private equity

Grassi: How the Hell Did This Happen? | Gear Up For Growth

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Here’s what it takes to grow a CPA firm from zero to the Top 100—without losing your soul.

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Build a 7-figure firm in just 4 hours a week!
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

When Lou Grassi started his firm at age 24, he couldn’t afford to pay himself. There was no client base, no safety net, and no guarantee it would work.

More than four decades later, Grassi is the 56th largest accounting firm in the U.S., with $146.5 million in revenue, seven offices, 58 partners, and more than 560 employees. And yet, as Grassi tells host Jean Caragher on Gear Up for Growth, the most important lessons from that journey have very little to do with size.

They have everything to do with intention.

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In this conversation, Grassi reflects on what it takes to build a firm that grows sustainably, treats people like owners, and stays independent in a profession reshaped by private equity, talent shortages, and rapid change.

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2026 Outlook: Why Small Firms, PE Giants, and the Middle Are Headed in Different Directions

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A profession splitting in three.

By CPA Trendlines Research

The U.S. accounting profession is no longer moving along a single growth continuum. It is splitting into three distinct economic paths—each governed by a different logic, facing different challenges, and offering different prospects. In 2026, these paths are likely to diverge further.

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At one end, solo and micro-firm accountants are increasingly choosing independence and control over scale. At the other end, large firms backed by private equity are consolidating aggressively in areas where profits are already concentrated. Between them sits the traditional mid-size firm, caught between two models that are pulling the profession apart.

For many mid-size firms, 2026 will force a choice: Grow larger and enter the consolidation race? Or deliberately shrink, specialize, and adopt a more solo-like economic model?

For smaller practices, it means they will find a supportive environment, provided they specialize and price their services intelligently. Large firms will accelerate consolidation and extract scale-driven returns. And mid-size firms will face increasing pressure to choose a direction. READ MORE →

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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Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | The Disruptors

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Only disciplined planning, accountability, and open communication will cut through the industry’s rapidly thickening fog.

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The Disruptors
With Liz Farr

Matt Rampe sees the accounting industry as one “under a lot of pressure to change, and it’s changing very quickly.” The combination of a staffing crisis, retiring baby boomers, AI, private equity, and tax law is creating “the fog,” a period in which the path forward isn’t just unclear; it’s fundamentally unknowable. 

To address “the fog,” his new book, CPA Firm Strategic Planning: Your Roadmap for Long-Term Success, lays out a framework grounded in decades of consulting experience with Rosenberg Associates, combined with research on organizational change, leadership psychology, and what drives team performance. “Strategic planning, in my mind, is the venue by which you analyze and think through those issues, put them up, not just out of reactivity,” Rampe explains. It means “really stepping back and looking at the big picture of the industry and your firm and your situation, and then making choices that you’re aligned with.” 

MORE STREAMING: Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | Vanover: 5-Star Firms Don’t Bill by the Hour | Kless: Profit Is a Result. Flourishing Is the Purpose | Whitman: Build Culture on ‘Progress,’ Not Change | Shein: No PE? No M&A? No Problem | Hood and Weber: Time to RISE | Proctor: Turn Dumb Ideas into Brilliant Solutions | Carter-Gray: How 1 Poor Review Strengthened the Firm | Hartman: Upwork to “40 Under 40” in 3 Years |

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According to Rampe’s research, strategic planning fails most often at the execution stage. Nearly two-thirds of respondents reported that “execution fails after the planning meeting.” Firms gather, generate good ideas, identify priorities, and then get pulled into their day-to-day work, and nothing happens. Or they put off strategic planning altogether until some imaginary day when they might have time.  

“One of the insights is you need to spend time working on the business, not just in the business, because the in the business is going to drown you,” Rampe explains. The way you solve that is “not working harder in the business. It’s working, prioritizing, working on the business.” 

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Baker: Transformation Economy Will Redefine Accounting | Gear Up For Growth

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Stop “playing small ball,” and reimagine client experiences.

This is a preview. The complete episode is first available exclusively to PRO Members | Go PRO here
Sponsored by Tax Season Readiness: Practical Steps for a Smoother Busy Season  | See Today’s Special Offer

Subscribe to CPA Trendlines podcasts anywhere: Apple, Google/YouTube, Spotify, iHeart, Deezer, Amazon Music, Audible, Player FM, Audacy, RSS
Is your firm truly ready for tax season—or just hoping to survive it? Join this 90-minute webinar featuring an Accounting ARC Live panel with thought leaders who know what it takes to optimize performance under pressure. 
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Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
For CPA Trendlines

“A business model describes how you earn revenue when services are given away for free,” said Ron Baker, co-founder of THRESHOLD: A Revelation for the Transformation Economy, during his appearance on Gear Up for Growth, hosted by Jean Caragher of Capstone Marketing.

“That terrifies people, but it’s where the economy is going.” 

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Baker discusses the profession’s next major evolution: the transformation economy, where firms no longer compete on services, scope, or efficiency, but on their ability to change lives.

He argues that CPAs are uniquely positioned to guide clients through lasting financial and personal transformation. CPA value will shift from work performed to life and business outcomes: healthier, wealthier, wiser clients living with meaning.  

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