In a recent episode of Making Waves, David Toth, Chief Growth Officer of Winding River Consulting, sat down with Jim Mead, CEO and Managing Shareholder of LBMC and MPB | Leadership Accelerated Alumni. Below is a summary of their conversation.
Listen to the full recording of the podcast here.
Few firms in the Southeast have built the kind of breadth and reputation that LBMC has. A top 35 accounting and business consulting firm nationally, LBMC has earned recognition from USA Today as one of the most recommended accounting firms in the nation — and multiple Best of Accounting awards for client satisfaction. At the center of it all is Jim Mead, CEO and Managing Shareholder, who brings over 27 years with the firm and a recently earned spot on Forbes' Best in State CPAs list.
Jim's path to the top wasn't one he planned. It was one he was asked to take — and that distinction says a lot about both the man and the firm he leads.
Jim never set out to be Managing Shareholder. Over nearly three decades at LBMC, he cultivated leadership the way most professionals in this industry do — through client engagements, practice area leadership, and deep subject matter expertise.
"There was never any defining moment or inflection point where I'm like, I want to be CEO or Managing Shareholder. That really was never my goal. It came about mostly because many of my fellow shareholders came to me and asked me if I would fill that role."
What surprised him most upon stepping in? The sheer volume of relationship-building required — both internally and externally.
"Even though you have relationships with your shareholders and with C-suite in the firm, it's different when you're a practice area shareholder versus the managing shareholder. Redefining those relationships and building a network in the industry with peers and strategic consultants — that took some time and a lot of effort."
LBMC's identity is rooted in a vision its founders set long before advisory services became the profession's rallying cry. Founders David Morgan and Mike Kane made a deliberate bet on advisory services decades ago — and that bet has compounded over time.
Today, LBMC is 63% advisory. That's unusual for a top 50 firm, and it's not accidental.
"You see all of the services we offer today, but you don't see the ones we left by the wayside. Culturally, we're a very entrepreneurial firm. If there was a reasonable business idea and a demonstrated client need, we were willing to try it. Several of those initiatives didn't work out — but we made sure we gave them the time and resources to test it."
That experimental mindset, grounded in client need rather than strategy-first thinking, is what built LBMC's advisory depth. As Jim explains, the expansion wasn't planned — it was pulled.
"It really was dictated by requests and needs of our clients more than us strategically getting where we thought the hockey puck was going to be."
Ask Jim about growth philosophy, and he doesn't hesitate.
"Growth is just the necessary engine in professional services. Without growth, you can't grow your expertise, you can't attract quality people, you can't offer new services, you can't have the scale today's sophisticated client depends on. It's a non-negotiable must-do."
But growth without quality is a trap. Post-COVID, LBMC — like every firm — felt that tension acutely.
"We would never sacrifice quality for growth, because you can't grow if you're willing to sacrifice quality. That is paramount."
To stay close to the client experience, Jim recently kicked off LBMC's annual client experience survey — going deeper than ever before to understand what excellence really means to the people they serve.
Jim has been in the CEO seat for three years — a period he describes with characteristic candor.
"Sometimes I think I picked the wrong time to be in this seat. The industry has been turned upside down."
Three forces define that transformation: the shift to hybrid and virtual work, the entrance of private equity into the profession, and the rapid acceleration of AI.
On private equity, LBMC has chosen to remain independent — but Jim watches the landscape closely. He believes PE-backed competitors are raising the game for everyone.
"Competition among growth, competition among differentiating your services and how you deliver them will become even more scrutinized."
LBMC is actively building a client-facing AI practice, helping other organizations develop AI strategies and implement AI applications. Internally, however, the picture is more complicated.
"The punchline is it changes so rapidly it's very difficult to actually establish a strategy, because your strategy could be stale by next month."
With so many service lines under one roof, LBMC has taken a deliberate multi-tool approach — accepting that no single AI solution will work across the entire firm.
On governance, Jim draws a clear line between what's top-down and what's bottom-up:
"The parameters, the selection of tools, the governance, the AI policy — all that is top-down. But the innovation is bottom-up. This is the tool. You know what you're doing, you know how your job works. How could this make your job easier or better? Be brave, be bold, test things, and when you have a success, let's share it."
Jim went through the MPB | Leadership Accelerated program as he was stepping into his CEO role. He now recommends it to others — and is direct about what the real value is.
"The main thing you're going to get out of this is a really good network and a really good base to develop relationships and collaboration with your peers. There's good content, and that's certainly worthwhile, but to me the big takeaway was the networking and the relationships I established there that I still have today."
When asked what advice he'd give to someone stepping into a Managing Partner or CEO role for the first time, his answer is simple: get a mentor.
"Get a mentor that you trust, that you know has done this and has done it successfully. No matter how much you prepare for it, you're really never prepared until you start doing it."
Three things, in descending order of frequency:
1. Meeting the growth budget. It was an aggressive one, and growth is genuinely difficult right now. Competitors are more aggressive. Clients are increasingly sought after.
2. Protecting client relationships. As the largest firm in the Nashville market, LBMC has a lot of clients worth fighting for — and plenty of competitors who know it.
3. Getting AI right. Not just the opportunity, but the threat.
"Making sure that how you implement it and how you assess it — both from its potential and the threat it brings — making sure we get that right. That's important."
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