CEO & President
Whitman Transition Advisors LLC
Phil specializes in CPA Firm Growth. Whether succession planning, M&A, talent acquisition, business advisory services or practice management consulting, firms of all sizes, from sole practitioners to top 10 global firms rely on him.
Phil has grown Whitman Transition Advisors to be the single largest advisory organization for CPA firms in the Nation. The depth and breadth of CPA firm leadership expertise by the Whitman Transition Team is unparalleled. With greater than 1,000 merger and acquisition transactions and consulting engagements, there is nothing the Team hasn’t seen.
Phil has expanded his CPA firm relationships and now helps small, medium, and large CPA firms help their clients. Through the C Suite IMPACT LLC group of companies, Whitman as Chairman, offers everything from Fractional CFO, Back-office Client Accounting Resources, Business Intelligence, and Deal Making, this includes buy-side, sell-side and capital raising, Whitman partners with the CPA firms and creates additional bottom-line revenue for the firms without them adding one new client or one new staff person.
Whitman has been a featured speaker for various state societies of CPAs, international CPA firm associations as well as a presenter for CCHs annual user conference. For over 25 years he has advised firms throughout North America.
When not focusing on strengthening existing business relationships Whitman enjoys connecting and building new relationships and prides himself on being a professional connector. Whitman has been married to Mia, his wife, for 33 years and enjoys time with his three adult sons, one an accountant, another a pilot, and the youngest a techie.
Veteran deal-maker, Phil Whitman, will take accounting firm leaders through the structure of a “typical” private equity deal to discuss important issues like price, rollover equity, levels of control, the “scrape” and how partner compensation is handled after a deal, and much more. The first part of the session will deal with smaller firms, and the second part with midsized and larger deals.
*Must attend both sessions to qualify for the 1 hour of CPE credit.
In this session, a panel of top experts and deal-makers (including our conference co-chairs) will survey the current state of play in the accounting profession — covering everything from what types of firms can expect to be able to make a PE deal and how those deals are changing, and how that is impacting the broader profession, laying a groundwork for the more granular discussions to come on Day 2.
The path to taking on private equity can take many forms; in this session, accounting firm leaders and industry experts share the main milestones on that path, including the sort of discussions firms should be having internally, the critical questions they need to ask themselves, how to bring together a partner group on a final decision, the due diligence they should be doing on their PE partners.
Our co-chairs return to the stage to wrap up the event, highlighting the most important takeaways from the previous two days, offering their key insights, and taking questions from the audience.