Accounting
Inside the 2024 Best Firms for Young Accountants
What’s the secret to recruiting and retaining the next generation of accountants?
It’s a combination of trust, flexibility and investment, according to the 2024 class of Best Firms for Young Accountants (see the list on page 10).
In a professional landscape stressed by an ongoing talent shortage, fostering an attractive firm culture where young talent wants to work and stay is more important than ever. That involves identifying their needs and wants, which differ from those of previous generations.
Young talent wants the opportunity to grow and to feel trusted by their firms, but they also value work-life balance. They want to feel fulfilled by their professional lives and still have the time to enjoy their personal lives.
While each of the Best Firms for Young Accountants takes its own approach to retaining talent, all of their efforts point to the shared themes of trust, flexibility and professional development.
“Basically anything that needs to cater to your life, we’re up for it because we want to keep our good people, and happy people make happy workers,” said talent and engagement coordinator Kendra Anderson at Rudler, a Fort Wright, Kentucky-based firm with more than 60 employees.
Establishing trust
In a shrinking talent market, the search for new talent is shifting further upstream in the pipeline. Many firms are extending internship offers to college students as young as sophomores and beginning outreach programs to high schools.
Building out a robust internship program is a great way to build for the future, according to Holly Feltenberger, director of talent acquisition and retention at McKonly & Asbury, a Camp Hill, Pennsylvania-based firm with over 120 employees: “If you don’t have the students coming in to learn and grow, then you’re going to stagnate, and your employees are going to stagnate and they’re going to be, I think, unhappy.”
A student’s internship experience is crucial to their decision to stay at the firm. That means training them and trusting them with real work — not just having them push paper. “We expect you to do the same job,” Janice Snyder, assurance and HR partner at McKonly & Asbury, said. “We’re not putting on a show. We want you to know what it’s really like to work here.”
Meanwhile, Austin, Texas-based Maxwell Locke & Ritter focuses its recruiting efforts on experienced hires with five or more years of experience. By focusing on this demographic, new hires require less training than interns and can hit the ground running, clients are better served, engagement teams can be slimmer, and the firm experiences lower turnover.
One significant application of trust is remote work. At Maxwell Locke & Ritter, “We don’t have a policy. We basically tell people to work what’s best for them,” leading partner Kyle Park said. “We expect you to be available and accessible — not only to people inside the firm, but to your clients — and as long as you are, we don’t really care where you’re at. … We treat everyone as a professional. We’re not babysitting or hand-holding anyone.”
Of the firm’s 138 employees, roughly a third are remote and based outside the office’s locality, another third are remote and local, and the remaining third work a range of schedules from hybrid to fully in office.
Meanwhile, WilkinGuttenplan, based in East Brunswick, New Jersey, has employees working across 11 states. Of its 138 employees, “pretty much everybody” is remote unless they choose to work in the office, said talent acquisition and development manager Fatima Sabir.
“People have different obligations outside of work, so we want to make it easy for them,” Sabir said. “That correlates to working parents, but it doesn’t even have to be working parents — it could be anybody. You could be taking care of your own parents. You could have a dog. Whatever the case is, obviously we know these individuals are important to you, even pets.”
Susan Yohn, director of HR at Brown Plus, a 124-person firm in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, explained the benefits of allowing employees the freedom to work from home: “What it has allowed us to do is retain our team members. … We are able to look outside of our geographical region for talent. The talent shortage is real, so we’re able to bring in great talent from different locations.”
Transparent leadership and upper management is also crucial to fostering a culture of trust that retains young accountants. At Brown Plus, leadership is very visible: “For every new hire that comes in, we have a morning mixer for them where people can come down and talk to them and just say hi. We provide breakfast and just kind of get them more acquainted with people in the firm,” Yohn said.
There needs to be a consistent message between what people hear and what people see. Management must practice what they preach. That increases trust and, in turn, opens the door for candid conversations and feedback.
The Brown Plus Emerging Professionals group facilitates just that. The group is comprised of employees with zero to seven years of experience. Together, they host volunteering and networking events, as well as lunch-and-learns. Once a year, BEP members present their feedback and concerns to the board and offer suggestions for improvement. “Last year, our paid parental leave policy paid for two weeks of paid leave, but they were looking to increase that. So we increased to three weeks of paid leave,” Yohn said.
Groups and committees such as these give young people a stake in the firm without being a stakeholder. Allowing them to contribute ideas and shape the firm fosters a sense of belonging.
Even something as simple as the dress code comes down to trust, too. The best firms all follow a “dress for your day” or “dress to your client” policy. So on days with no meetings, employees are welcome to wear jeans and sneakers, or even shorts and hoodies in some offices. On days they meet with clients, they’re expected to dress to the client’s standard.
“How someone is dressed doesn’t affect how they do their jobs,” McKonly & Asbury’s Snyder said. “When we go to our clients, we dress how they dress. If the client is in suits, we’re in suits. If our client wants us to wear jeans, then we’re going to wear jeans. We’re going to respect their wishes. But when someone’s in our office, it just doesn’t matter.”
Making the investment
Next-generation accountants want their firm to invest in them as much as they’re investing in the firm. That’s why the top Best Firms for Young Accountants all have professional development in common. That can look like reimbursements for continued education, CPE courses and tracking, CPA exam prep, days off for taking the exam, bonuses for passing, and support groups for those studying.
“There’s a lot more to development than just doing a job,” McKonly & Asbury’s Feltenberger said. “There’s a lot more relationally, there’s a lot more emotional intelligence that people have to develop … People don’t realize that.”
At her firm, that looks like interns being assigned a buddy when they start. This is the “baseline,” Feltenberger said. “When you don’t feel comfortable going to your supervisor or direct report, you can ask your buddy questions. You can be a little more open and honest and feel more comfortable.”
Everyone at the firm also receives a direct report — a manager who is personally invested in driving their career and works with partners and leaders to facilitate that employee’s growth — as well as a mentor, whom the employee chooses.
Keeping it real
The focus on mental wellness and enabling work-life balance is perhaps among the most important aspects of what makes these firms the best for young people, who simply want to be treated as human beings.
That means feeling heard and seen. “Bring it on. Tell us what you don’t like,” Snyder said. “I have meetings with younger staff and say, ‘Tell me something you think I don’t want to hear.'”
WilkinGuttenplan utilizes a commitment schedule basis rather than implementing across-the-board hours requirements. Accountants decide on a minimum target of hours worked (billable and nonbillable) that they want to meet through the year. “Do they want to just work that minimum target, or do they want to exceed that minimum target?” Sabir said. “We give them the opportunity to tell us what makes sense for them.”
There, accountants can start their day whenever it works best for them, whether that’s 8 a.m. or 11 p.m., and the firm encourages people to establish boundaries and push back if they are asked to work outside of their set schedule.
“That’s kind of our human approach to everything,” Sabir explained. “When we get on calls, we understand we’re all humans, and it’s a very comfortable environment where you can vocalize and have open communication, candid feedback, everybody truly just understands one another.”
At Rudler, Anderson finds unique ways to plan fun, de-stressing activities for both in-office and remote employees. “Anything that we do in office, I try to make a version of it that caters to the remote people,” she said.
During tax season, for example, they hire a massage company to come to the office, while remote workers get mailed an at-home spa kit. On Valentine’s Day, Anderson took inspiration from nostalgic elementary school years and had employees decorate tissue boxes to collect candy and cards. “Of course one of the guys had to do a beer box,” she joked. “We just try to keep it really lighthearted.”
“Whatever a person needs to flourish mentally, we really try to cater to that,” Anderson continued. “Burnout, we know that’s real. That’s why we do a lot of fun things throughout tax season, like the coffee carts, playing games, weekly bingo, massages.”
These firms also adhere to their core values and make tangible, consistent efforts to demonstrate them.
“We’re flexible. We’re very employee-friendly. By flexible, I mean in terms of working hours — where you work, how you work, that type of thing. Friendly, meaning we want you to live life outside of the office,” Maxwell Locke & Ritter’s Park said. “We have a saying that no success at work is worth failure at home, and you can interpret that however you want it to be.”
“We genuinely care about one another,” Holocombe added. “We care about each other as employees and coworkers, but we really care about each other as people.”
The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents workers at the Internal Revenue Service among 37 federal agencies and offices, has asked a federal judge for emergency relief to preserve the union rights of federal employees while NTEU’s legal challenge to President Trump’s executive order stripping unions of collective bargaining rights can be heard in court.
Trump signed an
NTEU’s
“NTEU seeks emergency relief to protect itself and the workers it represents from this unlawful attempt to eliminate collective bargaining for some two-thirds of the federal workforce,” the request stated.
The NTEU contended that the Trump administration’s executive order claims that allowing workers to join a union was a threat to national security were absurd.
“We all know this has nothing to do with national security and that the true goal here is to make it easier to fire federal employees across government,” said NTEU national president Doreen Greenwald in a statement Friday. “Just five days after declaring the administration would no longer honor our contract with Health and Human Services, thousands of brilliant civil servants who work tirelessly to improve public health were let go for spurious reasons and little recourse to fight back.”
The union pointed out that Congress declared 47 years ago that collective bargaining in the federal sector was in the public’s interest by giving employees a voice in the workplace and allowing labor and management to work together. It acknowledged there is a narrow exemption in the law for groups of employees whose work directly impacts national security, but argued that Trump’s executive order is blatant retaliation against federal sector unions and ignores the laws passed by Congress creating the agencies.
In agencies where a reduction-in-force has been announced, NTEU’s contracts provide time for employees to respond to a RIF notice and explore alternatives to mitigate the impact of the layoffs.
Earlier this week, after two court rulings in California and Maryland, the IRS’s acting commissioner, Melanie Krause, announced the IRS would be
A bipartisan bill has been introduced in Congress to preserve collective bargaining rights for federal employees. The Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550), sponsored by Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pennsylvania, would overturn Trump’s executive order stripping collective bargaining rights from hundreds of thousands of federal workers at multiple agencies. Separately,
The political calculus involved with the details of estate planning next year and beyond may be distracting financial advisors and clients from a larger, simpler conversation, one expert says.
On the off chance that the federal estate-tax exemption levels of $13.99 million for individuals (and double for couples) revert to half those amounts when Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions expire in 2026, only 0.2% of households would face potential duties upon transfer of assets, according to Ben Rizzuto, a wealth strategist with
With
“For financial advisors and clients, I would expect for many of them not to have to worry about federal estate taxes next year,” he said in an interview. “Even though they may not have to worry about it, there are still a lot of good conversations to be had.”
READ MORE:
The 1%
Trust tools that reduce the value of the assets that will transfer to spouses or other beneficiaries upon a client’s death, combined with the available statistics about the shrinking share of estates subject to taxes, could bring some peace of mind to clients. The 2017 tax law itself pushed down estate tax liability as a percentage of gross domestic product to a quarter of its 2001 level,
At the same time, advisors could raise any number of questions with clients
“We’re seeing a fundamental shift in client expectations,” Trust & Will CEO Cody Barbo said
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Get back to the planning basics
In that context, advisors and their clients should steer clear of trying to make sense of a complicated, ever-changing flow of news from Capitol Hill as Trump and the GOP pursue major tax legislation with a year-end deadline, Rizzuto said. If clients truly could be on the hook for estate taxes, a
“Why not gift them upstream?” Rizzuto said. “My father holds it. I tell him, ‘Dad, you have to do these things: Live for another 12 months, make sure you don’t sell, make sure that you update your will or your instructions to gift it back to me when you die.’ That’s another idea that we’ve been talking about with advisors.”
From another perspective, these possible paths forward may beckon to clients this year, if they are tuning into Beltway news about the progress of the tax legislation, he said. To bypass the risk of client perceptions that their advisor isn’t doing any tax planning at all, Washington’s complex maneuvering around the future rules is, “if nothing else,” a “great opportunity for advisors to bring this up at a very high level,” Rizzuto said.
“Advisors will really need to go back to basics and have some foundational conversations with clients,” he said, suggesting their goals with taxes as one key point of discussion. “‘What is it that we actually control within your financial and tax plan?’ When it comes right down to it, it’s really just incomes and deductions.”
Accounting
Developing future leaders in accounting: the new imperative in an AI and automation driven era
As technology continues to automate routine tasks, the role of finance professionals is evolving, demanding deeper capabilities in critical thinking, communication and business acumen.
Many of PrimeGlobal’s North American firms are focused on cultivating these skills in their future leaders. Carla McCall, managing partner at AAFCPAs, Randy Nail, CEO of HoganTaylor, and Grassi managing partner Louis Grassi shared their views with PrimeGlobal CEO Steve Heathcote on the need for future leaders to balance technological proficiency with human-centered skills to thrive.
AI is transforming the sector by streamlining workflows, automating data analysis and reducing manual processes. However, rather than replacing accountants, AI is reshaping their roles, enabling them to focus on higher-value tasks. In the words of Louis Grassi, AI can be seen as a strategic partner, freeing accountants from routine tasks, enabling deeper engagement with clients, more thoughtful analysis, and ultimately better decision-making.
Nail emphasized the importance of embracing AI, warning that those who fail to adapt risk being replaced by professionals who leverage the technology more effectively. HoganTaylor’s “innovation sprint” generated over 100 ideas for AI integration, underscoring why a proactive approach to adopting new technologies is so necessary and valuable.
McCall advocates for an educational shift that equips professionals with the skills to interpret AI-generated insights. She stressed that accounting curricula of the future must evolve to incorporate advanced technology training, ensuring future accountants are well-versed in AI tools and data analytics. Moreover, simulation-based learning is becoming increasingly crucial as traditional methods of education become obsolete in the face of automation.
Talent development and leadership growth
As AI reshapes the profession, firms must rethink how they develop and nurture their future leaders. To attract and retain top talent, firms need to prioritize personalized development plans that align with individual career goals.
HoganTaylor’s approach to talent development integrates technical expertise with leadership and communication training. These initiatives ensure professionals are not only proficient in accounting principles but also equipped to lead teams and navigate complex client interactions.
Nail underscored the growing importance of writing and presentation skills, as AI will handle routine tasks, leaving professionals to focus on higher-level analytical and decision-making responsibilities.
Soft skills are the success skills
While technical proficiency remains vital, future leaders must also cultivate critical thinking, communication and adaptability — skills McCall refers to as the “success skills.” McCall highlights the necessity of business acumen and analytical communication, essential for interpreting data, advising clients and making strategic decisions.
Recognizing teamwork and collaboration remain crucial in the hybrid work environment, McCall explained in detail how AAFCPA fosters collaboration through structured remote engagement strategies such as “intentional office time,” alcove sessions and stand-up meetings. Similarly, HoganTaylor supports remote teams by offering training for career advisors to ensure effective mentorship and engagement in a dispersed workforce.
McCall emphasized why global experience can be valuable in leadership development. Exposure to diverse markets and accounting practices enhances professionals’ adaptability and broadens their perspectives, preparing them for leadership roles in an increasingly interconnected world.
Grassi reminded us that an often-overlooked leadership skill is curiosity. In his view the most effective leaders of tomorrow will be inherently curious — not just about emerging technologies but about clients, market shifts and global trends. Encouraging curiosity and continuous learning within our firms will distinguish the true industry leaders from those simply reacting to change.
A balanced future
What’s clear from speaking to our leaders is PrimeGlobal’s role in fostering trust, community and knowledge sharing. McCall recommended member-driven panels to discuss AI implementation and automation strategies and share best practice. Nail, on the other hand, valued PrimeGlobal’s focus on addressing critical industry issues and encouraged continuous evolution to meet professionals’ changing needs.
The future of leadership in the accountancy profession hinges on a balanced approach, leveraging AI to enhance efficiency while cultivating essential human skills that technology cannot replicate, which Grassi highlights skills including leadership and building client trust.
As McCall and Nail advocate, the next generation of accountants must be agile thinkers, skilled communicators and strategic decision-makers. Firms that invest in these competencies will not only stay competitive but will also shape the future of the industry by developing well-rounded leaders prepared for the challenges ahead.
By investing in both AI capabilities and essential human skills, firms can not only future proof their leadership but also shape a resilient and forward-thinking profession ready to meet the challenges of the future.
As Grassi concluded, while technical skills provide the foundation, leadership in accounting increasingly demands emotional intelligence, empathy and adaptability. AI will change how we perform our work, but human connection, trust and nuanced judgment are irreplaceable. Investing in these human-centric skills today is critical for firms aiming to build resilient leaders of tomorrow. To remain relevant and thrive, professionals must prioritize developing strong success skills that will define the leaders of tomorrow.
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