The U.S. firm of Grant Thornton is adding Grant Thornton Netherlands to the multinational platform it launched earlier this year, in a deal that is expected to close later this year.

In January Grant Thornton Advisors combined with Grant Thornton Ireland, in its first step to create an integrated international firm. In late April it announced agreements with GT firms in Luxembourg, the United Arab Emirates and the Cayman Islands.

The platform is backed by an investor group led by private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which acquired a majority stake in Grant Thornton in March 2024, after selling a majority stake in Top 100 Firm Citrin Cooperman that it had acquired in 2021.

As a result of the PE investment, Grant Thornton took on the alternative practice structure that is common to those deals, with Grant Thornton Advisors offering non-attest services, and Grant Thornton LLP offering audit and assurance services. GT Netherlands’ audit practice will join the latter.

The Dutch firm brings close to 800 professionals in eight offices to the platform’s almost 13,000 team members in 60 offices. Its CEO, Marcel Blöte, will remain in his current position as head of that geography.

“Joining forces with Grant Thornton Advisors empowers us to deliver enhanced value for clients as a diversified platform poised for growth and expansion,” Blöte said in a statement. “We’ll be able to offer our people extremely attractive paths for career development, while maintaining our hallmark entrepreneurial culture and commitment to quality. Collectively, we will ensure our status as a top 10 firm in our market well into the future — one that can flexibly respond to a dynamic market and changing regulations.”

“By uniting with preeminent high-growth firms such as Grant Thornton Netherlands, we’ve established a world-class service provider platform spanning multinational markets,” said Jim Peko, CEO of Grant Thornton Advisors, in a statement. “We will continue to solidify our standing as the industry’s destination of choice for clients and team members alike, providing a singular experience focused on quality and unparalleled service delivery.”  

“We welcome Grant Thornton Netherlands to our expanded platform,” said Steve Tennant, managing partner of Grant Thornton in Ireland, who leads international M&A on behalf of Grant Thornton Advisors, in a statement. “The Dutch firm brings complementary ambition and talent as we look to extend our capabilities, services and geographic reach to benefit our clients and our people.”

“We’re bringing the highest quality and fastest-growing firms together into one truly integrated global platform,” said Andre Moura, a managing director at New Mountain Capital, in a statement. “Grant Thornton Netherlands is a perfect example of this — delivering the quality, expertise and industry specialization integral to the world-class client experience we’re creating.”

Grant Thornton isn’t the only international network that has member firms consolidating. Last October, the U.S. and U.K. firms of RSM International announced plans to combine by the end of 2025. KPMG is also reportedly looking to combine many of its member firms around the world, reducing the number from over 120 in 2023 to between 30 and 40 by the end of 2026, according to the Wall Street Journal, and last year its U.K. and Swiss firms merged into a $4.4 billion firm.

The Association for Accounting Marketing bestowed several awards at its annual AAM Summit in Phoenix May 13, including the 2025 Marketer of the Year and inducted a new member to its Hall of Fame. 

Kristen Lewis, managing director of marketing at EisnerAmper, received the 2025 Marketer of the Year award, recognizing a marketing professional who has shown outstanding performance in the field. 

Bonnie Buol Ruszczyk, president of BBR Companies, was inducted into the AAM Hall of Fame, honoring marketing professionals with at least fifteen years of professional experience with a minimum of 10 years in the accounting field who are known for their outstanding accomplishments as leaders of the association and in the profession.

Ruszczyk, a member of Accounting Today‘s 2024 Top 100 Most Influential People, was recognized for her work with BBR in influencing best practices in firm differentiation, diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and professional development.

Additional individual award recipients included Arlene Labrador, business development director at Cherry Bekaert, honored with the 2025 Business Developer of the Year award; Alex Miller, an AAM member since 2016 and part of its DEI Committee, receiving the AAM Volunteer of the Year award; and Kaelynn Guzman, digital marketing manager at Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas, accepting the Rookie of the Year award.

AAM also handed out 16 more awards during the Summit’s award ceremony.

The categories and winners were:

• Advertising Campaign: GHJ
• Business Development Initiative: Rehmann
• Client Experience: McGuire Sponsel

Content Marketing Campaigns

• Internal Audience: Doeren Mayhew
• External – Talent Recruitment: WilkinGuttenplan
• External – Brand Awareness: James Moore & Co.
• Inclusion Impact Program or Initiative: Baker Tilly

Events

• Budget above $25,000: Baker Tilly
• Budget below $24,999: JLK Rosenberger

Innovation & Strategic Achievement

• Emerging Tech or Tech Advancement: PBMares, LLP
• Marketing Innovation or Breakthrough Marketing: Baker Tilly

Integrated Branding Programs

• Firm revenue above $40M: Rea
• Firm revenue below $40M: Brown Plus
• Video and Multimedia: McGuire Sponsel

Website

• Budget above $60,000: UHY
• Budget below $59,999: McKonly & Asbury

For the category awards, a panel of marketing professionals, including many from the Society of Marketing Professional Services, evaluated 68 submissions to select the winners. They judged entries based on achieving specific goals, strategic execution of projects, and the generation of measurable outcomes.

Tiffany Hagler-Geard/Bloomberg

Corporate accounting solutions provider OneStream announced the release of SensibleAI Agents, SensibleAI Studio and SensibleAI Account Reconciliations and the most advanced SensibleAI Forecast. 

SensibleAI Agents are AI-powered chat assistants that retrieve data, do deep analysis, visualize data and execute tasks. Embedded directly into the platform, SensibleAI Agents can be operated within OneStream workflows, data models, and security frameworks. They include a Finance Analyst Agent, which allows users to query financial data using natural language and receive real-time analysis, dashboards, and visualizations based on OneStream’s financially intelligent engine; an Operations Analyst Agent, which provides on-demand access to operational and transactional data, such as inventory, transactions, and sales orders; a Search Analyst Agent which searches across enterprise documents, platform guides, and any unstructured data to transform information accessibility with source transparency; and a Deep Analysis Agent, which processes large volumes of documents to answer high-stakes, high-complexity questions. 

SensibleAI Studio is a growing library of more than 30 plug-and-play, quantitative and generative AI routines that users can activate within the OneStream platform or directly through APIs. Users can explore and analyze data in plain language and streamline reporting, reconciliation, and decision-making. Additionally, SensibleAI Studio’s Genesis Blocks make it easy to plug AI capabilities into new or existing workflows, all while maintaining full transparency and auditability. SensibleAI Account Reconciliations is powered by SensibleAI Studio. It allows users to leverage AI to detect anomalies and flag risks—like unusual adjustments or missing documentation—early in the close process.

Finally, SensibleAI Forecast is a no-code, AI-powered forecasting solution embedded in the OneStream platform that brings together the company’s machine learning-based forecasting engine (SensibleML) with new generative capabilities that allow finance teams to quickly model different scenarios and constraints, pulling forecasts up or down. Teams can create narrative commentary that provides context behind the forecast, strengthening analysis and decision making in real time.