The 2017 MP Elite
October 3, 2017 11:55 PM
A selection of the best
The sixth collection of the Managing Partner Elite brings together a selection of the country's best firm leaders, from firms of all sizes, to highlight the skills and strategies it takes to lead an organization to success in the 21st century. (You can see the full-text version of this story here .)
Wayne Berson / BDO USA
Berson has navigated BDO, a $600 million firm when he took the helm just five years ago, to its current position as a billion-dollar firm — the first new one in almost a decade. Given the firm’s high-profile streak of mergers, it’s tempting to write all that growth off to indiscriminate M&A. That’s wrong on two counts: Over a third of it is organic, and Berson takes a disciplined approach to picking potential partners, vetting them against a careful set of criteria. He has also kept the firm growing with three major new offerings in hot areas, without losing sight of traditional services like audits of SEC clients.
Jeff Bickel / Tanner
When Jeff Bickel became MP seven years ago, he launched a strategic planning process for the firm that developed a consensus among all the team members on their mission and future direction. That led directly to an explosion of new consulting service offerings — seven in seven years — that have helped propel Tanner to revenue growth of over 60 percent, and staff growth of over 75 percent, even as it brought on more new partners than any other firm in the area.
Dawn Brolin / Powerful Accounting
There’s a certain dream for what the CPA firm of the future will look like — and it turns out that that’s the way Dawn Brolin runs her practice right now. For Brolin, though, it’s not about dreaming — it’s simply what works best. When she started her original bookkeeping business, she had a newborn and a one-year-old, and technology was key to her being able to balance being both a mother and a business owner. What’s more, all this technology lets her small firm serve clients all across the country — or at least those who want to live in the same future that her firm already inhabits.
Kevin Keane / PKF O’Connor Davies
PKF O’Connor Davies had 50 employees and two offices when Keane took charge 20 years ago; now it has 750 employees in nine offices spread from Washington, D.C., to Connecticut. What’s more, the firm’s current strategic plan is a formalization of the vision he brought to the role, and his dedication to a strong firm culture has driven the development of the team of leaders, partners and staff that has turned that vision into a reality.
Ted Mason / LaPorte CPAs
The long-range strategic plan Mason initiated when he took over has guided the firm to its current position as a regional leader, with a vastly expanded set of specialty services and a long line of successful mergers under its belt. The succession plan the firm has had in place since 2009 — along with its growth plan programs for seniors, managers, and senior managers and income directors — are building up its next generation of leaders. And while Mason may not have planned Hurricane Katrina, the disaster recovery plan he had put into place beforehand allowed his Louisiana firm to be back up and running within a week.
Alton Miyashiro / N&K
Miyashiro aims to create an environment that empowers, encourages, develops and retains people, with a long list of initiatives along those lines, from the Work Environment Committee he implemented to sustain and improve N&K’s culture and the eight other committees that give younger staff a say in what happens at the firm, to the development programs and conferences he sends young leaders to, and the host of other perks and incentive programs initiated on his watch. It must be working — the firm has been named a Best Place to Work in Hawaii six different times, and one of Accounting Today’s Best Firms to Work For.
Ken Richey / Richey, May & Co.
Ken Richey has leveraged a unique expertise in the mortgage banking and real estate industries to turn a six-person local shop in Denver to a 142-person firm with staff as far away as North Carolina. Careful niche selection (it also serves the alternative investment industry and private equity, among a few others) and a commitment to staff development and expertise have helped give the firm a national reputation — as has Richey’s determination to keep up with technology to deploy the most useful innovations for clients and staff.
Ted Rose / Rose Financial Services
A long-time pioneer of accounting outsourcing, Rose has led his firm in continuous innovation and improvement, including building an entire suite of custom software that aims to give his clients powerful tools for automating finance and accounting functions with digital workflows, and even developing a mobile app to give them near-real-time access to critical financial information. Rose isn’t just focused on empowering his clients, though; he aims to empower his employees, too, giving them a positive culture and the tools they need to serve the firm’s clients in a manner consistent with Rose’s vision of outsourced accounting.
Jane Scaccetti / Drucker & Scaccetti
The first thing Jane Scaccetti did when she accepted the position of CEO at her firm was research firms that had survived beyond their founding partner — and then put into place the lessons she learned, foremost among which was giving the firm more of a corporate governance structure. With all that in place, she developed a cycle of three-year strategic goals that are carefully monitored and measured, and created and phased in a formal compensation system that gives partners clear guidelines and holds them accountable for them.
Carmel Wood / Huselton, Morgan & Maultsby
The Managing Partner Elite isn’t really about managing — it’s about leading. The kind of leading Carmel Wood did when she launched HM&M's accounting services department. Or when the firm tripled its presence in Dallas on her watch, adding two new offices. Or when she successfully navigated the firm through a series of planned and unplanned departures in the shareholder ranks that threatened to derail the firm’s succession plan. Or when she led the firm to create a new HR position to boost retention. Or what she’s doing now, in spearheading the development of the firm’s data analytics skills to boost its audit capabilities.
