We recently connected with Chris Passmore and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Chris, thanks for joining us today. Can you share a story about the kindest thing someone has done for you and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you?

One of the kindest things done for me stemmed from the CEO of my firm. During July 2023, I became seriously ill and my road to recovery was unknown. And within days of getting sick he reached out to me and said “take all the time you need” and we are all here to support you. This was impactful as I am responsible for the Los Angeles office of Withum with 50 employees. First and foremost, it gave my family the peace of mind that I could focus on my health and recovery. But from a human standpoint, it meant a lot that my “work family” was still family. And that we cared for one another both inside and outside of the office.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I serve as the partner in charge of the Los Angeles office of Withum. I specialize in assurance and business consulting services to emerging and middle market companies. While I service a wide variety of clients, I have developed a reputation as an expert in working with technology companies, professional service firms, healthcare providers, and consumer products companies. Prior to February 2022, I was a partner at Martini Partners, which joined with Withum.

I understand both the accounting firm and client side of the business, having served as a corporate controller for a publicly held manufacturing company. I spent several years working with publicly and privately held businesses while at PricewaterhouseCoopers. As part of the Master’s program, I attended the prestigious Global Enterprise Management Program at Oxford University in the United Kingdom.

Can you talk to us about your experience with selling businesses?

During 2022, my legacy CPA firm (Martini Partners) joined a large national firm, Withum. The most significant lesson I learned during this process was to ensure that the sale / merger aligns with your strategic vision and plans. A transaction is one of the most challenging experiences you’ll ever encounter and it will test you in unknown ways. So you need to make sure you clearly see the goals from all the hard work and fully support the new entities future.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

My advice for managing teams is to “be authentic.” I’m sure we all read leadership and management books, but it is critical for a leader to be him or her true self. Ultimately, teams follow those they “trust” and the only way to build that trust is to be a genuine person. Regarding morale, it is essential to celebrate both large and small wins. Of course it is easy to celebrate the gigantic new client brought in by a team member. But it is equally important to call out small wins such as beating a client deadline.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.socialmediacpa.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/christopher.l.passmore/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherpassmorecpa/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/PassmoreCPA
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwqteMaNfYDQVqTeNdRRL2Q