Success breeds new challenges, as the leaders of Accounting Today's 2024
Jennifer Alleva, CEO of Philadelphia-based Your Part-Time Controller, put it bluntly when asked about obstacles her firm faced: "It has not been easy whatsoever; you're always facing challenges every single day," she said. "The toughest thing, and what people ask us about the most, is, 'How do you keep up with your very quick growth from 2020 on?' In 2021, we were at 40% growth, 2022 50%, and 2023 30% growth. Those were extreme numbers, and honestly, when you're going through it, you're just doing it, you're not really thinking, 'Oh gosh!'"
For YPTC, the answer was in the firm's culture, Alleva explained.
"Thinking back on what we did right, we could have had a big problem if we didn't keep our staff connected to our purpose and our mission of what we were doing, and making sure that they didn't feel like they were on an island by themselves, and making sure that we had them connected with YPTC through increased manager check-ins, our Ambassador Program, connecting through the in-person orientation that we brought back in 2023," she said. "We're finding that making that connection is key to addressing the challenges of keeping our workforce engaged."
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The people puzzle
The workforce in general remained an issue for all the Fastest Growing Firms, aligning with the profession's current pipeline problem.
For Washington-based Opsahl Dawson, maintaining a staff to support the firm's success required some work, according to CEO Aaron Dawson.
"Certainly the challenge of recruiting — finding good people," he said. "You have to put in an enormous effort to go find those good people, you have to want to find good people."
Atlanta-based Aprio also managed to find people to add to its ranks, said Michael Maksymiw, executive director of the Aprio Firm Alliance — though that brought its own set of problems.
"The growth gave us some challenges with our internal infrastructure, like the operationalness of running a firm that went from the size we were to the size we are over the last three years," he explained. "So we're catching up on the internal infrastructure side."
Having the right people internally is only half the battle: They need to match with the right clients, explained Monic Ramirez, partner-in-charge of tax at Pleasanton, California-based Sensiba.
"The speed of change, obviously, is really hard to navigate a lot of times, but I think that's where going back to the two things that have really made us successful has bridged that gap, so we've been able to mirror or marry up our clients needs with really passionate leaders in key areas, make sure that those leaders are equipped with the talent that they need, and also training opportunities and things that bring them into the passionate role that they really see in the future, and serving these clients better — so making sure to feed the clients and talent when they're in those two things together, client experience and employee experience," she said.
Enhancing client relationships might require breaking old habits, according to Jay Weinstein, vice chairman for growth at New York City-based EisnerAmper.
"Initially, the challenge was the people were protective about their relationships, so we had to break down their barrier by giving them the confidence that whoever they refer in will be really high-quality," he explained. "Instead of putting their relationship at risk, they would instead enhance their relationship with their client. I would say in the last four years, I haven't heard of one situation where somebody referred in another person and it turned out badly and they were upset. Instead, it's like, 'Wow, this is a new service that we're providing and our clients are thrilled.' So it increases the adhesion. We broke that barrier of being protective of that relationship."
Changing times
With success can come client wariness, said Lance Brant, managing partner at Bend, Oregon-based Capstone CPAs.
"Clients don't typically like growth," he said. "They see you getting bigger and bigger, and they don't want client service to go down. So typically when you grow, you've got to teach clients that we're actually growing because we want to serve you better. So that's been a big issue."
At New York City-based Citrin Cooperman, M&A activity adds new pieces to the people puzzle.
"As we've done particularly a lot of growth through acquisition … [the challenge is] really ensuring we can grow the firm at the same rate across the different areas, right?" said Eric Casazza, partner and practice leader of the firm's digital services practice. "The nice part is, our firm is very collaborative in nature, so people work really well together, but as we're adding to our shared services, functions and things like that to support that overall growth [become important]."
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Looking ahead, Tonette Santillan, audit partner at Glendale, California-based Vasquez & Co., quite literally spelled out what the firm anticipated as one future challenge.
"Oh, it's about the AI, adopting to AI and adapting to AI," she said. "Making sure that it's a technological transformation, so making sure that everyone's on board from the partner group. So our partner group is composed of [people] from different backgrounds and, of course, generations. So we just have to make sure that everyone's on the same page, and that we are really taking the technological transformation seriously — making sure that we are able to get that in place."
Santillan and other firm leaders identifying artificial intelligence as an emerging issue couldn't mention the technology without once again stressing the importance of people in the equation.
"I don't believe that AI is going to replace humans; I think humans with AI are going to replace humans without AI," said Dawson.
More broadly for these firms, there's also the very human aversion to any rapid change — even if it's due to successful growth.
"Another challenge is making sure that the process changes that you're making as you're growing so quickly are done in an organized way, and not just thrown at people, so that people are not overwhelmed," explained Alleva. "People are like, 'What's all this change coming at us?' … You have to be very specific with connecting that change and the why for everyone, and making sure that you're not making so many changes so quickly that it's overwhelming people."
Change management will continue to be a strategic advantage, as all the Fastest Growing Firm leaders we spoke with agreed that the transformation will only continue. To keep up will require, among other strategies, staying ahead of the talent crisis, exceptional client service, and specialization — particularly in high-growth areas.
"Change is coming," said Ramirez. "The last few years have taught us that, so continuing to make sure we're nimble and innovative, innovation throughout the organization, and we're also just seeing a tremendous opportunity to grow in specific areas, service lines, with ESG being one of them. ESG and sustainability services, that's an area where we're seeing a lot of clients fall behind. So continue to tell that story of why it's important so that it doesn't catch them. The needs of their clients are foremost, but sometimes they don't realize they have those needs until it's too late, right? To drive those conversations and invest in that area, even though sometimes the market isn't really there for it yet — making sure that we're in the front of those opportunities."
