The 2021 Managing Partner Elite

August 5, 2021 9:00 AM

For the last year and a half, accounting firm leaders have had the challenging task of navigating their practices through a global pandemic, not only making sure that their businesses survived (and often even thrived) amid the economic turbulence, but also ensuring the health and safety of their people and serving the rapidly changing needs of their clients.

The leaders comprising the 2021 class of the Managing Partner Elite rose to the occasion on all these fronts and more, in many ways by building on strong foundations that they themselves had previously established at their firms — to be eligible for the MP Elite, managing partners/CEOs must have been in their role for a minimum of four years.

But, in the true test of strong leadership, the MP Elite also successfully adapted to the crisis and found new ways to lead a workforce that will likely never be the same following the events of 2020.

One common thread was the speed with which this year’s outstanding leaders moved their teams to a fully remote environment, and their plans to evolve that work-from-home setup to a more flexible (and employee-friendly) model post-pandemic.

The sentiment shared by Plante Moran’s James Proppe also applied to the rest of his 2021 co-honorees: “Looking back at 2020, I’m particularly proud of three things: the way we took care of our staff, the way we kept our teams intact, and the way we stepped up to serve our clients virtually.”

In a profession often labeled reactive, the 2021 MP Elite were notably proactive — two honorees even described their retention efforts in the pandemic as “aggressive,” which paid off for both of them — as it did for most of the MP Elite — in their ability to avoid a single layoff.

In addition to considering how this year’s MP Elite candidates responded to the pandemic’s complications, the 2021 applicants were asked to share their plans for their firms over the next five to ten years.

Here, too, were some impressive commonalities. The MP Elite are all focused on growth, both organic and transactional, but it was their plans to support that growth that revealed their very strategic long-term visions. All of this year’s class recognize that the next generation of leaders will play a starring role in those master plans, including those who will succeed them — some of whom have already been identified.

The MP Elite all have formal succession plans that are most crucially predicated on exemplary recruitment and retention efforts, which they have achieved in low turnover numbers but remain hyper-focused on, recognizing their firm’s talent as its most valuable resource.

As the last year made clear, the accounting profession must prioritize the needs of its people now more than ever. It’s a long-term strategy that’s well worth the investment, as it will produce the next generation of MP Elite leaders.

KLR’s Alan Litwin shared an outlook echoed by the rest of the MP Elite, explaining that his firm focuses on “the importance of creating an environment where we can aggressively grow the firm, successfully service clients, and create a company where our people can enjoy a long, gratifying career.”

The MP Elite should all feel gratification in their own careers, which we showcase here, sharing just a few of the many, many highlights accomplished (so far) by this year’s honorees. Congratulations to the 2021 MP Elite!

Visions of growth

Larry Autrey / Whitley Penn
Joined in 1997; MP since 2000

Larry Autrey and his management committee drew up Whitley Penn’s strategic plan in the first year of his tenure as MP, and it’s evident in the firm’s overall growth during Autrey’s 20-plus years at the helm, at 30% annually, and in its regional expansion, as its 13 mergers over that time period have solidified its mammoth presence in the Southwest. The 630-person firm also opened a new office in Plano a few years ago to follow the large number of corporations moving into that area of Texas, in one of many ways the Top 50 Firm caters to its clients in the high-growth sectors it serves.

At the same time, Whitley Penn is moving into new niches strategic to its location — like the oil and gas consulting practice it formed in 2016 — and the wider needs of the business community, having started offering strategic consulting services in 2020. In total, the firm has sprawled out into six new practice areas under Autrey’s leadership, and his vision over the next few years is to continue this growth not only regionally and even nationally, but internationally. Helping to reach that goal is Autrey’s mission to develop two-year succession plans for all strategic leaders nearing retirement to ensure a continuation of Whitley Penn’s large-scale success.

Team within a team

Fred Berk and Harriet Greenberg / Friedman
Greenberg joined in 1981, Berk in 1989; co-MPs since 2015

Most of our models for leadership are solitary — the captain alone on the bridge, the coach keeping his own counsel while pacing the sidelines, the Olympian CEO facing his employees from behind a vast desk — but they don’t need to be, and the success of Friedman under co-managing partners Fred Berk and Harriet Greenberg makes a powerful case for the idea of having teams to lead teams. Since the two took the lead at the Top 50 Firm, it has expanded from seven offices to 13, and from $84 million in revenue to $145 million in 2020, and is poised for even further expansion beyond its New York City base, with a major merger in Miami this summer.

“Fred and I encourage cooperation in the firm and the entrepreneurial spirit in our partners and staff,” Greenberg explained. “We do better when everyone does better. It’s what we preach and what we compensate to. Our partner group and employees appreciate that we do not micromanage them, and this also sets us apart from many firms. We constantly motivate people by making them part of the process and work hard to obtain everyone’s buy-in, which fosters a one-team environment.”

Part of the firm’s approach to teamwork includes looking after all the members of the team: Even before COVID, the firm had a formalized process to let employees request alternative work arrangements, which has helped it retain staff with all different work styles, preferences and needs, and during the pandemic it prioritized employees’ health and security with expanded access to mental health services, extra flexibility in work schedules, K-12 programs for families with students who were transitioning to remote learning, and more.

Friedman’s co-MPs also take an expansive view of who’s on their team — it includes not just staff and clients, but the rest of the accounting profession as well, as Berk noted in describing the firm’s contributions during the pandemic: “I’m proud of our ability to help small accounting firms as well as our clients during COVID by providing real-time information on government programs and tax changes,” he said. “We helped wherever we were needed and were always happy to give back.”

That broader teamwork can be literal, too — the firm recently launched its own alliance to offer a wide range of resources to smaller accounting practices, and has a “Merge with us” page on its website where it shares its most recent “Year in Review” report about the firm, as well as other information and testimonials for practices that might be interested in a combination.

At the individual level, Berk and Greenberg offer a compelling model of team leadership for all accounting firms, working on their own in their areas of strength, and coming together for larger issues.

“We both know when something rises to a magnitude that it requires both of us to discuss,” Berk told Accounting Today in an interview in 2018. “We know when that’s appropriate, and we have those conversations. And those conversations are great. It’s not a matter of me trying to convince her or her trying to convince me. It’s a conversation of the two of us trying to brainstorm and figure out what’s best for the organization.”

“Our personalities are different,” Greenberg said in the same interview. “Our core competencies are different. I appreciate having a sounding board, and I think this is the management of the future. I prefer having collaboration. We’ve changed our management style. Our partners have a lot more information now. It’s just the way we manage, and it’s nice to have help. We have an amazing responsibility here for 500 families. Should one person take that on alone?”

A personal connection

Darsi Casey / Casey Neilon Inc.
Co-founder, managing shareholder and CEO since 2006

A deep interest in the development of their staff is a true hallmark of the MP Elite, but few take it as far as Darsi Casey, who coaches all the professional staff of her 21-person firm in Carson City, Nevada, meeting with each of them four to five times a year.

“This has enabled me to know the staff on a more personal level than I otherwise would have the opportunity,” she said. “I believe it has also facilitated better communication with and growth of our staff even if they end up leaving the firm.”

Her coaching is only part of a robust system that involves other shareholders in onboarding, tailored training and CPE plans, biannual technical evaluations, and weekly productivity assessments, all of which are practical reflections of the partner manifesto they created at the end of 2019: “ I promise to trust that we all do our best everyday — to be kind in our interactions — to recognize that we are all human and give each other grace — to be committed to our goals — to inspire each other to unlock the greatness within — to strive to make the lives of others better — to be grateful for the opportunities we have been given.”

“This paid off tremendously in our ability as a shareholder group to come together in 2020 and work positively through the many challenges we faced,” Casey reported.

That culture no doubt played a part in the firm doubling its staff and growing its revenues by 300% since it was founded, and will be crucial to the 50% growth Casey plans to achieve over the next few years, even as she manages the transition of the managing shareholder role to a younger shareholder over the same period.

“My outlook is that when we operate as a team, we are stronger and we encourage each other to continuously improve,” she said. “I believe this is at the heart of the culture we have built and continue to improve on.”

The right environment

Andrea Woodell Eason / Blackman & Sloop
Joined 1993; MP since 2017

There’s a reason Blackman & Sloop has ranked high on Accounting Today’s Best Firms to Work For and Best Firms for Women list, and it starts with Andrea Wooddell Eason’s focus on hiring the very best people, and creating the ideal environment for them to stick around. To start, she hired a dedicated recruiter to find the best talent in their marketplace. “She is always coming to us with new ideas to improve office culture and maintain our low staff turnover rate,” Eason reports. These have included everything from culture initiatives to hybrid work policies. And as Blackman & Sloop looks to continue to add to its staff of 40, the firm created an equality, diversity and inclusion group to expand and improve hiring practices.

During Eason’s tenure, beginning July 2017, the firm has grown revenues 39%, staff 17%, and kept the average staff turnover to an industry-low 7.5%.

Besides continuing this upward trajectory, Eason has a vision for the firm’s longevity. “My goal is to grow into a more consultative, sustainable firm,” she explained. “This will allow room for more partners, improve our succession plan, and continue to grow revenues. Our goal is to have our consultative business be one-third of our revenue stream.”

Ready for anything

Raimundo Lopez-Lima Levi / AbitOs
Founder and MP since 1992

Raimundo Lopez-Lima Levi has been planning for his firm’s success from the beginning, with a formal strategic plan and a succession plan in place from AbitOs’ inception in 1992, which may help explain its double-digit annual growth and its ability to regularly roll out new services that complement or extend its core focus on specialized tax and consulting work — and why he has a clear idea of where it’s headed in the future. “The vision of the firm is to further enhance our consulting practice in the international tax and consulting industry, and expand the growth in technology and integration,” Levi said.

Advanced planning also meant that AbitOs had already been paperless for five years at the start of the pandemic, which allowed them to quickly and easily pivot to a remote-work environment. More important, though, was their commitment to prioritizing their 53 staff. “We took a very aggressive approach as partners at the beginning of the pandemic in slashing our salaries to zero,” Levi reported, “and we committed to not lay off any employees.”

Levi has long recognized how critical his staff’s expertise and intellectual capital — are to AbitOs’ success, and the firm both encourages their professional development in a host of ways, and rewards their contributions by, among other things, giving them a percentage of the profit from clients they bring on.

Valuing staff is definitely a hallmark of the MP Elite, but Levi highlights an equally important hallmark: Trusting them.

“You can't be involved in everything,” he explained. “I have learned to trust the process of delegation. Yes there will be mistakes along the line, but if you teach talented people to handle different aspects of the business they will exceed expectations and flourish.”

Planning for the long haul

Alan Litwin / KLR
Co-founder and managing director since 1983

It’s impressive enough that Alan Litwin has led KLR through almost four decades of success, but it’s even more impressive that he created its strategic plan more than 25 years ago. Updated annually, that plan has seen the firm through 15 mergers in 22 years, secured it a place among the Top 100 Firms in the country, and established it as a major regional player in New England.

“My ability to be strategic in our company's efforts yet at the same time work on execution of the strategic plan has been incredibly successful,” Litwin explained. “I have worked hard to develop leaders in the firm and provide an environment where our teams can flourish. The importance of creating an environment where we can aggressively grow the firm, successfully service clients and create a company where our people can enjoy a long gratifying career has been paramount.”

The practical manifestations of those strategic imperatives have played out across all areas of the firm, from developing KLR University to offer more than 80 courses to the firm’s 250 employees and creating a leadership development program 10 years ago that has over 40 future leaders participating, to an omnivorous approach to technology that has taken the firm from a single PC in 1983 to a totally paperless environment replete with cloud-based technologies and RPA, and a pioneering approach to digital marketing.

All of that groundwork played a role, no doubt, in the firm’s ability to take what Litwin described as an “aggressive approach” to the pandemic, rolling out flexible work arrangements during the pandemic and achieving strong growth rates over 2020 and 2021 while honoring a commitment to retain all of its employees.

Seeking out change

James Proppe / Plante Moran
Joined 1984; MP since 2016

Leadership is less of a role for James Proppe and more of an everyday action, judging by the frequency and intention with which he develops strategy and goals for Plante Moran. Every five years the firm launches a formal strategic plan, which Proppe led this year, outlining the firm’s objectives to accomplish by 2026. The plan is full of lofty milestones but also, in a testament to Proppe’s philosophy of innovation, each of these goals comes with its own set of questions. For example, he explained: “Since our goal is to deliver client service with excellence, the question we’re always asking ourselves is, ‘Can we improve upon the client experience?’ And ‘How can we wrap technology around our services?’ I’m excited we’ve found a number of ways to do that.”

Among them are a suite of cutting-edge solutions, including robotic process automation, artificial intelligence and enhanced data analytics to better serve the firm’s tax, audit and wealth management clients.

It’s no surprise Plante Moran is ahead of the curve in embracing these technologies, as Proppe is always far more than two steps ahead. Case in point: “I began thinking about potential successors for my role the day I became managing partner four years ago.”

His level of foresight informs the whole culture at the firm, shaping it to be not only comfortable with change but to seek it out — a mindset that’s fairly unique to the profession. Proppe even established a change management office, a “governing body for how we approach innovation firmwide” to identify and execute on new ideas faster and to more effectively implement them across the firm’s 3,300 employees.

One of the few areas Proppe actively avoids change is with his people — at least anyone leaving, as his long list of retention policies prove. Some of these were natural reactions to the pandemic, including more flexible work and alternative work arrangements, while others were in direct response to employee feedback, including the introduction of senior associate and principal promotions to establish new career development signposts along the partner track — all to better retain and develop the successors he started envisioning on day one.

Mission-driven

Ying Sa / Community CPA
Founder and CEO since 1998

A firm’s name is typically a tribute to its founding partners, but Ying Sa’s practice explicitly speaks to her mission. Community CPA was established by Sa to serve local residents, primarily Des Moines, Iowa’s diverse population of individuals and business owners who needed help deciphering IRS communications and local regulations. Before she even opened her doors, Sa cultivated a loyal client base as a financial professional serving the underserved, providing tax help and advice to her fellow entrepreneur and immigrant clients. Once she founded Community CPA she widened her scope, heading up a team of 31 professionals to continue this work of, as the firm promises, offering “expertise with empathy, knowledge with understanding, and powerful technology with a human touch.”

This empathic approach comes from Sa’s own experiences with prejudice and bias, as a Chinese-born immigrant, which has guided her to, as she explains, earn the trust of the non-English speaking community. Community CPA accomplishes that as a minority-owned firm that collectively speaks nine different languages. And while the firm earns many referrals from this base of ethnically diverse clients, it also serves a much wider spectrum of Iowans, enabling Sa to set the goal of becoming a national firm. She is on her way, as the now-$5 million firm is opening new offices where her expanding roster of clients dictates, most recently in Minnesota with an eye for major Midwestern expansion.

Marching forward

Alan Sobel / SobelCo
Managing member since 1996

Like any outstanding leader, Alan Sobel leads with confidence — but he also aims to inspire it in his people, especially through the events of the last year and a half. “During this time of crisis, it was most important to me to provide the kind of leadership that would give our employees and our clients, as well as our business colleagues, a sense of confidence,” he explained. “As the stress mounted and concern about the unknown created anxiety for most, I was committed to maintaining morale by keeping people connected and reinforcing a sense of community.”

SobelCo’s community is 175-people strong, a number that has skyrocketed in Sobel’s 25 years at the helm. The firm as a whole has grown significantly, merging in eight firms and adding three new practice areas under Sobel’s leadership.

Throughout, Sobel’s emphasis has been on client service, which became especially critical in 2020, but gave the firm an opportunity to add immense value. “Most significantly, we were able to help our clients, offering them practical advice regarding various SBA programs like the Paycheck Protection Program, helping them file their forms, and keeping them current on the latest developments,” Sobel reported.

This only crystallized Sobel’s philosophy, and the movement the firm has made through the years, to embrace more advisory work. He sees the consultative role as especially valuable as clients seek the kind of strategic support they needed in a crisis, and will now expect in the future. The pandemic, after all, was a “great accelerator,” he said, to new levels of service, and to normalizing remote work.

Going forward, Sobel is evaluating how to best blend the “best of both worlds” — retaining the recruitment and retention benefits of flexible work while preserving the in-person benefits of the culture he has built over the last two and a half decades. Whatever that blend looks like, he intends to remain progressive: “I believe strongly that we can’t go backwards but must march forward.”