Laura LaPeer developed a strong interest in finance early on, falling in love with her first accounting class in eighth grade, followed by summer jobs at a local accounting firm, and after college, landing a coveted audit position at Big Four firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Now, LaPeer, a CPA with a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Michigan-Flint, joined fast-growing UHY as its second consecutive CFO role just a month after serving as treasurer at Southfield, Michigan-based Plante Moran.

She said in an interview that serving as CFO for a group of CPAs focused on numbers and reports can sometimes be intimidating. But in every role she has held throughout her career, she has learned to tailor financial reporting to meet the practical needs of executives.

For example, during nearly 13 years at information content and technology company ProQuest, LaPeer focused on translating financial issues into language that non-accountants could understand. "I'm very good at providing financial updates that don't rely on a lot of numbers," she said. At Plante Moran, however, colleagues said, "The summary is great, but we still need the numbers; we are CPAs after all."

Working in the finance department of an accounting firm brings LaPeer back to her roots. At PwC, she loved many aspects of public accounting, and as an auditor, she always had the opportunity to learn about new companies. Now, in the top financial role at UHY, she has the chance to look at new companies again—in UHY's case, examining target companies through mergers and acquisitions.

In December, UHY announced it had received an investment from private equity firm Summit Partners to support its continued expansion, stating it would accelerate its organic and acquisition-driven growth. At that time, the firm ranked 29th on Accounting Today's Top 100 Firms list.

LaPeer said New York-based UHY, which currently has revenue approaching $500 million and about 2,000 employees spread across the eastern United States, aims to rank among the top 15 to 20 by revenue. Part of that growth will come through acquiring smaller firms where older CPAs plan to retire. So far this year, UHY has completed three deals.

Although the accounting industry has already seen significant consolidation, LaPeer said more is on the way. She said she has a voice in the firm's growth strategy. "Within five years, we want to break through the $1 billion revenue mark," she said. "We still have a lot of geographic areas to cover."

LaPeer is ready to focus on that scale expansion while prioritizing the centralization of operations at the growing firm. After operating in a regional model for years, areas such as payroll need adjustment to tie pools for merit increases to behaviors that reward making the firm as a whole profitable, rather than just one region.

"We need to start shifting toward a firm-wide performance approach... getting partners more focused on the entire firm," she said.

Editor's note: Laura LaPeer will participate as a panelist at CFO Dive's upcoming virtual event, CFO Live 2025, on September 24. You can register for the free event here.