tip you can use: an integration team for mergers.
by kayleigh padar
the radical cpa guide
dean quiambao, a cpa and business development partner at armanino llp, a top 25 firm, works hard to incubate revolutionary ideas within his firm to help it grow and modernize as the world around him changes.
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“do your activity, because activity breeds activity,” said quiambao. “and i say this all the time, you keep hitting singles and the next thing you know you’re going to pop a triple out of nowhere. you’re going to make your own luck, you’re going to make something happen because you’re constantly doing something.”
located in a hub of innovation, silicon valley, armanino llp has always had change in its dna. “here, disruption is normal. it’s expected. if you’re not disrupting, you’re not doing it right,” quiambao said.
he believes the biggest reason for the firm’s modernization and success is that its team won’t shy away from an attempt. “we are willing to try things. we fail a lot of times. we’ve done things that haven’t worked out, but we’re willing to try. and we have lots of people who are walking, living, breathing examples of innovation around the office,” quiambao said.
another large factor that helps the team to modernize is the firm’s mission statement. “we put up our mission statement, and our mission statement is what we all hold true to our heart. we want to be the most entrepreneurial, innovative cpa consulting firm in the country that has a positive impact on the lives of our client,” he said.
although the mission statement is simple, it provides a very big goal to accomplish and something to constantly strive for within the firm. “from the top down, innovation is just kind of what we do. and we talk about it all the time,” he said.
quiambao knows it’s in their secret sauce, but here is how they get tactical for inorganic growth: “once you do a couple big inorganic deals, mergers, you bring on 75 people or 100 people. you say ‘okay, there are some bumps.’” after merging in two larger firms, and knowing they would be continuing to do more mergers, now they have an integration team.
“it’s our swat team of people that include it, finance, all of the hr, armanino university, our onboarding program, all of the administrative people, all of what we call operations. our operations swat team goes in together and looks at a merger. then we assess and create a plan on how this is all going to work,” quiambao said.
“to me that is real life. so now, by the time you get to someone like traviswolff in dallas, everyone feels comfortable. this is what we do, we grow organically and inorganically. the second that i feel comfortable in my job, ‘okay good, we’re doing this, we’re doing that,’ something changes. we buy a line of business. like, ‘dude, just when i got comfortable.’” quiambao added, “that’s word to the wise. right? that’s how it’s going to be here at armanino. that’s just what we do.”