Hello... From the CEO
Governance & Guidance
We remain committed to our employees and stakeholders, providing quality services with integrity and focusing on proactive governance.
ASSESSING AND MINIMIZING RISK
Aligning with our strategic plan, we reviewed our policies and practices to evaluate how we monitor and mitigate risks. We surveyed the management team to identify any unforeseen risks at various levels. Survey questions addressed 17 different risk areas, including malpractice, bad actors, labor, credit, compliance, ethics and information access. Led by our Partner in Charge of Risk and Quality Management, and with oversight from our Board of Managers, our firm’s existing policies and procedures were confirmed to be sound and comprehensive.
WELCOMING NEW PERSPECTIVES
Our Advisory Council provides critical insights to firm leadership. In 2024, the group provided feedback on enhancing inclusion and equity efforts at the firm, creating an employee value proposition to better retain and attract employees, and supporting and advocating for our CPA candidates among evolving CPA requirements. In late summer, this group experienced a changing of the guard, welcoming 22 new Advisory Council members tapped to help shape the future of our firm. The incoming cohort represents diversity across service lines, geographies and levels, and is committed to a two-year committee tenure.
I’m excited to be part of the Advisory Council. It gives me another way to voice my opinions, help shape the direction of the firm and gain fresh perspectives from team members I don’t necessarily interact with on a daily basis.— Miroslav Georgiev, Senior Manager
Efficiencies & Environment
Achieving operating efficiencies at every turn is one of our firm’s primary goals. From technology innovations to payroll processes to environmental advancements, we aim to operate at the highest level both for the efficiency of our firm and effectiveness for our clients.
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ADVANCING AND ENHANCING OUR TECHNOLOGY
Our Technology & Operations Services team continued its focus on providing the technology solutions, core infrastructure and service line operations needed to efficiently offer clients the highest quality services.
Continued Commitment
We continue to focus on developing and enhancing tools to create efficiency for our client service teams, allowing them to provide deeper insights and build stronger client relationships. For example, we enhanced our proprietary CohenWorks™ platform to track and route tax return and financial statement engagements through defined milestones, ensuring consistency, efficiency and quality control. We also expanded our suite of tools to help our audit teams analyze the evolving cryptocurrency transaction domain.
Security is Always in Focus
Security remains at the forefront of our technology focus. Our in-house specialists continuously enhance our physical, technical and administrative safeguards to ensure clients and stakeholders can trust us with their data while enabling efficient service delivery. For example, we upgraded our physical security to adopt a “one badge, one firm” approach, increasing security controls and monitoring capabilities while reducing friction for employees working across multiple office locations.
Eye on Innovation
We take a comprehensive approach to innovation, gathering ideas from every level and service line. These innovative ideas can lead our development team to create sophisticated technology solutions, our Data Intelligence Services team to create intricate data automations and analytic enablers, or our Engagement Operations team to implement process improvements or new areas of operational support. We are never satisfied with what has worked in the past. We are constantly striving to improve our tools, processes and perspectives.
Specifically, the firm continued its measured approach to using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to better serve clients. This past year we continued to extensively leverage traditional AI technologies, such as data analytics, to enhance quality, efficiency and scalability. We also began leveraging a limited set of machine learning models, ensuring they meet our high quality standards through rigorous testing. We remain cautious in the area of Generative AI, mindful of the security and reliability risks, while encouraged by its ongoing opportunities.
Inclusion & Equity
We want all employees to feel part of our firm in a meaningful way, so making progress on our inclusion efforts is important to us. We made great strides in this area throughout 2024.
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CONNECTING OUR WOMEN PROFESSIONALS
Cohen & Co’s Women’s Leadership Initiative focused on professional development, educational podcasts, book club discussions, mentoring and networking. Specifically, the group hosted or participated in nearly 20 individual events, collaborating with industry and business organizations across geographies to build and strengthen key professional networks both internally and externally.
Our Women’s Leadership Initiative was also featured in The Business Journal of Youngstown for its advocacy for and empowerment of women. The article titled “Women Empower Women at Cohen & Co” discussed the need for a place women can collaborate on unique challenges they face in the workplace — and how the firm’s Initiative is helping achieve that goal. The Journal interviewed four women from our Youngstown office:
LEARNING TOGETHER
To educate the broader group at the firm, we offered employee training to help improve cross-generational communication and interactions. Many of our leadership and IDEA team members also attended impactful trainings and conferences:
- CEO Forum on Equity and Inclusion
- DEI Leadership Panel
- Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Conference
- Gartner ReImagine HR Conference
I immediately felt connected to Cohen & Co’s culture and could envision real opportunity. As I helped build the Pittsburgh office, I did more than develop my audit skills. I felt empowered to learn about the operational side of the business, became integral to various office moves and helped establish a tight knit team.— Kaitlin Mansfield, Partner
*Based on 2024 Employee Engagement Survey
Community Commitment
We aim to positively impact clients, stakeholders and our communities. Throughout 2024, we donated our time, funds and expertise to give to the communities that have always given so much to us.
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Below are a few of the organizations at which our employees stepped out of the office to volunteer, focusing on causes important to them:
Our Foundational Principles guide us every day to serve not only our clients and employees, but also our communities.
Supporting Our People
Great people truly make our firm special, so putting those great people first is as important to our success as it is to theirs. In 2024, we focused on ways to support our team members through wellness and camaraderie.
Numbers to Know:
Cohen & Co has given me the ability to pursue personal career interests while also helping the firm achieve our goals. Happy to be at a firm that supports their employees!— Jamie Studer, Senior Accountant
*Based on 2024 Employee Engagement Survey
Quality & Training
As a Premium Provider in the accounting industry and The Firm of Choice for elite professionals, we emphasize education and training. In 2024, we found new ways to support continuous learning and development, whether onboarding new employees, enhancing technical skills or improving ways in which we communicate.
Numbers to Know:
DOUBLING DOWN ON eLEARNING
We continued our investment in eLearning development, tripling the number of self-study and video content courses created internally for learners to access whenever they need it:
AI Enablement: We used AI-enabled platforms, such as Synthesia, to eliminate the need for subject-matter experts within the firm to provide voice-over for training videos. This saved valuable time for our practitioners to focus on clients.
Blended Learning Solutions: We partnered with the Amplifire accounting alliance to convert an in-person training event into a blended learning experience. Employees completed adaptive eLearning modules that generated analytics on their strengths and weaknesses. From there, these analytics were used to create personalized workshops, focusing class time on challenging areas. This approach reduced overall training time and ensured comprehensive learning. Post-training, digital refreshers supported learning retention.
LumiQ CPE Platform: The firm invested in LumiQ, a modern CPE platform that offers engaging podcasts on business, industry, economic and soft skill topics taught by industry experts. Employees can access these podcasts on the LumiQ mobile app, making their training even more accessible. Topics proved so popular that in just six months, usage exceeded the total number of credits projected for the entire year.