Cherry Bekaert boosts CFO advisory services

Cherry Bekaert, a top-20 accounting and advisory firm, this week announced the acquisition of Washington, DC-based Tarsus. The deal fits into Cherry Bekaert’s growth strategy of expanding geographically and enhancing services that cater to CFOs, according to CEO Michelle Thompson.

As for client companies, the deal means a greater array of services and expertise are now at their fingertips. For instance, if a Tarsus client in its CFO advisory business needs to align its systems and implement AI technologies, “we do have that solution set” at Cherry Bekaert, Thompson told CFO Brew.

“This is another great reason for us joining Cherry [Bekaert], is to be able to get to these resources,” Alex Diaz-Asper, former Tarsus CEO and now managing partner at Cherry Bekaert, told us. “As a smaller firm, we weren’t able to invest in this kind of systems optimization.”

Powered by PE. The Tarsus deal marks the 15th for Cherry Bekaert since the Raleigh, NC-based firm took on private equity investment from Parthenon Capital in June 2022, and the fourth in recent months. At the time, Cherry Bekaert took note of PE fueling competitors’ growth plans. “The minute other firms took PE investment, it changed the acquisition playing field,” Thompson said.

Areas of emphasis. Cherry Bekaert doesn’t think of its expansion in terms of reaching specific revenue or headcount thresholds, Thompson explained. Rather, it strategically acquires companies to expand geographically, in industry expertise, or in specific services like outsourced accounting and CFO advisory.

Thompson told CFO Brew that Tarsus was a good fit because of “an overlap in specialty services around our CFO advisory and our outsourced accounting,” and the firm also adds “an industry depth to those services for us in the private equity, venture capital, and technology spaces.”

Cherry Bekaert will continue bolstering its CFO advisory services. “The focus on the office of the CFO and enhancing the services, the way we go to market to support CFOs, will be a huge focus of our year. It is also one of our growth drivers for the year,” she said.

CFO Brew has previously reported how PE has ramped up its investments in public accounting and by doing so, has reshaped the profession.

“We’re 77 years old as a firm. We’ve done acquisitions for almost all of those years, so we’re not new to that sort of an approach, but the landscape changed significantly with the introduction of private equity and the strategic investment into the market,” Thompson said. “When that happened, we stepped back and said, you know, we want to enhance and deliver our strategy faster, and to do that, a strategic investment would be a critical piece.”

Finance leaders face no shortage of challenges. Just to name a few: CFOs are worried about changes in GAAP, managing cashflow, AI disruption, and labor shortages, according to Diaz-Asper. “It’s a very difficult operating environment.”

“All these service offerings that we brought and Cherry [Bekaert] has, are going to be able to help these people navigate all these challenges,” Diaz-Asper said of the Tarsus acquisition. “Whether it’s their system, compliance, HR, financial forecasting, reporting, or how to present yourself to an investor or a potential acquirer, these are all the questions we can now answer.”

CFOs are tasked with sussing out what AI solutions are worthy of investments and which are just hype. AI tech “is moving so fast, but what’s real and what’s not real is the biggest challenge, I think, right now,” Thompson said.

Finance leaders, she continued, must figure out the best ways to harness AI “for your people…that doesn’t put too much risk out there.”

Next steps. As for what 2026 may have in store, Thompson said the firm has a few more acquisitions in its sights—“one specialty area and a couple of accounting firms.” But the focus this year remains on building up or adding services that clients need.

“I think this is going to be a tough year for our clients, and so we want to be there, to be partners with them,” she said.