Brown Edwards’ New CEO Laura Sprouse on the Power of Putting People First

In a recent conversation, David Toth, Chief Growth Officer of Winding River Consulting, sat down with Laura Sprouse, CEO of Brown Edwards and MPB | Leadership Accelerated alumni. Below is a summary of their conversation. 

On June 1, 2024, Laura Sprouse became the new CEO of Brown Edwards. She’s spent 26 years at the firm, but she’d describe her journey to the CEO role as anything but traditional. 

In her time, Laura has experienced practically every area of the firm. She started in audit and tax before spending time helping to build out Brown Edwards’ technology advisory business. Most recently, she served as the firm’s Chief Operating Officer through several years of rapid growth.

“Stepping into the CEO role was a natural evolution. I know the firm up and down and I’ve worked side-by-side with Jason Hartman for the past eight years as we’ve grown from $25 million to $86 million.”

With twelve offices across the Mid-Atlantic region and employees in 12 states, Laura’s more excited than ever about what the future holds for Brown Edwards. 

Doubling Down on Domain Expertise

Brown Edwards is known for excelling in several key niches, ranging from private colleges and universities to construction accounting and employee benefit plan audits. Continuing to expand these practices is key to Laura’s vision:

“For years, we’ve known that certain teams like our private college and university practice are special. Today, they’re growing outside of our geographical footprint – they’re now working with clients in nine states.

My message is clear: we can’t stop growing. If we’re not moving forward, we’re moving backward. That’s why it’s important we continue to focus on the areas we excel while deepening our bench and strategically growing in other segments.”

And for Laura, the path to achieving that growth starts with improving client and employee experiences. 

Harnessing Technology and a People-First Approach to Growth

Laura credits much of the success in her career so far to her strong focus on operational excellence. She spent much of her career in Brown Edwards’ internal and external technology practice and working internally as COO to improve the firm’s processes, and in that time, she’s always focused on pushing the firm forward.

“I’ve always strived for us to be ahead of the curve when it comes to technology. Not necessarily on the bleeding edge – but certainly on the leading edge.”

Back in 2005, it was Laura who helped lead Brown Edwards’ transition to becoming a paperless firm. Since then, she’s never stopped looking for ways to harness technology to improve the experiences the firm provides to its clients and employees. 

Today, Laura remains focused on that goal. Her vision is for Brown Edwards to become a complete advisory partner for clients, providing comprehensive solutions that directly address client needs in areas such as HR consulting and technology. 

As part of this commitment to client and employee experience, the firm is investing in new technologies that automate manual processes, freeing employees from mundane tasks and giving them more time to spend delivering real value for clients. In Laura’s view, improving client experience goes hand-in-hand with improving the lives of Brown Edwards’ partners and employees. She comments: 

“People are at the heart of everything we do. We’re rolling out a new bonus program, adding PTO for hourly employees, and looking at all other kinds of ways we can make our employees’ lives better. We just completed an employee experience survey and we’re committed to incorporating that feedback as we move forward.”

As the accounting industry continues to face talent shortages, Laura is committed to investing in new ways to improve her employees’ quality of life. Whether it’s through outsourcing or evaluating and incorporating new technologies, under Laura’s leadership, Brown Edwards is committed to doing everything it can to create the best possible experience for their employees and clients. 

A Relentless Focus on Execution

“Strategy is easy. Execution is hard”, comments David. While it’s easy to talk about major employee or client experience initiatives, execution is where the rubber meets the road. From Laura’s perspective, everything starts with having the right team in place. 

“Over the past couple of years, we’ve really invested in building out our C-Suite., They’ve been instrumental in delivering client and employee experience initiatives that make us a better firm.”

With the right team in place, execution is far more straightforward. Owing to her background as a COO, Laura bases her approach on several key principles. Success begins with having a clear plan, with well-defined project milestones that keep team members focused regardless of their day-to-day responsibilities or outside noise. Laura also recommends bringing in a project manager and assigning clear responsibilities for each task. 

All projects should have clear alignment and top-down buy-in that ensures everyone has the support needed to move projects forward. Prioritize communication: if the project hits a roadblock, it should be flagged early. These principles, paired with a talented team of leaders and employees, have been central to the sustained growth of Brown Edwards.

The Role of MPB | Leadership Accelerated in Laura’s Journey

Laura attended MPB | Leadership Accelerated in 2020, and now that she finds herself in the CEO role, she finds herself regularly thinking back to her time there:

“I so enjoyed the bootcamp. I lead our teams through similar conversations to those we had at bootcamp today – the leaders we were exposed to were fantastic. Four years in, I’m still close to people in my cohort and look forward to catching up with them at conferences and events. Having a peer group in a similar position to myself is invaluable.”

Applications for the next cohort of MPB | Leadership Accelerated are now open. Join us in Chicago in October 2024 for a rigorous bootcamp focused on building the next generation of leaders in the accounting industry. 

Register today.