Every client relationship is now up for renewal—and every partner has to learn how to compete.

Full show notes here

Gear Up for Growth
with Jean Caragher
for CPA Trendlines

“The relationship gets you in the door, but it doesn't get you the work,” says Karen Freeman, chief product officer, DCM Insights, and co-author of Activator Advantage: What Today's Rainmakers Do Differently, in this episode of Gear Up for Growth, powered by CPA Trendlines and hosted by Jean Caragher, president of Capstone Marketing. "Once it's competitive, it's a lot harder to differentiate based on your past relationship."

MORE Jean Caragher here | Get her best-selling handbook, The 90-Day Marketing Plan for CPA Firms, here | Gear Up for Growth is tailored specifically for public accounting firms with up to 100 team members looking to expand their practices intelligently and efficiently. | MORE Gear Up for Growth here | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network here

Freeman and co-author Matt Dixon, founding partner of DCM Insights, reflect on what they have learned one year after the release of their bestselling book. They discuss how AI, changing buyer behavior and increasing competition are reshaping growth strategies for accounting and advisory firms. Firms that rely on traditional relationship-based growth models risk falling behind.

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These accounts offer unique contribution opportunities, strict investment guidelines, and a pathway to future retirement savings.

Full show notes here

Quick Tax Tip
With Art Werner
CPE Today

Art Werner outlines the five key rules advisors and families should understand when considering these accounts.

Designed as long-term savings vehicles for children, these accounts offer unique contribution opportunities, strict investment guidelines, and a pathway to future retirement savings.

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The profession is changing in ways that go far beyond automation.

Accounting ARC
With Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

In a profession often defined by structure, standards, and well-worn career paths, Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA, opens a different kind of conversation in a recent Accounting ARC episode—one that challenges assumptions about what it means to build a career in accounting.

His guest, Danielle Supkis Cheek, embodies that challenge.

As senior vice president of AI, analytics and assurance at CaseWare, Supkis Cheek operates at the intersection of technology, methodology, and human judgment. But her path there was anything but linear—and that, Shimamoto suggests, is exactly the point.

• MORE Accounting ARC: AI Can Fix Your Workflow—or Break It in Seconds | Efficiency Is the Wrong Goal for AI | Accounting’s Hidden Talent Risk: The Sandwich Generation | Built Fast. Sold Faster. Broken Later? The Truth About Accounting Tech | Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting |

Supkis Cheek describes her role less as a technologist and more as a translator. “I like to think of myself as someone who translates across domains,” she says, explaining how she helps software companies understand how accountants actually work—and how technology can reshape those workflows.

Originally published May 7, 2026

A roller derby skater, crypto auditor, and accounting leader shares why belief, sponsorship, and community shape the future of the profession.

MOVE Like This
With Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk
For CPA Trendlines Research

In this episode of MOVE Like This, Chelsea Sowers, incoming President of the Accounting and Financial Women’s Alliance (AFWA), audit manager specializing in cryptocurrency assurance with The Network Firm, and “Bitcoin Barbie” on the Atlanta Roller Derby team, joins Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk to discuss leadership, retention, mentorship, and the realities shaping women’s careers in accounting today.

• MORE MOVE Like This | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network | JOIN MOVE 2026

At the center of the conversation is a recurring challenge within the profession: attracting women into accounting is only part of the equation. Retaining and advancing them into leadership remains a persistent issue. Sowers argues that women often receive access to the profession without receiving a roadmap for advancement. Flexibility, mentorship, sponsorship, and community increasingly matter to younger professionals, particularly those entering the workforce after major disruptions like COVID. Firms may focus heavily on recruitment while overlooking what keeps talented people engaged years later.

PE makes CPA firms rethink strategy – even if they don't want to sell.
Show notes here

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

With private equity becoming “a real player and a disruptor in the marketplace,” Ira Rosenbloom, CEO of Optimum Strategies, says, the dramatic influx of capital is intensifying competition for quality firms, especially those with strong client bases and growth potential.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | Carroll: When One Person Can Break the Firm | Rampe: Build a Roadmap Even When the Road’s Not There | Chang: Killing SALY, One Agent at a Time | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network

Firms that PE wouldn’t touch are now being approached by brokers without accounting industry experience, hired by PE groups striving to “build an engine,” Rosenbloom says. But the unwanted attention has “helped some of the smaller firms quickly decide they don't want to go down that path.” So they “take themselves out of the running for a PE situation quicker because of a better understanding of what private equity wants,” he explains.

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The best firm build accountability cultures, develop climbers, and make tough calls.

Full show notes here

Gear Up for Growth
With Jean Caragher
for CPA Trendlines Research

“Some firms dream of being great but only are willing to make the commitment to be good,” Allan Koltin, CEO of Koltin Consulting Group, says in the new episode of Gear Up for Growth with host Jean Caragher. “Leadership is the delta that separates all.”

Koltin says the gap between elite firms and average firms keeps widening, and leadership is the defining factor. Widely recognized as one of the profession’s top consultants, he argues that firms chasing high performance must stop avoiding hard decisions, embrace accountability, and rethink what leadership means.

“You can have the same clients, same talent pool, same market opportunities, and one firm ends up in the upper quartile while another struggles,” Koltin says. “The difference is leadership.”

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After a near-fatal skiing accident, three accounting leaders confront the uncomfortable questions every firm owner should answer before a crisis strikes.

Accounting ARC
With Liz Mason, Byron Patrick, and Donny Shimamoto
Center for Accounting Transformation

Business continuity planning often lives in the realm of “someday.”

Until it doesn’t.

In the latest episode of Accounting ARC, hosts Donny Shimamoto, CPA.CITP, CGMA; Byron Patrick, CPA.CITP; and Liz Mason, CPA, tackle a topic many professionals avoid: what happens when the unexpected actually happens.

The conversation opens not with theory, but with a moment that makes the stakes unmistakably real.

• MORE Accounting ARC: Recognize When You Need to Recharge Before You Burn Out | Valuing More Than the Balance Sheet | Accounting’s “Untalked-About” Frontier | Why Happiness is Hard-Fought for High Achievers | The Fastest Way to Lose Talent Is “Dick Leadership” | Post-Holiday Fatigue Isn’t a Failure; It’s a Signal | OCR, Research Bots & Meeting Assistants: What Actually Helps Now | Return Season is the New Stress Test | Small Firms May Have the Biggest Advantage in 2026 | Downgraded: What the DOE Said About Accounting | Savage: Using Your License as a Megaphone | Baker: Interpreting Pricing Psychology | Don’t Get Fired by Your Own Automation | What Amazon Doesn't Tell You | Royalties, Residuals, and Reality Checks | ARC-SLC

Mason, CEO of High Rock Accounting, recounts a recent skiing accident in which she fell roughly 200 yards and collided with a tree at high speed. She survived with a broken leg—but the incident forced a sobering question: What would have happened to her firm if she hadn’t?

Originally published March 26, 2026

Are your firm's stated values consistent with its behavior?
Full show notes here

The Disruptors
With Liz Farr
For CPA Trendlines

How does your firm define culture? Is your culture consistent with the values posted on the breakroom wall? Doug Slaybaugh, founder of CPA Coach, defines culture as “values in motion.” According to his definition, a firm’s stated values must be evident in the ways a firm actually behaves.

MORE DISRUPTORS: Candy Bellau: The $350 Pricing Mistake that Nearly Broke this Boutique Firm | The Disruptors | Poe: What P.E. Really Wants from Firms | The Disruptors | Blake Oliver: Build a Biz that Runs Without You | Daiber: Use Succession as a Growth Strategy | Cannon: Busy Season is Self-Inflicted | MORE CPA Trendlines Streaming Network