Kelli Meadows, Meadows Urquhart

Join us for another episode of the Richmond Leadership Lab. In this episode, co-hosts Christian Mosier (BenX Consulting) and Taylor Quinn (Filmspire and Richmond Podcast Studio) sit down with Kelli Meadows, Founding Partner at Meadows Urquhart. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in accounting leadership, building a sustainable firm, developing talent, and creating meaningful community impact. Episode Highlights:Meet Kelli Meadows: Kelli, Founding Partner at Meadows Urquhart, joins the show for episode 20 to share how nearly three decades in public accounting shaped her approach to leadership. Roots in Poquoson: Kelli talks about growing up in the tight-knit town of Poquoson, Virginia, where lifelong friendships and a strong sense of community shaped how much she values deep, meaningful relationships today. From CNU to a Career in Public Accounting: Kelli shares her path through Christopher Newport University, where she watched Paul Trible become president her senior year, and how her first jobs at the Auditor of Public Accounts and public accounting firm Cheely Burcham built her critical thinking and problem-solving skills. A Turning Point in Corporate Culture: After her firm was acquired by a larger national company, Kelli found herself placed in the lowest performance tier for working a reduced schedule as a new mother, a pivotal moment that pushed her to leave and build something different. Founding Meadows Urquhart: In 2004, Kelli and her mentor Doug Urquhart, along with David Acre and Shannon Cook, launched Meadows Urquhart with a shotgun approach to networking and a shared goal: build a firm designed for long-term sustainability. Building a Culture Built to Last: Kelli explains how the founding partners set out to recreate the supportive culture of their old firm while avoiding the trap that led to its sale, laying a foundation now approaching its 22nd year. Giving Back to CNU: Kelli reflects on her decade of service to Christopher Newport University, including chairing the Audit and Risk Committee and serving on the Board of Visitors, where she helped select the university's next president. Investing in People and AI: Kelli details Meadows Urquhart's recent hires of a director of talent and a director of operations, and how the firm is using AI to accelerate development for early-career accountants without skipping foundational training. Reframing the Accounting Career Narrative: After realizing none of her kids' friends considered accounting a viable or fun career path, Kelli helped drive a marketing push to change that perception and support the firm's externship and pipeline programs. Balancing Fun with High Standards: Kelli opens up about the delicate work of building a culture that's genuinely fun while also holding a high bar for performance, feedback, and growth. Advice to Her Younger Self: Looking back on 22 years of leading Meadows Urquhart, Kelli shares what she'd tell herself at the start: be present for your kids, learn to let go, and become a better listener. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share! Tune in for more conversations on leadership, growth, and building impactful organizations in Richmond and beyond. Learn More About Meadows Urquhart:https://www.muacllp.com/Connect with Kelli Meadows:/ kelli-meadows-cpa-ccifp-5466b6b https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelli-meadows-cpa-ccifp-5466b6b/Richmond Leadership Lab is Produced and Co-Hosted by:Taylor Quinn, CEO – Filmspire & Richmond Podcast Studiohttps://www.filmspirevideo.com https://www.filmspirevideo.com// taylor-quinn-filmspire https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-quinn-filmspire/Christian Mosier, President – BenX Consultinghttps://benxconsulting.com https://benxconsulting.com// christian-mosier https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-mosier/Learn More About Richmond Leadership Lab: https://www.richmondleadershiplab.com https://www.richmondleadershiplab.com/This podcast was produced and recorded by Richmond Podcast Studio. Want to start a podcast without the tech hassle? Get your professional video podcast the same day you record. 👉 Learn more: https://www.richmondpodcaststudio.com https://www.richmondpodcaststudio.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Richmond Leadership Lab, featuring business and nonprofit leaders across Richmond, Virginia. Produced and hosted by Filmspire and Ben Axe.

• 0:12Taylor Quinn?

  Welcome back to another episode of the Richmond Leadership Lab, Richmond's number one podcast. Don't look it up, just trust me, we totally are Richmond's number one podcast.

• 0:20Christian Mosier?

  By far. I think it's not even close at this point.

• 0:22Taylor Quinn?

  It's not even close. There's not even a competition in sight, really. Yeah, exactly. That's a joke. But seriously, this is episode 20. We're excited to be here. Christian and I have been doing this podcast since last January, which is great. We've gotten to know each other more and more over the years, which is great. And we're becoming even closer physically for people who don't know, because Christian literally just bought his first house, like a two-minute walk away from mine, which is hilarious.

• 0:48Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. I didn't even know it, but it's even better now. The house is worth even more because of it.

• 0:54Taylor Quinn?

  Exactly. You didn't bring the property value down or anything like that, so we appreciate you.

• 0:59Christian Mosier?

  There's something about the Quins, but...

• 1:01Taylor Quinn?

  There's something about us. Yeah, exactly. How you been?

• 1:04Christian Mosier?

  I am good. It's been a busy summer. Moving offices, too.

• 1:07Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, that's big.

• 1:08Christian Mosier?

  We're actually moving right by you all, too. But we're kind of off Glen Forest now.

• 1:12Taylor Quinn?

  Okay, yeah.

• 1:13Christian Mosier?

  And so, moving offices and then obviously the house. So we got, you know, a lot going on, but it's exciting stuff.

• 1:18Taylor Quinn?

  That's exciting stuff. I'm excited for our guest.

• 1:20Christian Mosier?

  I know. Me too. Me too. How are you doing?

• 1:22Taylor Quinn?

  I'm good, man. I'm good. It's summer, and it's hot, and it's raining, and it's cold. So it's like, you know, it's crazy right now with the weather, it seems, so...

• 1:31Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, the storm the other night woke me up like six times.

• 1:34Taylor Quinn?

  Oh, yeah. Woke up my kids. That was great.

• 1:36Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, that's a whole story. Well, I am excited to introduce our 20th guest, Kelly Meadows, who is the...

• 1:44Speaker 03

  Two years.

• 1:45Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Who is the founding partner of Meadows or Cart. Kelly, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:55Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 1:56Speaker 03

  Excited about today. I've never been on a podcast before, so this is my first time.

• 2:00Taylor Quinn?

  Well, great. You're in good company.

• 2:01Christian Mosier?

  One for one.

• 2:02Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah. We've had a lot of people who had never done it before, so...

• 2:04Christian Mosier?

  And I kind of love it. I love it when it's like, you know, first time on the podcast. It's like, because a lot of people don't know what to expect, I think, which is fun.

• 2:10Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, it is fun. Yeah.

• 2:12Christian Mosier?

  But I'm sure you've done other things, you know, like...

• 2:14Speaker 03

  I've listened to a lot of podcasts.

• 2:16Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, there you go. What do you like listening to?

• 2:18Speaker 03

  I listen to a variety of different things, kind of all the way across the board. I like gaining different perspectives on different subjects. And I've found it's just a valuable thing to either do in the car, do at home while you're cooking. Like, I joke, I either binge-watch TV, or I watch no TV, but I do like to listen to podcasts a lot, so...

• 2:41Christian Mosier?

  You know, it's so funny you say that. I'm the exact same way with TV, especially shows. Like, for me, I'm like nervous to start a new show, because I'm either really going to like it and watch all of it in four days, or...

• 2:54Speaker 03

  Four days?

• 2:55Christian Mosier?

  I mean, or whatever. Yeah, it depends on how...

• 2:57Speaker 03

  My most recent one was two, so...

• 3:00Taylor Quinn?

  Nice.

• 3:00Christian Mosier?

  It depends on how many seasons, you know, episodes.

• 3:02Taylor Quinn?

  You have to compete and binge it.

• 3:03Speaker 03

  It was a lot of raining, so, you know.

• 3:05Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 3:06Speaker 03

  You've got to have something to do when it rains.

• 3:07Christian Mosier?

  But I also, like, within a couple of episodes, don't like a lot of shows. And so, it'll be like, I'm like nervous, because if I find it and I love it, it's like, it's gone. Immediately, like in a couple days. But if I don't like it, it's like, eh, you know.

• 3:19Taylor Quinn?

  Delayed gratification is one of our skills.

• 3:21Speaker 03

  Well, it's been tricky, too, because a lot of the networks are like tricking us. And some, they release all the episodes at once, and then some shows are going back to, okay, we're going to release like three or four, or we're going to do one a week.

• 3:33Christian Mosier?

  Yes.

• 3:34Speaker 03

  It's been tough.

• 3:35Christian Mosier?

  I feel like, I feel like Prime and Apple TV especially are like the one a week now. Or that maybe they'll release the first couple, and then you have to wait for like the third episode, like you said.

• 3:43Speaker 03

  It's all about keeping the subscription revenue. That's, you know, you've got to keep that high.

• 3:47Taylor Quinn?

  It's all business at the end of the day.

• 3:48Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, it's all business. Yeah.

• 3:50Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 3:50Christian Mosier?

  So it's also a little bit about yourself, for those, you know, who are listening that may not know you.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:56Christian Mosier?

  A little bit where you grew up and all that stuff.

• 3:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I've lived in Virginia all my life. I grew up in a little city called Pecosin, Virginia.

• 4:06Taylor Quinn?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with that.

• 4:08Christian Mosier?

  They're familiar. They knocked us out of the high school regional championship.

• 4:12Speaker 03

  And what sport was that?

• 4:13Christian Mosier?

  Baseball.

• 4:14Speaker 03

  Baseball.

• 4:14Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, they got us in baseball.

• 4:16Taylor Quinn?

  And I went to Christian Newport, Newport News, so Pecosin was right around the corner, and ran into a bunch of old Pecosin people and things like that. Yeah.

• 4:24Speaker 03

  Yeah. CNU's my alma mater, too. Captain for life.

• 4:26Taylor Quinn?

  Captain for life.

• 4:27Speaker 03

  I didn't know that.

• 4:28Taylor Quinn?

  We've got a lot more to talk about, though.

• 4:30Speaker 03

  We do. We could talk for hours. But yeah, so I moved to Pecosin when I was five, which was a really important factor, because Pecosin didn't have a lot of move-ins. Like, if you either lived there and you had like grandparents and great-grandparents and their grandparents there, or you were a move-in, like you were classified as one or the other. And we did have Langley Air Force Base and NASA right around the corner, so you did have a fair amount of people that just moved in and out. And so I think they are hence the designation. My parents had moved from southwest Virginia to Hampton, and then they were looking

• 5:12Speaker 03

  for a place to, obviously, have their kids go into school systems, things like that. And they chose Pecosin, and we moved there. When I was five, actually didn't start attending school there until second grade, so I went kindergarten, first grade, to a private school. And then, in second grade, landed with the Pecosin school system. And if you know anything about Pecosin, you go to the same high school, middle school, elementary school altogether. There's only one.

• 5:38Christian Mosier?

  Oh, interesting. And they beat us. Unbelievable.

• 5:43Taylor Quinn?

  It still hurts. I still hear a twinge in your voice, Christian. Yeah. It's amazing.

• 5:49Christian Mosier?

  So it's just like one big high school. It's South Hill. I grew up in South Hill.

• 5:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 5:52Christian Mosier?

  And so, very similar, right? I mean, it wasn't all one. We had one county, essentially, high school, and then middle school, and then elementary school.

• 5:59Speaker 03

  Well, I say the important factor there, or the point I want to make, is that, like, I went to the, I went to school with the same people from second grade, all the way through graduation. And even in, because I went to CNU, and it had a lot of people from Pecosin that went there, even through college. So I think that defines a lot of my life, is relationships, and how important they are. And meaningful relationships are things that are important to me. I don't know if that's because of that background or what, but I do value deep relationships with people. And just having been raised in a community that, there's a lot of nosey people. I mean, I'm not going to get you

• 6:42Speaker 03

  wrong, there was a scanner that would go off every night, and like, if you got, you know, pulled over for speeding, like, my best friend's mom knew, and she was calling my mom before, you know, I could even get home and tell her. But everybody had your back, right? And you felt like you had a really, really big extended family, which was awesome to me.

• 6:58Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Are you still close with some people you went to high school with, and...

• 7:01Speaker 03

  I am. I actually called one of them this morning. And so, not to like, add insult to your baseball story, but her husband is the Pecosin baseball coach.

• 7:14Christian Mosier?

  There we go.

• 7:15Speaker 03

  And he did just win a couple of state championships. And yeah, anyway, I called her this morning, and I said, okay, I'm doing this podcast this afternoon, and I need you to help me remember some things about growing up. And it's kind of funny, because she's like our historian. So we have like a group chat with, you know, five of us that went to high school together. And anything happens, like, we see something on Facebook or any social media, like, she's the one you go to, because she's going to remember who it is. She still lives there, so she's got all the intel. So I called her this morning, and I said, you know, I need you to tell me about how, what was it like to grow up with me? Like, because I, you know, you know my perspective, but like, tell me what you remember. And so, we do talk a lot. We actually are going to get together in August.

• 7:59Taylor Quinn?

  That's cool.

• 7:59Speaker 03

  So we try to get together a fair amount.

• 8:00Taylor Quinn?

  What did, what did mom and dad do? What brought you there?

• 8:04Speaker 03

  So, my dad was really good at working with his hands. So he started, he didn't come here for this, but when I was about five years old, he started a business with a partner, and they owned a machine company. And so they would literally...

• 8:21Christian Mosier?

  Oh, cool.

• 8:22Speaker 03

  ...make tools for the shipyard and other, you know, large companies. So I always, tried to describe it as, they would basically take a piece of steel, and they would mill it in the back, and then somebody would use it on a big piece of equipment, like on a, in the shipyard or something.

• 8:40Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, great for him.

• 8:41Christian Mosier?

  Some of, we have a couple of clients that are, that are in the machinery industry, machine industry, and the equipment that they have now is unbelievable. What, like the precision and...

• 8:52Speaker 03

  It's like computers.

• 8:52Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, it really is. Yeah.

• 8:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. So my dad, you know, his trade was actually doing that by eyesight and by hand. You know, towards the end of his career, they were using a lot of machinery and the technology and things like that. And I think that's when he decided, like, you know, I think I'm ready to retire.

• 9:12Taylor Quinn?

  Nice.

• 9:13Christian Mosier?

  It's a good career.

• 9:13Taylor Quinn?

  So, grew up in Pecosin, and then went to CNU. What was that experience like for you at CNU? And what did you end up studying there?

• 9:25Speaker 03

  So, interesting time, in the fact that, like, I was a good student, you know, average, A's, B's, you know. I wasn't the smartest kid in the class, but, you know, I can carry my own. Neither one of my parents went to college, so the college application process wasn't really something they helped me with, right? And the only, only way I gathered information was really our high school counselors. And I remember going to our high school counselor, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. And...

• 10:03Speaker 03

  Didn't really get a ton of guidance, I'll just say, right? And so I ended up applying at William and Mary and CNU. And, you know, I must have been at the time, like, I think back and reflect, and I'm like, gosh, like, one of my friends went to Tech, one of them went to UVA, like, why didn't I apply other places? But I didn't, and I probably wanted to stay close to home. I loved my family, I really loved being around with them, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Um, but anyway, I, I applied to both of those. I didn't get in William and Mary, but I got in CNU, so that's where I went.

• 10:33Christian Mosier?

  Nice. Yeah, there you go.

• 10:35Taylor Quinn?

  That's great.

• 10:36Christian Mosier?

  And you, yeah, so you went CNU too. I mean, both of you all, did you, I mean, I guess, enjoy the experience, didn't enjoy the experience?

• 10:42Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, I, I, I loved it a lot, and the school's changed a lot over the past twenty years and things like that. So it's funny to meet people who went to CNC, you know, and Christopher Newport College at the time, and then became a university and things like that, so. And my experience was there was when Paul Trible was, was the president, and, you know, how in his twenty-plus years at the university, totally transformed the campus, not just physically, but in all aspects of the university and things like that. So that was, yeah, I loved it, small, small, small school, community feel, five thousand undergraduate students. I'm so close with many of my friends and peers, and I moved to Richmond because half my friends moved to Richmond after college and things like that. So it was still really, really important for me.

• 11:27Taylor Quinn?

  And then the long story, this podcast isn't about me. We can do another Richmond Leadership Lab podcast about me if you want.

• 11:34Speaker 03

  Or CNU.

• 11:35Taylor Quinn?

  For CNU, exactly. I ended up actually working for President Trible as his assistant after college for a year. So, um, which I learned a lot of leadership skills and experience under his tutelage, and, uh, being under his wing for a year, which was pretty incredible, so, yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 03

  That's, I'm sure, was an amazing experience.

• 11:52Taylor Quinn?

  It was, yes, very amazing, yeah. He's a, I mean, he started the PLP, the President's Leadership Program, at CNU, basically, and said, we're gonna have a minor in Leadership Studies, and I did not participate in that program. Um, but he spearheaded that, and that was his thing to, to, we're gonna instill leadership skills in students and things like that, and set them up for success in the real world, and so it was a great experience, yeah.

• 12:18Christian Mosier?

  Was perfect, because they always beat us in baseball, too.

• 12:20Taylor Quinn?

  Also good at baseball, yes.

• 12:22Christian Mosier?

  And, uh, CNU's baseball team was pretty good. We always opened the year in February, typically at CNU, and in February it was freezing. I mean, it was, I remember a couple of games, it was like thirty-eight, you know, and you're just, it's cold.

• 12:37Taylor Quinn?

  Still, it can get cold even down there, yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 03

  Well, I feel fortunate, because I went to CNU, um, and my senior year is the year that Paul Trible became president.

• 12:49Taylor Quinn?

  Started, okay, yes.

• 12:51Speaker 03

  So it was a pretty exciting year. I had, um, my first three years were under President Santoro, and then we had President Trible come on, so. Um, you know, he spoke at my college graduation, I got to walk across the stage with him. Uh, he had John Warner as our speaker, like, it was a dynamic time.

• 13:08Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  And, uh, it was kinda interesting, because soon as I graduated from CNU, um, I moved right to Richmond for a job. And I didn't really get back to campus for a few years. It really wasn't until I start, we started our firm, that I got re-engaged at CNU. And I was actually just meeting with the dean of the business school this morning, and I was trying to, like, reflect on the history there, but for about ten years, I served on the Luter Board of advisors, and chaired that, served on the Education Foundation.

• 13:46Taylor Quinn?

  Right.

• 13:47Speaker 03

  Um, I most recently just finished my tenure on the Board of Visitors, which was an amazing experience.

• 13:52Taylor Quinn?

  Oh, cool. Congratulations.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  That was an amazing experience, I was really hoping to get reappointed, but I didn't get reappointed in June. But that's okay, I keep saying, there's a, there's another plan out there for me, and that's part of what my discussion has been. I've, I've met with, um, President Kelly, I helped, I helped hire President Kelly, and that was an awesome experience, my first year on the board, uh, was when Adelia Thompson was the interim president, and our first, um, task was to pick our first, or our next president, right, after Paul Trible, which is a huge, huge task. Um, but what an awesome experience, right? Like, I joke, and, and kinda parallel this to my life now at Metzger Kart,

• 14:34Speaker 03

  and we have fifty people in our firm, and if I make a bad decision, we can probably fix it. Like, it's not horrible.

• 14:42Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 14:43Speaker 03

  Man, you go down this path of, like, picking a college president and you make a bad decision.

• 14:47Taylor Quinn?

  That hurts.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  That is really tough.

• 14:49Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, really tough.

• 14:51Christian Mosier?

  Especially when, like, the attrition too, when it's like, uh, you have, like, maybe three presidents in seven years, or, you know.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Twenty-six years.

• 14:58Taylor Quinn?

  There for twenty-six years.

• 14:59Speaker 03

  Paul Trible served. How do you replace that? And just the, what he was able to achieve was, was awesome. So I reflect back on it and go like, man, I feel really fortunate that I did go to CNU. And, like, I feel like the value of my degree has increased exponentially, you know, since I, since I left. And I often see other captains for life, um, you know, passing along out in the street, and I see them, and it, to me, it's, I'm proud, right, like, I think it's awesome.

• 15:24Taylor Quinn?

  It is great, yeah, and, and, you know, similar, like, my experience, every student has had a different, similar but different experience, like, the, the ethos and the spirit is the same, the community, the engagement, saying hi to each other as you walk by, holding the door for the person behind you, things like that. But the physical, but the physical campus has changed so much, and by the time I graduated, it didn't look anything like it did when I started, you know, it was kind of like the, the green fence era, the great lawn, having so many green fences, and all the new buildings, and the Science Building, and the Luter Building being built, and, um, all, all that kinda stuff. Um, but it's been, I have stayed engaged, I've served on the Alumni Society Board for a number of years and things like that,

• 16:04Taylor Quinn?

  and still stayed in touch, and Scott Miller, who used to be on the, on the board, big fan of. He's the reason I started a lot of this to begin with, he gave me my first camera.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  So, you know, um, his wife.

• 16:17Taylor Quinn?

  Yes.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Was from Pecosa.

• 16:18Taylor Quinn?

  She was, yes.

• 16:20Speaker 03

  So I knew her all growing up.

• 16:21Taylor Quinn?

  Yes, and I served with her on the Alumni Society Board together, and rest in peace.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Absolutely, she was a wonderful person.

• 16:28Taylor Quinn?

  Lovely person, yes.

• 16:29Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 16:30Taylor Quinn?

  Um, this podcast is sponsored by Christopher Newport University. Defining Lives of Significance.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  I know, right?

• 16:37Taylor Quinn?

  Yes.

• 16:38Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:38Taylor Quinn?

  Living Lives of Significance.

• 16:39Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:40Taylor Quinn?

  Captains for Life, go captains.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 16:42Christian Mosier?

  Well, I wanna, I wanna ask about, uh, your first couple of jobs, but before we do, I'm curious, just your Board of Visitor experience, because the Board of Visitors plays such a huge role in a college. Obviously finding a president, but obviously being involved in, uh, many different decisions across the, the university. So how was your, how long were you on the Board of Visitors, and what was your experience like?

• 17:04Speaker 03

  So, let's see, this is twenty twenty-six, um, so I was appointed in June of twenty twenty-four. So it's a four-year term, um.

• 17:14Christian Mosier?

  Twenty twenty-two?

• 17:15Speaker 03

  Uh-huh. Did I say twenty twenty-two? Okay, sometimes I say like, yeah. So twenty twenty-two to twenty twenty-six, and, um, I really did think I was gonna get reappointed. I thought a really good case, and I didn't, but that's okay. It, there's a lot of, a lot of things going on with, you know, board appointments these days, and it's, it's challenging.

• 17:32Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 17:33Speaker 03

  But I will say, I learned so much, and it, and it actually goes right into this podcast about leadership, too, right? Because, um, a lot of my leadership along the way was very much self-taught. Like, you know, I didn't go to a class on how to be a leader, you know, I, we're a young entrepreneurial firm. You talk about my other jobs, I really didn't have any other jobs, right? Like, I didn't, I didn't go somewhere where you got a lot of investment in your education. My leadership has been like, learn it as you go, and you hope you make the right decision as you go. And if you don't, then you fix it, that's kind of, but I think going to CNU and realizing how many, um,

• 18:12Speaker 03

  how much structure is there in place, that it really helped me elevate my leadership style, and like, maybe take it more serious, taught me a lot of things, because I was around a lot of really important people that served in roles around the community in Hampton Roads and Richmond, um, you know, for really, really large companies. You have to remember, like, I've always worked for a company, except for maybe two to three years of my career, that I've been working for thirty years, I've worked for a firm that's like fifty people or less. I've not ever worked for a really large company. So just seeing how they do things and, and attack things differently. Versus how we do, it just made me aware of so many other risks and just protecting

• 18:55Speaker 03

  our assets and different things like that. And it, it did help me reshape how I wanted to be as a leader.

• 19:01Christian Mosier?

  That's cool.

• 19:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, so the first year, I'll be honest, our first goal, the first year, you know, I think it started in June. We were immediately thrown right into, here's the candidates that we have for the president. We're going to go down to a retreat and do four days of interviews. And pick one when we come back. And I'm like, okay, this is a lot, like, I don't even know what I'm doing, but okay. And they're like, okay, here's the question that you need to ask Kelly. And I'm like, of course it was a financial question, right? So that was, that made it pretty easy. But that was a really cool experience to go through. And then afterwards, just being able to unpack like the pros and cons and, and all the things that were important in picking a president and making sure that we made the right decision.

• 19:47Speaker 03

  But that year was a lot about listening. I spent the first year listening a lot. And in my firm, most people that are around me would say I talk a lot, right? I don't probably listen as much as I used to. But it taught me a really good lesson in just listening and learning and understanding different perspectives and gaining more awareness. And that's what I did for the first four, the first year, really, I didn't hardly speak because everything was new. I think I was on academic affairs, I was on student life committee and finance, of course. So I just literally gathered all the information I could. And then the second year, I started to find my voice and be like, okay, I really understand this finance committee part.

• 20:32Speaker 03

  Like, that's the thing that I could lean into the most. And so, you know, I started diving into that a little bit more. I need to understand how this works because, you know, university finances, you know, it's very complex. What money comes from the state? What money is funded by tuition? Everything goes in these different buckets. We can use this money for that. And, you know, so anyway, it was, it was very complex. So started really gaining that knowledge the next year, the third year, I served on the Audit and Risk Committee. And that was really cool because that's where you really kind of went a level deeper. And so

• 21:08Speaker 03

  I ended up chairing that committee for, for the last two years. And that was a great learning experience. You know, you think about understanding what are the risks to a university? There's a lot.

• 21:18Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Especially in today's day and age, we were, you know, just so many different. Luckily, I wasn't there during COVID, but there were, you know, after that, there were so many different things. Protests and, you know, diversity and just all the different issues that coming up and just making sure that, you know, we were being equitable and that we were being fair.

• 21:37Christian Mosier?

  Well, it's cool to, I mean, to go to a college that obviously invested in you and then you're investing in it. And then it's investing back with like, obviously the lessons that you're learning and all this stuff. It's like a circle.

• 21:50Taylor Quinn?

  That's amazing. That's cool.

• 21:51Christian Mosier?

  So when you graduated seeing you and you moved to Richmond, what was the first job, first couple of jobs before, obviously, we'll get into Meadows or Cart two?

• 21:59Speaker 03

  Right. So the first year, so I graduated in 1996. Job market was not great at the time. Like, I almost kind of mirror it right now where it's a little bit tougher for people to get jobs. It was kind of like that, even public accounting, you couldn't, you, you know, there, there was not a

• 22:17Speaker 03

  a lot of opportunities. So one of my professors encouraged me to look at the Auditor of Public Accounts, which was in Richmond. And they audit state and government, state government agencies. And, and so I did that. I went to work there. They had a great training program.

• 22:37Speaker 03

  They forced you to think. It was awesome. Like, I, I talked some about the training I received there. And just like really thinking about who our clients were, like, one of the first audits I did was for the Virginia Employment Commission. And just as a very, you know, person that just got out of college, you know, they, they would provide me a process of what they wanted me to achieve. They gave me support, but there was a lot of autonomy. Like, they gave me the opportunity to think, to make, make errors, but then supportive to like help redirect me. Which was really cool at that time because I think a lot of times what has happened in accounting, a lot of times is you get these checklists that you're just supposed to go and fill out.

• 23:19Christian Mosier?

  It's a process or system.

• 23:20Speaker 03

  Right? Go fill out this checklist and do these eight steps. Whereas when I started, they were like, this is the process we want you to audit. I think it was like employee benefit claimants at the V E C. Go and interview everyone that's involved in this process and write an audit program about it. And I was like, okay, so I sat down. I mean, I'm sure I made a lot of errors along the way, but I had a manager there who really helped me. Like, kind of redirect and go like, okay, what assertion are you trying to solve here? Like, what, you know, what are you trying to accomplish? And really forced you to like, really think.

• 23:54Christian Mosier?

  Critical thinking.

• 23:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. The, the really, the other really good benefit is, you know, it was a 40-hour a week job. Public accounting is not, especially during peak seasons. But I was able to study for the CPA exam, get that passed. And about a year in, I realized there was a lot of politics involved in, at the agency. And I'm like, you know, I, I really want something different. I don't know that I want to work in government. So I decided to jump over into public accounting.

• 24:24Christian Mosier?

  Okay. Where'd you go?

• 24:25Speaker 03

  I went to a firm called Chili Bircham. And it was very similar to what Meadows or Cart is today. And we served entrepreneur, entrepreneurial clients. It was an awesome environment and the fact that we came in and again, they allowed us to do a lot of different things. They allowed us to, you know, meet with clients, really try to understand what they were trying to achieve. And then how do we help you, you know, achieve what your goals are, right? So really defining what their goals were and, and understand what challenges they had along the way. And, you know, one day it might be like, I have this payroll question. Can you solve that? And, okay, we'll figure out how to solve that. And the next day it might be, hey, I need you to go help them implement this software.

• 25:10Speaker 03

  Okay, went out and figured out how to implement. So it was a lot of problem solving, right? It was like, this client has this problem, how would you solve it? And, you know, I guess we had the internet at that day, but we didn't have AI to go in and ask chat or anyone. Like, you had to, you called your accountant, right? Or you called, you know, and, and the partners that I worked for, that's what they were for their clients. Like, they, they, they were chat. Like, they would call them and say like, hey, I've got this issue. You know, they had the perspective of all these different companies that they work with. And so they knew they could probably, they would probably have an answer and at least point them in a direction to go. And then if there was something that they thought we could help with, it was, it was my job as a staff to, to try to help solve that for them.

• 25:52Christian Mosier?

  Was it there that you got the idea like, or started to get the idea of, hey, maybe I can launch my own firm? Or maybe my experience fits here?

• 26:02Speaker 03

  Yes and no. So I worked there for about eight years.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  And started a family.

• 26:13Speaker 03

  And I think I was eight and a half months pregnant. And the partners that we worked for, they were retirement, not even retirement age. They were pre-retirement age, but they were certainly thinking about what lies ahead. And they, all of a sudden, one day called us in the, in the office and said, we've decided to sell the firm. And it, I actually correlate it now to private equity coming into the accounting firm industry and buying up accounting firms. Because it was very much like that. McGladrey or RSM came in and bought us. They, at the time, were owned by H and R Block, so it was a publicly traded company.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  And, you know, here we were, a 45-person firm where if you had a question, you just walked down to the, the managing partner and got an answer. If it was maybe a yes or no, we don't know, but at least you had a decision made.

• 27:05Speaker 03

  To a very different environment where it was just, you know, very risk averse. More corporate. It was just a different environment. A lot of wonderful qualities. Like, I will say, great training programs. Great recruiting process, really talented people around. But it was, for me at the time, just starting a family, one of the things I remember and talking about leadership and things that you've faced along the way. I had already negotiated that when I had my first child, I wanted to have a reduced schedule. And the firm that I worked for was all on board. And they said, tell us what we need. We'd rather have some of you than none of you, which I totally appreciated. I'd been there for eight years.

• 27:51Speaker 03

  The new firm or McGladrey wasn't as receptive to that, right? And so we got to the end of the first year and because I worked a reduced schedule, everything that they evaluated on was quantifiable. Like there was no qualitative analysis, right? So they would put everyone in quadrants. And because I didn't work and have as many billable hours as my peers, I was automatically put in quadrant four, which they had four quadrants. Four was the worst.

• 28:18Christian Mosier?

  The worst one, yeah. The one you don't want to be in.

• 28:20Speaker 03

  The one you don't want to be, right? You know, it was the one that didn't get a raise. It doesn't... And at the time, I wanted a place where I could still grow and have a career, but I could navigate this, you know, new part of my life and being a mom.

• 28:32Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 28:32Speaker 03

  And honestly, I got pregnant really fast again. Um, my kids are 18 months apart, so it was like wow, wow.

• 28:38Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 28:39Speaker 03

  And um, so pretty quickly after I got pregnant again, I was just like, this is just not going to be the right environment for me. And so um, I just decided to leave. And at the time, um, I didn't know exactly what I was going to do. I had different thoughts of, of starting things.

• 28:54Christian Mosier?

  Sure.

• 28:55Speaker 03

  But I didn't really know. I just knew that didn't seem to be the place that was going to be good for me, so.

• 29:02Taylor Quinn?

  We'll be right back after this short message.

• 29:04Christian Mosier?

  Are employee benefits a headache for your company? At Ben X, we simplify benefits so you can focus on growing your business. From custom benefit solutions to cutting-edge technology, we make it easy for companies to take care of their teams. Visit benxconsulting.com to see how we can simplify benefits for your growing company.

• 29:26Taylor Quinn?

  Your story is powerful, but is it reaching the right audience? At Filmspire, we create compelling videos and provide marketing strategies to make sure they drive real results. From crafting your message to amplifying it, we help you connect with your audience like never before. Ready to inspire? Let's tell your story. And now, back to the show.

• 29:50Speaker 03

  I left.

• 29:51Christian Mosier?

  There you go. Good for you for leaving.

• 29:53Speaker 03

  I did.

• 29:53Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 29:54Speaker 03

  I left.

• 29:54Christian Mosier?

  How'd that feel?

• 29:56Speaker 03

  Scary. You know, my husband was working. That was great, but I had two small kids. Um, Sydney was born in March and you know, soon after that is when I decided to leave, but that was in 2004. And just to give you, give you perspective, she was born in March of 2004 and we started Metta's Urquhart in August of 2004.

• 30:17Christian Mosier?

  Wow.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  So being a stay-at-home mom was not my thing either.

• 30:21Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Sometimes you have to go through it.

• 30:24Taylor Quinn?

  It's also a very hard job, yes.

• 30:26Speaker 03

  It is a very, the hardest job.

• 30:28Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 30:29Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 30:30Taylor Quinn?

  And 100% is, yes. So tell us, how did, how did the firm start? Tell us, what was the origin then?

• 30:37Speaker 03

  So the person that I've worked with the most at the firm, um, so, so effectively, all the founding partners are with the, with uh, the Chile firm that was then McGladrey and then we all decided to leave. Um, but we had one, Doug Urquhart, one of my partners, he was my manager when I first came into public accounting. And I would say like, he, he was my mentor, like, right? He taught me a lot of what I know. Um, he always forced me to be better and to develop. And yeah, you might stop learning here, but we don't stop. You know, we're, we can always do things even better. And I'm like, oh, can't we just be happy with where we are? He's like, yes, we can for like a second. Then we have to figure out how we can improve even more. Um, so it's kind of a joke around the office,

• 31:22Speaker 03

  but I do think pushing that always like pushed me. And I will always say that Doug, he won every fantasy football league we did. He won every March Madness thing we did. He was just a lucky dude. Like he, like he wanted to play the lottery with Doug. So Doug came to me one day.

• 31:42Christian Mosier?

  Doug's on the roulette table.

• 31:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, he is. He does gamble all the time. And he, well, I shouldn't say all the time, but he, he does like to gamble. So that, that you might find him at a local poker game somewhere. Um, but when he came to me in August and he had made the decision too, that he was, he was ready to look for something different, um, would I be willing to do this with him? And the answer was very quickly, yes. Like, yes, how do I do this?

• 32:06Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  That's how we started.

• 32:07Taylor Quinn?

  How did you decide to be different? Like what, what was going to be the, how are you starting it? So your mission, your vision, your culture? What things did you want to establish as different than what you had experienced?

• 32:17Christian Mosier?

  And on, sorry, on top of that, how many uh, total people, I guess, left and started? Was it just you and Doug at the time? Was there a couple more, I guess, partners or a couple more people that were involved in the decision at all or?

• 32:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, good question. I'll take yours first. So David Akri and Shannon Cook came along with us.

• 32:34Christian Mosier?

  Okay.

• 32:35Speaker 03

  Um, we all had non-competes and we're like, you know, how do we set this up for the most success? So um, we decided like, okay, what, what do we need to round out our expertise? Shannon was a tax manager. David was an assurance manager. And so skill sets was really important. And we all just got along really well. Like we were friends. Like I look at them and they're literally like my brothers. Like we, we were family. Um, you asked me, what did we want to do different? Well, we wanted to be the same culture as Chile Berchem. Like we all were kind of bummed and, and we've even told them to this day, like the, the partners that worked there. Um, man, we wish you just would have asked us because like, like we would have loved to help take over.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  It was not even an opportunity and I don't know that they even thought of it that way. And I'm sure McGladrey offered them so much money that it probably, you know, was, when I say that, I mean, it's just probably more than we could have been able to afford. So it was an attractive offer, but what we wanted to create was the same environment we had at Chile Berchem because it was a great firm to work for. Everyone loved it and was so disappointed when they sold. What we wanted to do different was we wanted to create um, a plan for sustainability. And that was really the differentiator was we don't want to get to the point where we're in our 50s and we have no other choice but to sell. And so that's hard.

• 34:02Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 34:03Speaker 03

  That is hard.

• 34:04Christian Mosier?

  You know, it, it's, it's funny you say that because there's a quote I heard a couple of years ago that like, a lot of entrepreneurs are actually not born, but they're made. And the reason this person or this entrepreneur was saying that was because there's a lot of situations, like my situation is very similar. When I started Ben X four years ago, right? It's a very kind of similar story. It's like a lot of entrepreneurs, like maybe they're just not in the right situation or a company merges or acquires or something changes and they see some good, but then obviously things change and maybe they're not happy with their manager. And then that's when they go, hey, you know, why don't, why don't we start a firm? Why don't we look at that? Cause I guarantee if you, you know, if they never sold, and it was Chile and...

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Chile Berchem.

• 34:48Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, like if they never sold and you guys were on the partner track and all that stuff, you would have probably still be working there to this day.

• 34:55Speaker 03

  100%. I still work with some of them. Like I work with Joe Chile. Um, yeah, actually he's, you know, we actually all just got together a couple of weeks ago, like 20 of us that all worked at Chile Berchem. Like that's how valuable it was. And he actually came out and I'm like, look at what you created. Like this is the relationship network that you created. You know, we all are getting together after working together 25 years ago.

• 35:16Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Um, so yeah, I still am in contact with him. One of the partners actually came to work for us. He, he had to retire when he was 60, so we're like, come and work for us.

• 35:26Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, come on.

• 35:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, so we have, you know, I think, I think they're actually proud of us. Like they're like, man, like we, maybe we should have held on a little longer.

• 35:34Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, they're probably looking at you guys being like, dang, they, they built what we had.

• 35:38Speaker 03

  I do, but I think they know that they instilled it, like, right? Like they created the platform for us. So I think that's what's cool too.

• 35:45Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. So the first few years, walk me through that. So like you guys all get together, four of you, and you're like, hey, we're gonna, we want to do something very similar to what we had, but also obviously have a little bit of a difference here. Non-competes, all that stuff. The first couple of years, I mean, how was that?

• 36:01Speaker 03

  So the timing couldn't have been better, right? And so, you know, when you have a retail shop and you say, location, location, location, this timing was great. Um, it was right after Starbain's Oxley had come out. So the big four were just inundated with project work related to that and those adjustments. All of their work kind of, or not a lot, a lot of their work trickled down to the regional firms and regional firms pushed their like lower tier work down. And we were just at the bottom, like we are anxious to grow. We need something. Um, and I will say, we negotiated with McGladrey through our non-compete and there were a lot of clients that we were really close with that we really wanted to maintain relationships.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  So we went through a process with them that, you know, we tried to do it as above board as possible. We ended up buying a book of business from them. And in fact, like at the time, they were like, these are some clients that aren't fits for us. Would you like them, right? Add them to the list. So it was, it was, it was a good transition, as good as it could be. We wanted it to be fair. Um, so we did do that. So we started with like a little, a little nest egg. But you think about being an accountant, I don't know how many you know, but... Were perceived as ones that aren't very extroverted.

• 37:18Taylor Quinn?

  Aren't very fun.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  We are very fun, but we generally don't have great sales skills. Right? Like you think we're not very influential, like, you know, we are probably very tactical and technical, but are we influential? And I think back, I had one class at CNU for Lisa Spiller. I don't know if you had her.

• 37:37Taylor Quinn?

  Uh, I did not, but I know who exactly.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  She was great. It was her first year teaching. I had a marketing class for her. That was the only marketing class I had.

• 37:44Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  So I remember when we started the firm and Doug and I were talking, I hadn't really marketed that much. I mean, maybe a friend was a client or, you know, a friend of a friend or my husband was, you know, those kinds of things, but I hadn't really gone out and marketed, created a COI network and demonstrated expertise and I remember Doug just saying, cause he had done this. He was, he was a partner then at the firm. He just said, go out and talk to anybody that you know and you know, hopefully they'll listen. And so that's what I did. It was like a shotgun approach.

• 38:13Taylor Quinn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  I talked to whomever I could. I took them to lunch. Oh my gosh. Yes. It was a shotgun approach. So that was a learning experience in itself was just really learning how to sell work and create value for people. Um, but I will say we were lucky in the fact that great timing, right? The, the service industry needed, needed more people. And so the time that we did start the firm, it was great because, you know, there was a lot of people who were just simply saying, if you can return my phone call, you're hired. And I'm like, I can do that.

• 38:44Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  I have plenty of time right now, right?

• 38:48Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 38:48Christian Mosier?

  Which I feel like it's kind of like today.

• 38:50Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, it is.

• 38:51Christian Mosier?

  Right? Especially with like the talent.

• 38:52Speaker 03

  It is very similar how interesting to me it is, um, just correlating two thousand and four with, you know, twenty twenty-six. Yeah. A lot of the same things.

• 39:03Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. It's kind of nuts with all the consolidation and acquisitions and

• 39:08Taylor Quinn?

  Yes.

• 39:09Christian Mosier?

  all that stuff.

• 39:10Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah. Looking back now, so how many years is it, has it been, uh, that you guys have been together?

• 39:16Speaker 03

  Twenty-two.

• 39:16Taylor Quinn?

  Twenty-two years.

• 39:17Speaker 03

  Next month.

• 39:18Christian Mosier?

  Almost a quarter of a century.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  You don't have to remind me of that.

• 39:21Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 39:22Speaker 03

  I mean, I'm only twenty-nine years old. I don't know how that happens.

• 39:25Christian Mosier?

  Exactly. But I'm saying you guys should throw a huge twenty-five year party.

• 39:28Speaker 03

  We did, we will. We did have a really big twenty year, no fifteen year, a really big fifteen year one.

• 39:33Taylor Quinn?

  Right.

• 39:33Speaker 03

  And, um, yeah, so twenty twenty, um, you know, COVID kind of impacted a lot of different things. So we kind of, the twentieth year kind of, we revamped our website. We did some kind of internal rebranding, um, for our twentieth, but it was more like internal, updated our logo, those kinds of things. But yeah, definitely have something fun for twenty-five.

• 39:55Christian Mosier?

  That's awesome.

• 39:55Taylor Quinn?

  Are there any, is there a particular moment that stands out in the past twenty-two years that you're just like super proud of? Anything kind of in the history so far that stands out as like a, as a big win, a big milestone, a big victory for you guys?

• 40:08Speaker 03

  Gosh, I would say just in the last few months have been what I would call probably, I've called it the plot at Meadows or Cart. You think about a book and there's always like a turning point.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  I feel like the plot has, you know, we, we've gotten to a point that we, we are getting ready to turn, to turn a corner. And I think it's, it's a pretty awesome place to be. We, um, with AI coming into the, to the workforce and pipeline challenges and kind of all the different things that are kind of facing us in the environment.

• 40:45Speaker 03

  I have been spending a lot of time just thinking, if we were to rebuild a firm today, how would you rebuild it? Cause it would be way different than it would be built twenty-two years ago.

• 40:56Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 40:56Speaker 03

  And so we have decided to invest in a, a lot of talent. And so that I feel like has been a big turning point. You know, we as partners have taken on so much of the burden of running the firm and doing operations. And that's tiring, right? And so I think you know Karen.

• 41:16Taylor Quinn?

  Mm-hmm.

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Um, we just, um, invested in hiring a new, um, director of talent and we just invested in hiring a CPA who is a director of operations. Both of them very talented. And so that took a lot of convincing for my partners, right? To like, let's, let's create, you know, I, I first said, I want to hire an HR person and they were like wah wah. We don't need an HR person. You know, what I learned was I wasn't articulating it correctly. And, you know, after consultants and I don't know, twelve months later, I learned I wa, I shouldn't be saying I wanted an HR person. I really want, um, a director of talent and development. Okay. Well, then that changed the whole.

• 41:58Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Cause then that's directly correlated with like the people and then the work and that stuff.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  I just couldn't articulate, you say, what are some of the challenges? Like sometimes I have a vision of what I really am trying to, what I want. And sometimes I don't always have the words to describe it. And part of it might be, I just don't take the time to describe it as well. Um, and I just have to be more patient to say like, I have this picture over here, but like, I need to take the time to really describe to everybody what it looks like.

• 42:26Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah. So attracting the right talent is really key right now. Do you guys, have you guys defined what that looks like? In terms of like, what is the type of talent? What do they bring to the table? Hard skills, soft skills, things like that. What are you looking for in talent?

• 42:41Speaker 03

  So I would say, you know, we, we have a huge pipeline out of college, right? So in twenty twenty, um, we started an externship program, which was hard during COVID to do an, an externship program. We all stood outside in a, in an outdoor tent, six, six feet apart with pool noodles, making sure we didn't get too close. But I was like bound and determined. We had planned to do this in twenty twenty and I only had six people show up. But I was like, I don't care. We're going to do this. Be a trial run. Um, but our idea was that we would have an externship program that taught, um, accounting students about public accounting and what it really means and that it can be fun.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  Um, and then we would have a pool to choose from for internships, because we do have internships during peak season and summer season. And so we would then have our, effectively like our externship is a two-day interview with people, right? To be able to choose from it. And that would be able to translate into our next hiring season. So we do try to hire four to five out of college a year.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  So that we can kind of just build up a pipeline. Um, the pipeline in accounting has been really difficult.

• 43:51Christian Mosier?

  I was going to ask about that.

• 43:52Taylor Quinn?

  I was going to say, are we in a shortage right now of accountants these days?

• 43:55Speaker 03

  It's a great question. So.

• 43:56Taylor Quinn?

  New accountants coming into the workforce?

• 43:58Speaker 03

  So I, data shows, most recent data, because I am definitely a data person, um, that we are on the upswing of people choosing accounting versus, you know, I think it, I'm going to say like, it, it looks kind of like this. It bottomed out in, um, in like a steady decline for about five years. I think twenty twenty-one was like the bottom and then we've kind of seen it come back up. So we had a pipeline problem, people coming into accounting. That has gotten a little bit better. People are now just graduating and, and, um, coming out and looking for jobs. So that has gotten better.

• 44:39Speaker 03

  Um, we're also getting ready to face an enrollment cliff in colleges and universities. I don't know how much you guys know about that, but since I spend a lot of time at CNU, we have an enrollment cliff. So we don't really know what the pipeline looks like. That's what the hard part is. Um, we, I'm actually on the VS CPA and I'm chairing a, um, task force right now on pipeline. And our first question was, what is the pipeline? We don't know, right? Like it, it has shown that it's, it's been better the last few years. Um, we now have a shortage at experienced level talent. So if you had a, you know, at the, at the twenty twenty, twenty twenty-one mark, those would be our managers today. So that's where we have the shortage. That's our pipeline shortage. So.

• 45:21Taylor Quinn?

  Wow.

• 45:22Christian Mosier?

  Gotcha.

• 45:23Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 45:23Christian Mosier?

  Especially with, I feel like investing, like you all have in the training and development. So that allows you to obviously take someone who is out of college and then, you know, obviously have a ramp and have a system and have a process. First, maybe another firm that doesn't invest in younger talents.

• 45:40Speaker 03

  Yes. And so what we're going to have to do, or what we hope we will be able to do is accelerate that development with AI.

• 45:46Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 03

  So whereas we had more of a traditional apprentice model, if you had, um, projects that you were working on, you would have to do, you know, we would expect our staff, we'd have to hire a bunch of them to do the routine tasks. Well, I remember sitting with a staff last year and I was asking her a question. It was a return she worked on and it got extended and we were picking it back up in May to finalize it. And she goes, honestly, Kelly, I don't even remember this client. Like I did so many tax returns. And that was like a point to me that's like, okay, we have to do a better job of like creating a relationship or something that's meaningful for people. So they don't want to just sit and do data entry and, and do that. They want to be more advanced in their role. So my goal is hopefully, um,

• 46:31Speaker 03

  with technology, we will be able to accelerate that path. I do, I believe they still will have to have foundational training. They will still have to learn in a similar way that they did. It just, you don't have to do that as long, right? So whereas you may be in a staff accountant role,

• 46:50Speaker 03

  for a year or, or two years doing, you know, the more standard tasks, like let's, maybe we could do that, cut it in half, cut it in a quarter.

• 46:57Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Sure. About a few months.

• 46:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. And then you get to the, the more fun stuff faster.

• 47:02Christian Mosier?

  Are there a couple of examples? Like, are you all working with like a consultant or maybe, you know, an AI platform or something that's kind of helping you think through some of this?

• 47:10Speaker 03

  So.

• 47:12Christian Mosier?

  AI use.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  Yeah. I mean, right now, like the, the new director of operations that we hired, you know, he's very heavily involved in this process and the technology side. I would say myself and Doug, we're, we are constantly, um, gathering information about our industry. So we're a part of a national, international alliance, uh, where we get together with firms and try to understand like what are other people doing? What are other people seeing? Um, obviously on the VS CPA, so I'm in touch with all kinds of other firms and different, different people. So really just keeping our ear, ear to the ground and understanding what's going on and being open.

• 47:51Speaker 03

  Right? I think that's the biggest thing is just, a lot of accountants are scared of change and they are like fearful of, of doing something different. And I'm like, hey, let's just revamp it. I am not afraid of change.

• 48:01Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Well, I also love like the campaigns that you guys have, like the fun.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:04Christian Mosier?

  Right? Like I see it on LinkedIn. I see it throughout your website and like, tell me where, I guess where that comes from. And obviously it sounds like just going against the grain and, and having a little bit of a different opinion on, on the way an accountant should be, right? So tell me a little bit about like the marketing, because obviously that marketing class, it sounds like paid off a little bit, but tell me a little bit about what you guys have going on there.

• 48:25Speaker 03

  It was, it was born.

• 48:30Speaker 03

  Probably in, I don't know, 2019, 2020. Um, I have two young adult children. Um, just graduated from college, one just finished college and one finished last year. So they were always one year apart in school. And as they were going through their navigation process for college, you know, they had lots of friends and um, they were always at the house. And I knew my two kids were not interested in accounting, you know. Good, better, different, I don't know why, but um, but I would ask all the kids that came to the house, because they were always at our house. And I would be like, so where are you thinking about going to school?

• 49:13Speaker 03

  And they would tell me, and I'm like, what do you think about majoring in? Nobody said accounting. I mean, nobody. It wasn't even on our radar.

• 49:22Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 03

  And I'm like, what, what is going on? Like, don't you guys want to be an accountant? They're like, oh no, we don't want to sit behind a desk all day, that's boring.

• 49:28Christian Mosier?

  Boring, yeah.

• 49:29Speaker 03

  Boring. And then I'm like, we have a problem. Like, there is a massive problem here. Uh, I mean, my kids spent a lot of time with friends and there would be 20 to 30 people at our house. Yeah, we hu- we hosted like Young Life at our house, like there would be hundreds. Like, nobody wants to do accounting? We have a hundred people, we have a problem.

• 49:48Christian Mosier?

  You're just sitting everywhere down, you're like, okay, now raise your hands if you want to do accounting.

• 49:53Taylor Quinn?

  And it got to the point like I would- Someone's giving the club talk, and how many do you want to be a accountant?

• 49:56Speaker 03

  My kids would say, like, they would laugh, they would be like, Mom, don't ask what their major is. I'm like, I'm gonna ask what their major is. We would, we would go to Parents Weekend down in South Carolina and my kids would go seek out somebody that was an accounting major. Look, Mom, I found somebody who's an accounting major.

• 50:09Taylor Quinn?

  Amazing.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  And then I would sit there and talk to them.

• 50:10Christian Mosier?

  Does a minor count?

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know, right?

• 50:13Taylor Quinn?

  That's, that's amazing.

• 50:15Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Well, good for you guys for going to the grade, too, yeah.

• 50:17Speaker 03

  But that's when they were like, it's not fun. I'm like, but it is fun, like, I love my job. And then I really started having to think about, well, what's fun about it? Like, why do I think it's fun? And so that's really where it was born.

• 50:27Christian Mosier?

  Yeah. Hmm, hmm. How does that translate into, uh, I guess, the way that you select leaders or the culture, right? Because the whole culture, I feel like, is being built upon what you guys have built over the last, obviously, 22 years, but especially the last few years. So how does that impact the way you all, you know, hire the college students? That impact the way someone gets promoted and partner and all that stuff?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  So, the, it can be good and bad. Because the fun component is something culturally we do want people to come in and we want people to have, um, that we, I want them to care about community. Like, that's something that's really important to me, and I want them to want to have meaningful relationships. Um, but I also want them to be really good at what they do, right? And so it's a hard thing to, it's a balancing thing to navigate. Because we have had a lot of just really great people that have worked for us. But you also have to want the desire to be really good, to always get better, to naturally be curious, and to have really good critical thinking skills, right? And you have to want to be more.

• 51:34Speaker 03

  And so, it's a, it's a delicate thing to balance. Because I would say for a lot of years, we were always the fun place to work. But fun is also getting promoted and being good at what you do. And getting a raise and getting a bonus, right? And sometimes the fun part of us, we may not have seen that all the time. And so, part of what we've had to do in the past few years is, is create a really good accountability and structure model to say like, hey, if we're gonna, if we're gonna build this foundation for the future, we want everyone to have fun at work and we want to, everyone to love who they work for. But we have to be honest with ourselves and, and give good feedback.

• 52:17Speaker 03

  And there's a difference between developmental feedback and critical feedback. But you've got to be willing to do it. And what I learned was, accountants have a really hard time with that. They don't, they, they want to embrace people and care about them. They just don't really love giving honest, clear feedback when someone is not performing at their best. And so, that's not fair to either one, to anyone. Hence, you know, being able to hire Karen and coach people through that. Um, because I like to think of myself as someone that is fun. But most people know I have really high standards that I want you to achieve and high expectations. And they can go hand, they can be both, right? Like, so-

• 52:58Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, it can be both.

• 52:59Taylor Quinn?

  Good point.

• 52:59Speaker 03

  It can be both.

• 53:00Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, yeah. And especially like, I feel like with your role, like, you know, what's from starting at 22 years ago to today, I'm sure your role has shifted so many times, right, from 22 years till today. But to walk me through like your day to day today. Like, what, what is, what are the couple buckets or the couple priorities that Kelly Meadows is intently focused on today?

• 53:24Speaker 03

  So I am very passionate about developing people. I love to teach. And so, I'm also, um, I like people to understand the why of what they're doing. Not just doing something because this is a task that I need to get done. I want you to understand why you're doing it, so you understand why it's so key to the process. Um, so this morning, we sat together with a team, we're implementing HubSpot, um, a CRM. And I have this whole grand plan of, you know, how I want to use it. That's way beyond just, you know, a sales component, like, right? I want it to be built into capacity and scheduling. And I want us to be able to get more information about recruiting and where should we, you know,

• 54:09Speaker 03

  what about recruits do we like? And, you know, I just want all this data, right, to be able to make decisions with. And so, I spend my time a lot with people just understanding that component. Like, yes, it is important for maybe you to get this one little piece of information of what you need for your job. But like, this is how the whole firm could run better. And so, that's one of the, the beauties of having, um, our new COO. He's in there and he and I, I can already tell, we think very similarly. So, I'm hoping, uh, what will happen is he will be able to take over a lot of those types of operational things. Um, where I had to, you know, I was the one that was kind of thinking about big picture and kind of bringing everybody together and making sure they understood the why.

• 54:51Speaker 03

  Hoping I can offload that a little bit and spend more time bridging the gap where we have this, um, like, I would say a manager or like mid-level shortage. Um, and really trying to support and, and educate the younger generation.

• 55:07Christian Mosier?

  Hmm, hmm.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  That's where I would like to spend my time.

• 55:11Taylor Quinn?

  That's great.

• 55:12Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, absolutely. What is, uh, one of my favorite questions to ask is, uh, if you had five minutes, not even five minutes, if you had two minutes-

• 55:22Taylor Quinn?

  Two minutes.

• 55:23Christian Mosier?

  With your previous self, 22 years ago when you started Meadows or Cart. If you had two minutes, right, you can't, you can't have a lunch, you can't have a drink, you know, just two minutes with your previous self. What would you tell Kelly Meadows of 2004? With all the knowledge that you know today?

• 55:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. I would tell myself a couple different things. The first thing was, you know, the first few years of your children's lives are very important to you. They're less important to them, they don't remember them. Um, being around when-

• 55:54Taylor Quinn?

  As a dad of two young kids, that hits so hard.

• 55:58Speaker 03

  It is really important to be present when they are teenagers. And their little frontal lobes are, are, are forming. And they're making decisions that could be good or bad. Um, being present and being around is really important during that time. Um, a lot about being a parent, too, just because I think it kind of correlates. Um, I would also say letting go is really hard, too. Like, of employees, of your children. All of the things when people leave and decide to do something else in, in their career or they, you know, my kids leaving and deciding they're gonna do something else. I'm not just saying, yes, but they're gonna leave the house, be on their own. Like, I used to always think of that as like a negative, like, and I thought about myself.

• 56:42Speaker 03

  Um, I've been trying to, I have learned to think more positive. And like, I helped create that, right? I helped develop that talent that now wants to go out in the world and do this, which is awesome, right? And so I think that's pretty meaningful. I would tell myself to be a better listener. I talk a lot. I'm sure you guys are probably sick of hearing my voice, but-

• 57:05Christian Mosier?

  No, not at all.

• 57:06Speaker 03

  I talk a lot, so being a better listener.

• 57:09Christian Mosier?

  Hmm. Wow. Like the Board of Visitors.

• 57:13Taylor Quinn?

  Good practice. That was a great, great answer.

• 57:16Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 57:17Taylor Quinn?

  That was great. I wish we could keep going.

• 57:19Speaker 03

  I know.

• 57:20Taylor Quinn?

  Let's wrap up with some fun stuff, if we could.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:23Taylor Quinn?

  Um, one thing we always love talking about is food and restaurants. Being here in Richmond, so do you have a go-to restaurant that you guys, if date night, if it's date night on the calendar, where you and your husband like to, like to go?

• 57:35Speaker 03

  Stella's, hand down.

• 57:36Christian Mosier?

  I mean, yes.

• 57:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 57:38Christian Mosier?

  Stella's awesome.

• 57:39Speaker 03

  I like the community table.

• 57:40Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 57:40Speaker 03

  I'm okay with it. I love sitting down, meeting the people that are beside you.

• 57:44Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 57:45Speaker 03

  Having conversation.

• 57:46Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's my-

• 57:48Taylor Quinn?

  Great.

• 57:48Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, we, we took, uh, Jake on our team, it was his birthday two weeks ago, or last week or two weeks ago, and we took him to Stella's for lunch. And even their lunch is just-

• 57:57Speaker 03

  Amazing.

• 57:57Christian Mosier?

  It's so good.

• 57:58Taylor Quinn?

  It's a great-

• 57:59Christian Mosier?

  Gosh, I went to, uh, we went to Medsker the other day for the first time at Churchill.

• 58:03Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 58:04Christian Mosier?

  Which is like this German place, it was really good. Uh, Churchill, I'm slowly but surely realizing, has the best food in Richmond. I mean, it's unbelievable, Grissette's unbelievable.

• 58:13Taylor Quinn?

  Roosevelt.

• 58:14Christian Mosier?

  Roosevelt's good. Um, what's that, uh, what's that seafood place across from Grissette? Airwife.

• 58:20Taylor Quinn?

  Hmm, yeah, yep, Mm-hmm, Airwife, yeah. It's got some-

• 58:23Christian Mosier?

  Unbelievable.

• 58:24Taylor Quinn?

  Some, some, some bangers right there.

• 58:26Christian Mosier?

  One of my favorite questions to ask is, if you weren't an accountant-

• 58:30Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 58:30Christian Mosier?

  And you didn't start Meadows or Cart, what would you be doing?

• 58:34Speaker 03

  I always had a dream to be like, a singer or in, or like something in a band. Like, that would be so cool. I, I have no musical skills, so I would need a lot of training.

• 58:44Taylor Quinn?

  Let me be clear.

• 58:44Christian Mosier?

  A lot of coaching, a lot of, yeah.

• 58:46Speaker 03

  A lot of coaching, I would need a lot of singing lessons. Um, yeah, when you think about just, I mean, that's just purely out there like a dream, like, that would be really hard.

• 58:53Christian Mosier?

  You would need like the Kelly Meadows of singing, you know, to coach you, like you are with CPAs.

• 58:58Speaker 03

  I would need a lot.

• 58:59Christian Mosier?

  Yeah.

• 59:00Speaker 03

  I'd have help.

• 59:01Taylor Quinn?

  Awesome.

• 59:02Christian Mosier?

  I watched a Noah Khan documentary the other day and I'll say how he's just like-

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh.

• 59:07Christian Mosier?

  Blown up and, and, uh, me and Becca were looking to get tickets for Saturday in Raleigh. But they were on, I mean, it was ridiculous how expensive they were.

• 59:15Taylor Quinn?

  Tickets is a whole other thing.

• 59:16Christian Mosier?

  It was like 600 bucks for nosebleeds.

• 59:18Taylor Quinn?

  Oh my gosh.

• 59:18Christian Mosier?

  A ticket. And we were like, eh, well.

• 59:20Taylor Quinn?

  That's great, that's crazy.

• 59:21Christian Mosier?

  I don't think we're gonna do that.

• 59:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, I know.

• 59:25Christian Mosier?

  Should've got the pre-sale.

• 59:26Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  And who could even get in on those?

• 59:28Christian Mosier?

  It's like a lottery system.

• 59:29Speaker 03

  I know.

• 59:30Taylor Quinn?

  It's insane.

• 59:30Christian Mosier?

  It's like Morgan Wallen now, too, and just, ugh, it's unbelievable.

• 59:33Taylor Quinn?

  It's insane.

• 59:34Christian Mosier?

  But that's what you would be, you'd be Tory.

• 59:35Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah. Um, Kelly, one thing we like to do on the show is, um, every guest who comes on, we like to see if they have a nonprofit they want to give a shout out to as a small, thank you for being on the show, Christian, I make a small donation in, uh, our guest's honor for coming on the show. So, is there a certain nonprofit you'd like to give a shout out to?

• 59:54Speaker 03

  Well, because we've spent so much time talking about our captains, I would say the Education Foundation would be an awesome one.

• 1:00:02Taylor Quinn?

  Great choice.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  See you, Education Foundation.

• 1:00:04Christian Mosier?

  Absolutely. And it's the first one that truly benefits two people in the room.

• 1:00:07Taylor Quinn?

  That is true.

• 1:00:08Christian Mosier?

  You know?

• 1:00:08Taylor Quinn?

  Yes, yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 03

  I mean, I actually had that thought before.

• 1:00:12Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Because, you know, you asked me, but I didn't even realize that you were a-

• 1:00:15Taylor Quinn?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:15Speaker 03

  You were a captain, so it's very fitting.

• 1:00:17Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, it's fitting.

• 1:00:18Christian Mosier?

  Heck, yeah.

• 1:00:19Taylor Quinn?

  Kelly, this has been great. Thank you so much for coming on the show. So many great insights, uh, really appreciate it, so, thank you. It's been, it's been a pleasure.

• 1:00:26Christian Mosier?

  Yeah, we've enjoyed having you. Thanks for being on.

• 1:00:28Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:00:30Taylor Quinn?

  Yeah, that's all.