Case Studies
BRC: Top 200 CPA firm
ANCHIN: Top 100 CPA firm
This firm of 70 partners, based in New York, wanted to achieve a shared understanding and develop strategies to take advantage of current financial markets and future growth. We held a strategy session to create alignment among the partner group and brainstorm key initiatives. Eighteen months later, they entered into an acquisition agreement with a Top 20 firm.
DMJPS, CPA’s: A Top 200 CPA Firm
Has grown organically from $25 million to over $40 million since 2021 with improved profitability. It all started with a simple question: What is the level of trust among the partner group? From there, the partner group explored ways to achieve alignment among partners while balancing overall financial growth with the firm’s culture.
Since then, they have achieved transformational growth by investing in new product lines, expanding services, aligning partners on strategies for direction and growth, improving communications, and thinking strategically about what’s next. The Partners are aligned on their vision, which is grounded in maintaining their culture of sustainable growth for their firm, employees, and clients, while providing excellent service.
The firm had recently completed a merger of equals, and one year into the transition, they recognized that they needed a cohesive strategic direction where the partners were aligned.
Through a strategic working session, they were able to collaboratively create a vision for the future and identify the strategic initiatives that would help them achieve their goals.
Others
Ty Dickey – Financial Wealth Manager
TY and I met in February 2020 at the start of COVID-19. He and his partner agreed to move their business into and join one of the top financial wealth management firms in the country. In doing so, they had specific milestone achievements that had to be met over a 4-year period. At that time, assets under management were approximately $500 million. They now exceed $2 billion, and their firm achieved their milestone commitments 2 ½ years ahead of schedule.
Dell Law Firm:
Jay Dell has grown his boutique law firm from 5 people and revenues in the mid-six figures to 15 people and over $3 million in annual revenues. Through a series of one-to-one sessions and strategic working sessions, the team defined their market positioning and go-to-market strategies.
Retail Real Estate Firm with PE Investment:
Jay Dell has grown his boutique law firm from 5 people and revenues in the mid-six figures to 15 people and over $3 million in annual revenues. Through a series of one-to-one sessions and strategic working sessions, the team defined their market positioning and go-to-market strategies.
Brian Sadler – Founder and Investor:
Brian approached me with a troubling problem affecting him and other investors. He was losing sleep over this problem, and his solutions seemed murky, at best. His question: How do I limit investor exposure while helping the company improve its operations? Through our work together, he was able to craft a solution to the problem in a way that was fair to the partners and which enabled the client to have peace of mind.
YMCA of Atlanta:
This $100 million NFP with 24 branches was looking to improve trust at the C-suite level, develop strategic initiatives for all branches, and provide a coach to mentor a senior executive vice president. During an initial 3-hour workshop with the C-suite leaders, they built significantly greater trust and understanding. Later, through a facilitated custom 3-day retreat, the entire management team built a framework to strengthen communication, trust, and strategic direction.
CASE STUDIES ENHANCED
Every firm is different. But the leadership challenges are often remarkably similar. Here are a few examples of how I've helped leaders create greater clarity, alignment, and results.
1. Trust Is the Foundation for Sustainable Growth
Top 200 CPA Firm
Short Description
A successful Top 200 CPA firm wanted to continue growing without sacrificing the culture that had made it successful. What began with one simple question about trust among the partners evolved into a broader journey of alignment, communication, strategic thinking, and sustainable growth. Since 2021, the firm has grown organically from approximately $25 million to more than $40 million in revenue while improving profitability.
The Client
A successful Top 200 CPA firm wanted to continue growing without sacrificing the culture that had made it successful. What began with one simple question about trust among the partners evolved into a broader journey of alignment, communication, strategic thinking, and sustainable growth. Since 2021, the firm has grown organically from approximately $25 million to more than $40 million in revenue while improving profitability.
The Challenge
Our work began with a simple question:
What is the level of trust among the partner group?
That question opened the door to a much larger conversation.
How aligned were the partners around the future? Were they communicating effectively? Could the firm pursue ambitious growth while protecting its culture? And were the partners spending enough time thinking strategically about what was next?
The challenge wasn't simply growth. It was achieving the right kind of growth.
My Approach
My role was to create an environment where the partners could have candid conversations about trust, alignment, communication, culture, and the firm's future.
We worked to strengthen alignment around strategic priorities and encouraged the partners to look beyond today's demands toward tomorrow's opportunities.
Over time, those conversations translated into action. The firm invested in new product lines, expanded services, strengthened communication, and developed greater alignment around its strategic direction.
The Results
Since 2021, the firm has grown organically from approximately $25 million to more than $40 million in revenue while improving profitability.
Equally important, its partners are aligned around a vision grounded in sustainable growth for the firm, its employees, and its clients.
The Leadership Insight
Growth strategies matter. But sustainable growth begins somewhere deeper.
It begins with trust.
When partners trust one another enough to have the conversations that matter, alignment becomes possible. When alignment improves, decisions become clearer. And when leaders share a vision of the future, growth can become something they create together rather than something that simply happens to them.
2. A Merger Doesn't Automatically Create Alignment
Top 200 CPA Firm Following a Merger of Equals
Short Description
One year after completing a merger of equals, a Top 200 CPA firm recognized that combining two organizations was only the beginning. The partners needed to become aligned around one shared future. A strategic working session helped them collaboratively develop a vision for the combined firm and identify the initiatives needed to turn that vision into action.
The Client
The client is a Top 200 CPA firm created through a merger of equals.
Approximately one year into the transition, the firm had successfully brought the organizations together structurally. Leadership recognized, however, that organizational integration and leadership alignment are not the same thing.
The Challenge
A merger can combine offices, people, clients, systems, and financial results. It doesn't automatically create a shared vision.
The partners needed to move beyond thinking about their legacy organizations and begin thinking collectively about the firm they were building together.
They needed greater clarity around where they were going, what mattered most, and which strategic priorities deserved their collective attention.
My Approach
I facilitated a strategic working session designed to move the partners out of their individual perspectives and into a collaborative conversation about their shared future.
We focused on creating a common vision and identifying the strategic initiatives necessary to move toward it.
Importantly, I wasn't there to hand the partners a strategic plan.
My role was to create the structure, questions, and environment that enabled them to build the vision themselves. That created something equally important to the plan itself: ownership.
The Results
The partners emerged with a collaboratively developed vision for the future and greater clarity around the strategic initiatives necessary to achieve their goals.
The process helped shift the conversation from the organizations they had been toward the firm they were becoming.
The Leadership Insight
Completing a merger is a transaction. Building one firm is a leadership challenge.
Systems can be integrated relatively quickly. Alignment, trust, shared purpose, and ownership take intentional leadership.
The firms that understand that distinction have an opportunity to create something greater than the organizations that existed before the merger.
3. Creating Space for Partners to Think About What's Next
Top 100 CPA Firm | Approximately 70 Partners
Short Description
A Top 100 CPA firm with approximately 70 partners wanted greater alignment around its future and the opportunities emerging in changing financial markets. A facilitated strategy session created the space for partners to step away from day-to-day demands, develop a shared understanding of their strategic position, and explore initiatives for future growth. Eighteen months later, the firm entered into an acquisition agreement with a Top 20 firm.
The Client
The client is a Top 100 CPA firm with approximately 70 partners.
Its leaders recognized that changes in the profession and financial markets were creating both opportunities and important strategic choices.
The Challenge
The firm didn't lack talented people or ideas.
The challenge was creating the environment where a large partner group could step outside its day-to-day responsibilities and think collectively about the future.
Where was the profession headed? What opportunities should the firm consider? What did the partners want the organization to become?
Before determining a strategy, the partners needed a shared understanding of the possibilities.
My Approach
I facilitated a strategy session designed to bring the partner group into a candid conversation about the firm's current position, potential opportunities, and future direction.
Rather than arriving with predetermined answers, I created the structure for partners to think together, challenge assumptions, brainstorm possibilities, and explore potential strategic initiatives.
The objective was not to predict the future. It was to help the partners become more intentional about creating it.
The Results
The session provided the partners with an opportunity to develop a more shared understanding of the firm's strategic position and explore initiatives for future growth.
Eighteen months later, the firm entered into an acquisition agreement with a Top 20 accounting firm.
The strategy session should not be viewed as the cause of that transaction. Rather, it illustrates the importance of creating intentional space for leaders to consider opportunities and choices before those choices are upon them.
The Leadership Insight
One of the greatest challenges facing successful leaders is that today's business can consume virtually all of their attention.
But leadership isn't only about managing today.
It's also about creating the space to ask: What's next?
Sometimes the most valuable thing a leadership team can do is step away from the urgent long enough to think seriously about the important.
The fourth case study
For the PE-backed company, I would use the same treatment but make its central leadership insight "When Conditions Get Harder, Leadership Matters More." Because that would give us four case studies, I've kept the three primary CPA case studies above as the finished website set for now.
There is also a strategic advantage to anonymizing them this way. Instead of visitors focusing on whether they recognize the firm, they see themselves in the situation: Top 200 CPA firm pursuing growth, Top 200 firm integrating a merger, Top 100 firm considering its strategic future.
I would also consider adding one sentence immediately above the case studies on the website:
That connects the case studies directly to your broader positioning around clarity, results, and freedom and makes the section feel like evidence of your work rather than a portfolio of past clients.