for the profession’s transition. That’s when EisnerAmper became the first major CPA firm to accept private equity (PE) investment, followed shortly by Citrin and Cherry Bekaert. Those deals opened the gates for capital providers and ignited a wave of consolidation across firms of all sizes. The profession hasn’t looked back since. 

Transaction activity has since accelerated, creating unprecedented competition for deals and pushing accounting firm valuations into territory the profession has never seen before.

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Haylett: Redefine Success in Retirement | Holistic Guide to Wealth Management

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The most dangerous day of retirement is a psychological challenge more than a financial one.

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By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™
For CPA Trendlines

When most people think about retirement planning, they picture spreadsheets and savings targets. But as Dan Haylett, author of The Retirement You Didn’t See Coming and host of the Humans vs. Retirement podcast, explains, the real challenge of retirement is not mathematical—it’s psychological. 

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“People focus on the numbers because they think that will solve all their challenges,” Haylett says. “But retirement is a complex human problem. Spreadsheets will not tell us who we are without a business card or what gets us out of bed in the morning.” 

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Pirolli: You Can’t “Declare” Independence — You Have to Earn It | Gear Up For Growth

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Firms that want to stay independent must transform how they operate, lead, and plan for succession.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“The problem that a lot of firms have is they just don’t pay attention to what succession really is until they get to the last few years,” explains William “Bill” Pirolli, executive vice president of firm services at Succession Institute, LLC, on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing. “It has to happen all throughout the lifetime of the firm in order to be properly established at the end.” 

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Pirolli, a former AICPA Chair and longtime CPA firm partner, emphasizes that succession planning must begin on day one, not five years before retirement. He cautions that too many firms wait until it’s too late to build future leaders or transfer client relationships effectively. 

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Jeremy Vokt: Why Bland & Associates Said “No” to Private Equity and “Yes” to ESOPs | MOVE Like This

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Employee ownership gave the firm a growth path on its own terms.

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MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Jeremy Vokt, managing partner at Bland & Associates, discusses the firm’s journey to becoming Nebraska’s first ESOP-owned CPA firm. Vokt shares how Bland evolved from a small 17-person firm in 2006 to a thriving 130-person business today, thanks in part to its unique blend of traditional CPA services and specialized government consulting work focused on Medicare and Medicaid compliance. 

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Vokt walks through the fundamentals of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), explaining that it’s similar to a 401(k) but without employee contributions. Instead, employees are allocated shares annually based on their compensation, which grow in value over time through third-party valuations. This approach creates an ownership culture from day one for every employee – from the front desk to the managing partner – without the typical 15- to 20-year wait to buy into ownership. 
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