private equity

Rampe: Make Strategy Stick | Gear Up For Growth

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Five steps turn vision into execution.

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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

On the latest episode of “Gear Up for Growth,” host Jean Caragher interviews Matt Rampe, partner at Rosenberg Associates and author of the forthcoming book, “CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success,” about how accounting firms can move beyond ad-hoc retreats to a disciplined, accountable planning process that sticks.

Rampe, who advises firms on strategy, succession, partner development, and profitability, said the book grew out of years of facilitation and coaching with firms of all sizes. “The book was in my brain for a long time before it got put on paper,” he says. “When I started writing, it actually came pretty quickly—but I learned there’s a lot more to making a book than a Word document.”

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 videos and podcasts here

Rampe argues that the profession has reached a disruption point, citing converging pressures including private equity, technology, staffing shortages, succession for retiring Baby Boomers, and a shift toward advisory services. “What worked for us 10 years ago isn’t going to work for us 10 years in the future,” he says. “The old model, where a few partners disappear into a room and come out with a plan, doesn’t work in this age. We need to be nimble.”

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Private Equity’s Accounting Playbook Is Shifting from Dealmaking to Operating Systems

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Prove It: PE-Backed Firms Must Now Deliver on Their Big Strategies

CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ — May 2026

Target Platform/Buyer Sponsor Funding Strategy
Jackson Thornton Ascend Alpine Investors PE-backed Wealth management, Gulf Coast expansion
Jefferson Wells U.S. Sikich Bain Capital involvement Institutionally backed Consulting and staffing capabilities
Copeland Buhl Frazier & Deeter General Atlantic PE-backed First Midwest footprint
Price Kong Aprio Charlesbank PE-backed Arizona and cannabis specialization
SWKJD Citrin Cooperman Blackstone PE-backed South Florida expansion
Gorfine Schiller & Gardyn Sorren DFW Capital PE-backed Mid-Atlantic expansion
Gordon Advisors Cohen & Co. Lovell Minnick PE-backed Michigan expansion
ArightCo Abbott Stringham & Lynch — Conventional M&A CAS and fractional CFO scaling
ASO Advisors Windsor Path Family-office backed Private capital Platform’s second deal
GBC Advisory Springline Advisory Trinity Hunt Partners PE-backed Oklahoma expansion
MCA Connect Grant Thornton Advisors New Mountain Capital PE-backed AI and digital transformation
Burke & Associates Platform Accounting Group / Shoreline Cynosure Group Private capital Massachusetts expansion
Of the month’s notable deals, 10 are funded by outside capital, led by Grant Thornton’s deal for a tech consultancy and Sikich’s for a staffing service.
Half “decidedly opposed” and the other half in favor, in talks or done. (CPA Trendlines Research)

By CPA Trendlines

Marking a new phase in the private equity takeover of the CPA business, the next test for accounting platforms will be proving that serial acquisitions can be converted into integrated firms, not just larger collections of offices, partners and legacy systems.

MORE CPA-PE DEAL TRACKER™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform |  PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker(™): PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker™ for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker™ Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing
MORE Private Equity

Call it: The Implementation Imperative. It’s the place where grand schemes on paper meet the concrete realities of running a business. The first phase was acquisition. The second was consolidation. The next is all about making it work.

The May 2026 edition of the CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ illustrates the change. And a CPA Trendlines survey in April shows 44% of accountants are eager, open or already closed on a deal.

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CPA-PE Deal Tracker™: How Big Buyouts Are Turning the Profession into a Platform

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Venture capital crashes the private equity party in accounting.

Consolidation constellation: Sponsors in blue, platforms in red, targets in gold.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The CPA Trendlines CPA PE Deal Tracker™ shows the steep rise in deal flow, hitting more than 450.

Private equity’s push into accounting is entering a new and more complicated phase: platform building, sponsor recycling, technology investments, blended tax and wealth services — and now, a new pipeline of cash from venture capital.

MORE PE Wars: The CPA Platform Economy Is Concentrating Fast | Alan Whitman: Why the Next Big CPA Firms Won’t Look Like CPA Firms | Gear Up for Growth | The PE Takeover: Audit Problem? What Audit Problem? | 1,000 Deals Show Where PE Money in Accounting Really Goes. | The 7.6x Machine: How Grassroots Firms Are Taking Private Equity for a Ride | Deal Tracker: PE Platforms Accelerate the Grab for CPA Firms | With Apax Sale, CohnReznick Starts Building a National Platform | PE Deal Tracker for Feb. 2026: 57 deals in 60 days | PE Deal Tracker Update: Alan Whitman Plants a Flag in the Private Equity Landscape | Alan Whitman: Breaking the Mold with PE Backing | Holistic Guide
MORE Private Equity

This month’s CPA Trendlines CPA-PE Deal Tracker™ shows nine new deals in April, down from the first-quarter deal-closing frenzy but bringing the year-to-date deal count through April 30 to 78, well ahead of the 44 logged in the same window of 2025.

The broader verified dataset now includes 452 in-scope events, giving CPA Trendlines a clearer view of what private capital is doing after its first wave of accounting-firm investments.

The latest data does not show a retreat. It shows a transformation. The new gambits go well beyond roll-ups, and include service line extensions, corporate carve-outs, cross-industry tie-ups, recapitalizations, continuations and a buzzy new venture-backed startup.

World domination

The deal models are sprawling in all directions as big money battles for a dwindling number of prime firms and squeezes for synergies in the firms they’ve acquired.

In the mix, accounting is morphing from a profession into a platform. A launchpad from which to sell a growing, and traditionally conflict-laden, range of products and services. From tax planning to wealth management, from outsourced accounting systems to internal audit, and from risk management to insurance sales.

A once incongruous, even contradictory, collection of services are being acquired, aligned and advanced. The ambition is market encirclement. The impulse is world domination.

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Concrete Steps to Imagining Your Firm’s Future

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What is a vision you’d be proud of?

By Matt Rampe

You’re building momentum! If you were in an airplane, you’d be at about 10,000 feet and climbing rapidly toward your highest altitude. In the Imagine stage, we’ll take it all the way to 30,000 feet, where the big picture emerges clearly for all to see.

MORE by Matt Rampe
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If the Identify stage is about who we are and why we exist as a firm, Imagine is the exciting part where we create alignment around where we want to go together.
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Ready the Stack Play: Tech Arbitrage Under Private Equity

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Private equity isn’t just buying CPA firms. It’s rebuilding them—starting with the tech stack.

 By CPA Trendlines Research

From ERP systems to AI-powered audit tools, PE-backed accounting platforms are undergoing technology overhauls at a pace never before seen in the profession. The result is a widening gap between capitalized firms and traditional partnerships still running legacy software.

In CPA Trendlines’ benchmark dataset, independent firms average about 4% of revenue on technology, versus about 10% at PE-backed platforms.

MORE Cornerstone Reports | MORE Private Equity

The logic is clear: better technology means faster service delivery, lower costs, and more data-driven decisions. For private equity investors, that translates directly into EBITDA expansion—and higher exit multiples.

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