In October 2019, when Hurricane Michael, a Category-5 storm, slammed into the Florida Panhandle, it was likely not viewed as an accounting challenge by most of the world. But CPA Mindy Rankin of Warren Averett CPAs and Advisors in Panama City, Florida, was well aware of the impact it would have on the area—and on her line of work: “[The hurricane] destroyed our entire community. It was horrible. Our own office, our own houses.”
Undaunted, Rankin and her firm leapt into the fray. “We got into the nuts and bolts; we helped our clients with insurance, contractors, etc.,” she says, noting that they even ran payroll for some clients. Still, in the midst of that maelstrom, tax implications loomed. “It was October 10, and all businesses were worried about their tax deadline—and that was when the IRS did not easily extend them. Since then, we have done advocacy work to help pass laws, because such disasters and practical delays are frequent—not having internet or even computers at those times. As CPA’s we are trusted advisors, it’s more than just taxes. We were there for them.”
A cliche persists regarding the work of CPAs—that it consists of byzantine number-crunching of a tedious nature. But as the year-plus of research that produced our second-annual America’s Top 200 CPAs list attests, that could not be further from the truth.
Indeed, all of the 200 CPAs who have been named to this year’s list—including Rankin, a listmaker herself—share a willingness to put the public before their clients and to champion the cause of independence and integrity. But they can also be found across the country, doing work that touches every sector and corner of the economy—whether that means attesting to the fairness of financial statements, like EY America’s Managing Partner Julie Boland; leading one of the largest firms in the free world, like Deloitte’s Chair Lara Abrash; serving as the global leader of a team of more than 370,000 employees in more than 149 countries, like PWC’s Mohamed Kande; or like Jerry Love, running a local CPA practice for 30 years in what has become the hotbed of the 900-acre “Stargate” data-center project, in Abilene, Texas.
For these best of the best CPAs, theirs is a profession first and a business second. As Love says, “Our clients love us because of our dedication to these underlying principles of professionalism, responsiveness, integrity and quality.” It’s also, as our listmakers declare time and again, an exciting, impactful vocation full of possibilities.
Listmaker Nicholas Harrison, CPA with KPMG in Richmond, Virginia, contends: “If nothing else, being a CPA is being in a problem-solving mode, a brainstorming mode, a creativity mode. Although most do not associate creativity with accounting, it is what we do. We discover different angles. So the more diverse inputs you have on that process, the more likelihood of a positive outcome.” Or, as Jennifer Cryder, CEO of the Pennsylvania Institute of CPAs, says: “Being a CPA isn’t about cubicles and calculators—it’s about powering trust, growth and opportunity. Accounting is a choose-your-own-adventure career—from helping small businesses thrive to influencing policy nationwide.”
Still, word of this professional fulfillment has apparently not sufficiently filtered to the ranks of college students; a shortfall exists in the profession’s pipeline, to the tune of a 33% decline in first-time CPA exam candidates from 2016 to 2021. Thus, when listmaker Virginia Slack, the owner of Virginia C. Slack CPA of Elkview, West Virginia, recently spoke to students at West Virginia University, she extolled the opportunities within the profession: “You get that CPA and you can absolutely do what you want. You can go in any direction and all different directions: Government, corporate, private firms or open your own business.… If you want to help people, you can definitely do that from the large corporations down to the corner coffee shop.”
Adds Krista Gardner, CPA and listmaker with SEK, CPAs & Advisors in York, Pennsylvania: “The best part of being in accounting is it can lead you in so many directions. The industries and opportunities that are supported by a backbone in accounting are almost endless.” Or as listmaker Michaela Kay, of BDO USA, Seattle says, succinctly: “You can do anything with CPA.”
That’s not to say the profession isn’t experiencing its share of disruptions. If you need or use the vast array of services offered by top CPAs, it’s worth being aware of the headwinds they’re facing.
Accounting For Change
The task of serving both the public and the client has long created challenges for the CPA profession. KPMG famously incurred the wrath of regulators and critics alike when three client banks, including Silicon Valley Bank, failed in 2022. Even now, fallout from the Enron debacle remains. Still, the model has survived for 92 years, and audit failures remain the exception and not the rule. The difficulty has always resided in the ability of accounting firms to serve their clients audits and other services without impacting the independence of their opinions on financial statements.
Today, those questions pose even greater threats as private equity firms are buying and even flipping investments in CPA firms. One model employed by those PE firms is to separate the CPA firm from the tax, consulting, valuation and other services, which then function as an alternative practice structure approved by the AICPA. Hence firms like publicly traded CBIZ, Inc., which operates as two firms—one of which provides tax advisory and consulting services and is not a licensed CPA firm, while the other operates as a CPA firm recently rebranded from Mayer Hoffman McCann to CBIZ CPAs P.C. It is not unacceptable for individuals to function in both roles. It is common in smaller firms where a partner may perform an audit and also advise on taxes and financial planning.
Into this fray has stepped the AICPA’s Professional Ethics Executive Committee (PEEC), which focuses on how existing independence rules apply to firms adopting alternative practice structures, often involving private equity investment. It’s not a fail-safe framework. It is a method which relies imperatively on the individual integrity of each licensed CPA.
Amidst all this, as listmaker Paul Perry, CPA with the Birmingham, Alabama, office of Warren Averett, notes, it remains vital for the CPA field to be “a profession of trust. Our biggest focus is to continually show it, so the public sees it as we promote, educate, advocate. In public practice you are helping the present and future of business to understand it, mitigate it, report it, prevent it…. It only works when the rest of the profession follows their trust and integrity commitments.”
CPAs In The Age Of AI
As is the case for much of the world economy, the CPA profession is also harnessing profound transformation posed by AI—which has led to a technological arms race adopting tools to fit specific accounting needs. Indeed, with third-party vendors offering everything from billing to work-flow tools, running a competitive practice is more viable than ever. Still apprehension regarding AI lurks in the shadows.
As listmaker Julie Welch, CPA with Meara Welch Browne, PC, in Kansas City, cautions: “You must understand taxes to be mindful of fundamental mistakes AI can make.” And Arna Erazo, CPA and listmaker with GHJ Advisors in Los Angeles, California, notes that “across the profession, there’s still discomfort, especially around AI and the fear that it may replace jobs.” However, Erazo continues, “To me, this is a tremendous opportunity for us to evolve, to move away from primarily compliance work and lean more into advisory, helping clients not just understand the data, but apply it strategically. For clients, this means more real-time insights, forward-looking analysis and, ultimately, stronger decision-making.”
He’s not alone. Listmaker Nichole Jordan, CPA with Grant Thornton, declares himself “excited about the potential that exists in the way we can shape the profession leveraging AI and developing future CPAs. There’s tremendous opportunity to streamline a number of tasks that have existed in the profession for so long … whether it’s in communications or in analyzing data using predictive analytics. It is improving workflow, and truly improving the quality and the outcome of what we are providing for our clients.”
Listmaker Russell Goldberg, CPA with Withum in Orlando, Florida, believes AI can help alleviate the most repetitive aspects of the profession, especially for newcomers to the field: “AI will help them love their job.”
At the end of the day—whether they’re helping clients in the wake of a hurricane or advising the largest corporations in the world—it’s their love of the job that matters most among America’s finest CPAs.
For the full list of America’s Top 200 CPAs, click here.
Editor’s Note: Andrea Bergeron Paul contributed to this article.
As with all Forbes lists, candidates do not pay any fee to be considered. For questions about this list, please contact CPAlist [at] Forbes.com.
