Caution: Successful firms identify challenges ahead

The 2025 Fastest-Growing Firms, like the rest of the profession, are dealing with a people problem — and many anticipate that to be a continued challenge.

When asked about the biggest roadblocks ahead for their practices, the firms with the highest percentage growth over the last year identified several, including finding and keeping the best talent.

"I think that staffing, retaining our people, is going to be a challenge as we move forward," said Maureen Dillmore, vice president of partnerships at Arlington, Virginia-based Top 100 Firm Ascend, which provides a private equity-backed platform for firms. "I think that's just going to be a challenge for everyone. All the firms out there are going to be competing for top talent, so as long as we really focus on their people, focus on the talent, we can stay ahead of that. But that will be a challenge going forward."

(Watch: "Ascend doesn't grow just for the sake of growth")

Omaha, Nebraska-based Bland & Associates is seeking a specific experience level.

"If we had five more, 10 more, unicorns, that'd be awesome," shared managing partner Jeremy Vokt. "When I think about the people that we have that have been there since the beginning, if we had those types of people, I think we continue to grow. We don't have an issue hiring new people out of college or interns. We seem to attract those people fairly easily. But how do you find another five or 10 manager-level people, a five-year person, whatever that looks like, that would allow us to grow even more."

Jesse Sutton

Meanwhile, the wave of baby boomer retirements is being felt at Glastonbury, Connecticut-based MahoneySabol.

"You know, for us as a firm, succession planning — being a firm that's 35 years old, our average partner age is, you know, pushing around 60 to 62," said managing partner James Mahoney. "So, while people are working longer, the runway is not that long, and you've got to have enough people coming up behind you. And as I mentioned, a lot of them don't have that entrepreneurial mindset. I mean, they're good technicians. They may want to be partners, but do they really want to run a business and buy the other guys out and take on all the responsibilities of, you know, administration and HR and IT, all the other stuff. So, that's part of the challenge."

(Watch: "Dean Dorton's early adoption pays off")

The right skills and experience are also paramount for Lexington, Kentucky-based Top 100 Firm Dean Dorton, according to president and CEO David Bundy, who reports positive traction on that front thus far.

"I think we've been able to successfully recruit and add talent," Bundy said. "It's getting harder. It's the competition for that skill, those skill sets, is fierce and I think we're doing OK and we're winning our battles in that."

Fixing the pipeline

Regardless of the talent battles the Fastest-Growing Firms have clearly won to support their success over the last year, many voiced concern about addressing the issue much earlier in the pipeline.

(Watch: "Crete's unique model and vision")

"One is really just about talent acquisition," replied Steve Stagner, CEO of No. 1 Fastest-Growing Firm Crete Professionals Alliance, when asked about potential issues on the horizon. "We really want to make the accounting profession more attractive to the younger generation. I have a saying, which is to grow the organization, you have to grow the people. And so it's investing in leadership and development, investing in learning that is beyond just the traditional accounting skills: learning and teaching that next generation how to be better leaders and also serve their clients differently."

Jesse Sutton

Chad Anschuetz, CEO of Troy, Michigan-based Top 100 Firm Doeren Mayhew, has some ideas  for improving the early part of the pipeline.

"Well, it's nice that the profession is finally taking action on the 150 rule," he said of the number of college credit hours required to sit the CPA exam. "As the economy has remained strong for over a decade, the young adults who come out of college have chosen the 120-hour finance degree over the 150-hour CPA degree. And on top of the fact that the finance degree paid more and less hours to graduate, obviously, it came as no surprise that an overwhelming bunch of them have chosen that profession over our own profession. So, we started tackling that, but I think as a profession, we can do more… Why can't universities offer a 15-hour credit for a paid internship? And then also I think as a profession, we need to pay more for our starting salaries to make it more attractive in the finance market."

(Watch: "Citrin Cooperman creates excitement in collaboration")

Aaron Dawson, CEO of Vancouver, Washington-based Opsahl Dawson, also advocates for adjusting hours, but more specifically the long days of busy season that can turn off younger professionals. 

"One of the big ones is, as you carry a larger workforce, we have to figure out how to spread the busy season curve," he said of the most looming challenges. "The new workforce doesn't want to donate 2 1/2 months of their lives to public accounting. They want to have a more well-balanced workload. The larger workforce that you carry, you have to figure out a way to keep people busy, in and out of your normal tax season. You've got to make sure that you have a mix of advisory and compliance and assurance work to be able to have a flexible work staff."

Jesse Sutton

Jerilyn Dressler, chief growth officer at Philadelphia-based Top 100 Firm Your Part-Time Controller, is optimistic about the recent upward trend in accounting students, though her firm is still prepared to properly equip its people — regardless of how many the pipeline currently provides.

"I think the accounting pipeline is going to continue to be a challenge," she said. "I think there was a recent study that said that last year was the first year that the number of accounting majors had increased in a number of years, which was very heartening. We don't know if that trend will continue. So the way that we look at that challenge is we have to be able to implement technology to get the most out of the humans that we have and that we'll be able to attract and retain."

'Transaction distraction'

While competition remains hot for the best and brightest accountants, it's also ramping up in the mergers and acquisitions and restructuring realms, according to the Fastest-Growing Firms.

"Our growth includes an M&A strategy, and M&A is just becoming more and more challenging," explained Sean Taylor, CEO of Atlanta-based Top 100 Firm Smith + Howard, which received private equity funding last fall. "As private equity enters the marketplace, firms are really geared toward doing a great deal of M&A and there's more and more firms targeting the same firms for acquisitions. So it's very challenging to find a firm that really fits our culture, that fits into the puzzle that we're building together. And to have a good shot at being successful there, because of the quantity of competition there is for acquisition. So that's probably the main challenge we're going to continue to face in the near term. I think in the long term, it's the ability to integrate all of that growth. Short-term integration is one thing, but maintaining a culture long term is very challenging as well. I think we're up for it, but it's something you can never really stop doing. It's not [that] you get to a point and it's over. It's constantly working to maintain that."

Chicago-based Prosperity Partners is also feeling the pressure, according to CEO Jeremy Dubow.

"We are a private equity-backed accounting firm. And with firms like ours, growth comes in two forms," he explained. "On the one hand, it's organic. We're trying to increase business, increase our top line, improve our clients, increase the number of clients we have. But on the other hand, we're also focused on inorganic growth, which is in so many words, acquiring other businesses who are going to fit into our culture." 

Jesse Sutton

"And the biggest challenge we have right now is in the last 12 months, the acquisition game has become very, very competitive," he continued. "And we have been successful with it. We've acquired five businesses in the last 16 to 17 months or so. We have an additional two under LOI [letter of intent] right now, which means we're going to close in the next couple months. But everyone that we're talking to, all of a sudden we've got seven or eight of our best firms that are also interested in those businesses. And so you're going to see a fierce competition to grow through acquisition inorganically, and I think that's going to be one of the biggest challenges that we face, as well as our peers."

While equally busy on the acquisition front, fellow private equity-backed and Top 100 Firm Springline Advisory also aims to turn down some of the noise on all that activity.

"I think the big challenge is we're founding a firm by bringing firms together," explained CEO Tim Brackney. "And so what you want to try to do is, if there's — especially because they're all successful firms — is to make sure that you're not distracting them from the momentum that they had while also building things that will accelerate their growth in the future. So we really are going to try to minimize what I call 'transaction distraction.'"

Asked how he accomplishes that with all the firms that operate under Springline's PE-backed model, Brackney said, "It's kind of tough, right? Because what you really want is input from all the firms. And so what you do is you make sure that you're not doing things top down and that you're communicating really clearly and that everybody understands what the 'why' is, and at the same time making sure that whatever support is needed, that we can give it to them."

Bundy reported healthy organic growth at Dean Dorton, but added, "it's that strategic growth that we've supplemented our organic growth with over the years that's going to be challenged, just with the private equity and the way transactions are structured. We've not taken private equity money. So to be able to maintain that's going to be difficult, but I also think those deals are out there and will fit. So right now that's what we'll look at. But that's going to be probably the biggest challenge going forward."

AI awareness (with a human touch)

With or without M&A, PE money, or a range of alternative practice structures sweeping the profession, a great equalizer is technology — though the scale of those resources is obviously tied to available funding.

"So it's clearly an evolving industry, particularly with new types of investors in the space," said Jeffrey Rosen, managing partner at Towson, Maryland-based RS&F. "A lot of what they're bringing into the arena is enhancements in technology, even how people are going to pursue careers in our industry. So as a smaller firm in this space, I think we have enough resources to fight the good fight, but certainly I think it's going to be a challenge to be able to invest in people and technology when so many other firms with a lot more resources are doing so as well. And I think we are going to keep up with them. We're going to differentiate as best we can, but we're not naive to the challenges that's going to present as the industry continues to consolidate."

Jesse Sutton

Artificial intelligence was oft-mentioned as the most significant technology as firms look to the future.

"In my view, AI is consequential," said Nishta Sharma, CEO of Atlanta-based KNAV. "I think it's more consequential than any other changes our industry has experienced. So the real challenge actually lies in how quickly and, I'd say, meaningfully we can adopt technology and AI across our operations globally. And I also think a lot about what it really means to upscale our teams in an AI-driven world. How do we train our people to provide meaningful application? Of critical skills? How do you apply judgments? You build relationships, you know some of these skills are intuitive."

(Watch: "AbitOs capitalizes on a niche market")

Alberto Guzman, partner at Coral Gables, Florida-based AbitOs, has a similarly reflective take on the rise of AI.

"I think that's our best friend and also a little bit of our challenge in the future," he shared. "It's amazing the things we can do with it and we're just scratching the surface, I think, in that department. But by the same token, I think that's going to be probably a challenge. Now, you may not have to be that savvy or that prepared and use that technology to do certain things that now a lot of people cannot do just because they're not prepared. Also people — we are getting a lot of clients and prospective clients with a lot of knowledge or what they think is a lot of knowledge just from the AI or from the technology. So now you're not only competing against other firms and the client, but the actual technology itself. So I think that's going to be one of the challenges."

As many of the Fastest-Growing Firms attributed their success to carving out niches, it's no surprise that some of the challenges they forecast relate to these specific industries.

(Watch: "PP&Co. aims for operational excellence")

Two firm leaders, for example, named tariffs as something to keep an eye on.

Andrew Gragnani, former president and now chief operating officer of Cleveland-based Top 10 Firm CBIZ / CBIZ CPAs, mentioned it as a notable administrative issue, as did Jeanne Bernick, chief client officer at Top 100 Firm Pinion.

"The challenges now are things that we can't control; tariffs, globally," she said. "Commodity prices for farmers going up and down. So we have a real focus around helping our clients with risk management. So I think that's been the thing now that we've got kind of the foundation of our firm's house in order. Now, it's just the obstacles of what's happening in the markets, in the industries for our clients. But that's also an opportunity because if they trust us, if we're giving them better client experience and better service, they're going to come to us in the good times and the bad times. But the biggest challenge right now is what's happening in the food and egg markets."

(Watch: "An entrepreneurial mindset at REDW")

New York City-based LMC Advisors also touched on client relationships as an issue, but one that is decidedly more under the control of CEO and managing partner Lee Cohen and his team.

"Concentrating and making sure that we don't lose the white-glove service and personal touch that we've always given," Cohen identified as a continued challenge down the line. "That the clients still feel the same level of service that they're accustomed to with us."