In September, I was thrilled to join a fireside chat featuring Alan Whitman, the former CEO of Baker Tilly, and moderated by Accounting Today’s Dan Hood, at the QX Group’s QXcelerate 2025: The Innovation Summit.
Given Alan’s experience of leading Baker Tilly through a transformative journey from a $475M to a $1.5B powerhouse, our fireside conversation was incredibly invigorating, filled with practical wisdom for any CPA firm (and any company really) leader thinking about scale, transformation, and long-term success.
Here are the three things that resonated with me from Alan’s reflections:
1: Are you “on strategy”?
Everything starts with strategy. Growth, transformation, performance—none of it works without creating a strategy and proactively aligning towards this common North Star.
He shared a memorable story of speaking with a high-performing partner who had excellent numbers but was resistant to adopting a new technology tool. Alan’s message to that partner?
“I’m glad your numbers are strong. But you’re not on strategy.”
This wasn’t just about technology—it was about the importance of every leader, every team, and every investment pointing in the same direction. Strategy, when clear and well-articulated, becomes a filter for:
- Performance evaluation
- Cultural transformation
- Resource allocation
- Technology adoption
Being on strategy is not about conformity—it’s about intentionality. It’s about having a North Star and making sure every major decision aligns with it.
2: Build an engine, not a hero culture
Early in his tenure as CEO, Alan recounted a conversation with a leader from a firm operating at 5–10x the scale of Baker Tilly where he gained an insight that stayed with him: if you want to grow, you can’t rely on individual brilliance—you have to build engines.
An engine is not dependent on any one person. It’s powered by repeatable workflows, standardized processes, well-designed systems, high-quality data, and distributed and systematic knowledge.
This deeply resonated with me based on my experience at Aiwyn. In our early days, our founding team at Aiwyn carried a lot of weight—classic founder-led execution that we called “hero ball.” But as we grew, we had to replace this extraordinary individual effort with systematic, process-driven enablement. That meant equipping our team with:
- Clear processes
- Knowledge systems
- The right tools and infrastructure
- The right people in the right seats
Building an engine means designing for repeatability and resilience. And as Alan shared, it’s the only way to scale successfully.
3: Be a whole made up of parts (Not just parts that add up to a sum)
One of the most powerful ideas shared was this: true success happens when an organization becomes a whole made up of parts.
There’s a subtle but powerful difference between parts that simply add up to a whole, and a true whole—an integrated organization that operates in service of the entire enterprise, not just individual teams or service lines.
This mindset fosters fluidity, cross-functional coordination, and shared identity. And in today’s world—where technology is breaking down walls, transforming business models, and reshaping how we live and work—that kind of organizational coherence is more essential than ever.
When every part of the firm feels accountable to the same mission and each other as a whole, strategy becomes execution. Culture becomes leverage. And momentum becomes exponential.
Excellence is doing the hard work
World-class firms don’t get there by accident. They’re built—intentionally, deliberately, and persistently. What Alan reminded me is that greatness comes not just from ambition, but from the discipline to align every decision, every hire, and every execution to a larger strategy, culture, and system.
And the firms that succeed are the ones that commit to doing the hard work—every single day.
