Laura LaPeer got bit by the finance bug early, loving the first accounting class she took in eighth grade before going on to hold summer jobs at local accounting firms and then landing a coveted auditing spot at the Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers right out of college.
Now LaPeer, a certified public accountant who holds a bachelor’s in accounting from University of Michigan-Flint, is taking her second consecutive CFO seat at an accounting firm, joining the fast-growing UHY after serving as finance chief of Southfield, Michigan-based Plante Moran last month.
Being a CFO for a group of CPAs who are laser focused on numbers and reports can be a little bit daunting at times, she said in an interview. But in each role she’s taken over her career she’s learned to adjust financial reports to meet the needs of executives where they are.
For example, while working for nearly 13 years for ProQuest, an information content and technology company, LaPeer focused on translating financial issues so that non-accountants could understand them. “I got very good at not having number-heavy financial updates,” LaPeer said. “At Plante Moran they said, ‘this summary is good but we still need numbers, we’re still CPAs.’”
Working in the finance department for accounting firms, LaPeer has returned to her roots. At PwC, she relished many aspects of public accounting, as an auditor always getting a chance to learn about new companies. Now, taking the top finance role at UHY gives her a chance to return to examining new companies, in UHY’s case looking at companies targeted through mergers and acquisitions.
In December, UHY announced that it had secured an investment from the private-equity firm Summit Partners, which will support its continued expansion that it said would accelerate both its organic and acquisition driven growth. The company at the time was ranked 29th on Accounting Today’s list of top 100 firms.
Looking ahead, the New York-based UHY, which is at nearly the half billion mark in revenues and has a staff of about 2,000 across the Eastern half of the U.S., has aspirations to rise up the rankings to be in the top 15-20 tier in terms of revenue, LaPeer said. Part of that growth is to be conducted through acquisitions of smaller firms where older CPAs are looking to retire. So far this year, UHY has done three deals.
While there’s already been a lot of consolidation in the accounting industry, LaPeer, who said she has a seat at the table to pursue the company’s growth strategy, says there’s more to come. “Within five years we want to be peaking over the billion mark,” LaPeer said. “We have a lot of geography left to cover.”
LaPeer is ready to focus on that scaling, while prioritizing centralizing the operations of the growing firm. After operating for years with a regional model, for example areas like payroll need to be addressed so that the pool of dollars for merit raises are linked to rewarding what makes the firm, rather than a given region, profitable.
“We need to start moving toward the firm’s merit approach ... and getting our partners to be focused more on the firm,” she said.
Editor’s note: Laura LaPeer will be a panelist at CFO Dive’s upcoming CFO Live 2025 virtual event on Sept. 24. You can register for the free event here.
