Client Advisory Services Summit 2026 IN PERSON
8.2 Credits
Member Price $409.00
Non-Member Price $519.00
Overview
Be a part of the inaugural Client Advisory Services Summit!
Whether you're leading an established CAS practice, looking to build or scale a new practice, or simply exploring a career in advisory services, this event offers practical strategies and expert insights to help you move forward. Learn from experienced CAS leaders as they share real-world strategies and the essential skills needed to grow and sustain a successful advisory practice.
Because relationships are at the heart of every successful CAS practice, the CAS Summit also provides opportunities to connect with peers and industry experts. Stay for the networking happy hour to continue the conversation, exchange ideas, and build valuable connections that will support your CAS journey long after the conference ends.
Highlights
Growing and sustaining a successful advisory practice.
Prerequisites
None.
Designed For
Those who are leading an established CAS practice, looking to build or scale a new practice, or simply exploring a career in advisory services.
Objectives
Learn from experienced CAS leaders, explore real-world strategies, and gain the essential skills needed to grow and sustain a successful advisory practice.
Preparation
None.
Partner Sponsor
Thursday, November 12, 2026
General Session
- Registration, Sign in, and Breakfast
General Session
- Welcome and Announcements
General Session
- The Why Behind CAS Practices
Erin Pohan, FounderErin Pohan
Erin Pohan is the Founder of UpKeeping®, where she’s leading a new kind of conversation in the accounting world - one that’s collaborative, future-focused, and grounded in real-world innovation. With degrees in Accounting from Liberty University and the University of Maryland, Erin has built a firm that reflects her unique strength: bringing people together to solve meaningful challenges. She’s known for creating spaces where accounting leaders can share openly, think creatively, and explore what’s next. Through UpKeeping®, Erin and her team are leveraging technology, automation, and AI to build a smarter, more sustainable firm that supports an exceptional client experience.
Most conversations about client advisory services focus on the mechanics: workflows, pricing, tech stacks. This session steps back to ask why the shift toward advisory matters in the first place, and what it actually changes for the client on the other side of it.
Advisory work only earns its place when it changes something real for the business being served: better decisions, more clarity, or a different kind of relationship with their numbers. This session looks at that shift from the client's perspective: why it matters more than the tools or pricing model built around it, and what makes the work worth doing well.
General Session
- Break
Breakout Session
- Concurrent Session A01 Building the Modern CAS Tech Stack
Alec Taylor, ATTM TechnologiesAlec Taylor
Alec Taylor has 32 years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity and leadership. Alec spent 7 years at T-Mobile, managing systems engineering & information security, and 16 years as co-owner of IVOXY Consulting, focusing on building scalable, secure & high-performance platforms & systems for banks, hospitals, and state organizations. Alec now focuses his efforts in assisting businesses minimize digital risk, ensuring compliance with government information security laws, and improving their experience with technology.
As CAS practices grow, the technology supporting them can either create capacity or become a barrier to scale. This session will explore how firms can intentionally build a modern CAS tech stack that supports efficient workflows, stronger collaboration, and higher-value client service. Attendees will examine how integrated tools and AI-driven automation can streamline work, where cybersecurity and data protection should factor into technology decisions, and how to evaluate whether current systems are keeping pace with the practice. The session will provide a practical framework for assessing and modernizing the CAS tech stack to improve efficiency, support growth, and position the firm for what comes next.
- Concurrent Session A02 | SALT Through the CAS Lens
Grant Shaver, CPA, Clark Nuber PSGrant Shaver
If you ever receive an email from Grant saying he’s “out of the office,” he really means it! An avid mountaineer, rock climber, biker, canoer, skier, and more, Grant loves moving around the great outdoors whichever way he can.
When he’s indoors, Grant works as a principal for Clark Nuber’s State and Local Tax Services Group. During his fifteen-year career in state and local tax, he has served clients across many industries including healthcare, life science, technology, and higher education. Grant now focuses primarily on assisting his clients with indirect tax issues. Prior to joining Clark Nuber, he was with KPMG in Seattle.
State and local tax issues increasingly intersect with the day-to-day work of CAS professionals, creating both compliance risks and opportunities to provide greater value to clients. This session will examine key SALT developments and considerations through a CAS lens, focusing on what advisory professionals need to recognize as they support growing and evolving businesses. Topics will include sales and use tax, nexus and multistate activity, payroll and remote-work considerations, and other emerging state and local tax issues. Attendees will learn how to identify potential SALT exposure, ask the right questions, and recognize when an issue should be elevated to a tax specialist, helping clients address risks before they become costly problems.
General Session
- Break
General Session
- War Stories: Lessons Learned from the CAS Trenches
Kimberly Jones, Senior Manager, Sweeney Conrad
Kimberly Jones
Kim Jones, CPA, supports Sweeney Conrad’s Client Accounting & Advisory Services clients with rich day-to-day accounting knowledge to help them focus on what they do best. She works with a range of clients, including nonprofits, associations, retail businesses, construction firms, and other small businesses. She particularly enjoys improving the efficiency of a business’ accounting processes, as well as ensuring that they have the information they need to make timely, accurate decisions.
In addition to Kim’s exceptional accounting skillset, she also understands the reality of day to day business operations. During the COVID-19 pandemic she assisted a medical associate with ordering and distributing PPE, leading instruction in tax law changes and incentives, developing an emergency loan program, and working with the governor’s office to guarantee that patients had access to their doctors. Prior to joining Sweeney Conrad, Kim spent 10 years running a retail accounting service that provided bookkeeping and tax services to nonprofits and other businesses. She also served as the finance director of a tour company that featured LGBTQ artists.
Al-Nesha Jones
Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, MBA, MOM, is the founder of ASE Group, a full-service accounting, tax, and advisory firm focused on empowering small business owners to build strong and sustainable businesses. ASE Group specializes in making the dollars make sense through solid recordkeeping, proactive tax planning, tax preparation, and year-round advisory support for entrepreneurs.
Al-Nesha was recently recognized as a 2026 & 2025 Best-in-State CPA by Forbes, 2025 Top 200 CPA by Forbes, 2025 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor, and one of Ignition’s 2024 & 2023 Top 50 Women in Accounting. She currently leads a 100% female team, where they have flexibility in both their schedule and work location, to ensure they can prioritize all of the nouns that bring them joy.
Matthew Sutorius
Matt Sutorius, CPA, is a Shareholder at Clark Nuber who works with privately held and emerging companies on complex business, accounting, and assurance matters. His experience includes financial statement audits, internal controls, complex financing arrangements, revenue recognition under ASC 606, and specialized engagements tailored to clients’ needs, with particular experience in the technology sector.
Matt also brings his expertise to the classroom as an adjunct professor at Seattle University and the University of Washington Bothell and serves as host of Clark Nuber’s Making Change podcast.
Outside of work, Matt is an endurance cyclist who applies an accountant’s mindset to his training, complete with performance analytics and custom spreadsheets to track his progress.
Building and managing a CAS practice rarely goes exactly according to plan. This candid panel brings together CAS professionals to share real-world experiences, challenges, missteps, and lessons learned along the way. Through an open conversation, panelists will discuss what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently today.
General Session
- Lunch break
General Session
- Building Client Relationships for Success: Discovery, Onboard, Engage, and Know When to Let Go
Anna Hoobler, Employee Benefits Client Advisor
A strong CAS relationship starts well before the first deliverable. This session will explore how firms can build an effective onboarding process that sets expectations, builds trust, and creates a foundation for long-term success. Attendees will examine practical approaches for maintaining engagement, adapting to evolving client needs, and strengthening relationships over time. The session will also address when a client is no longer aligned with the firm’s goals or service model and how to transition that relationship professionally. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for creating a consistent client experience that supports both client satisfaction and a scalable CAS practice.
General Session
- Break
Breakout Session
- Concurrent Session B01 | Creating CAS Champions: Developing Talent with the Skills for Success
Dan Tritch, Director, YPTC
As client advisory services continue to evolve, technical expertise alone is no longer enough. Successful CAS professionals must also communicate effectively, think strategically, leverage technology, and help clients turn financial information into informed decisions.
This session explores the skills that contribute to success in today's CAS environment and practical approaches firms can use to develop accounting and finance talent into advisory-minded professionals. Through practical examples and interactive discussion, participants will examine how client expectations are changing, the challenges firms face in developing advisory-minded professionals, and strategies for building communication, leadership, and advisory skills across their teams.
- Concurrent Session B02 | AI in Your CAS Practice: Staying Compliant Under IRC Section 7216 and Circular 230
Adam Tahir, CPA, Founder & CEOAdam Tahir
Adam Tahir is the founder and CEO of Bizora AI, a tax research and advisory platform. He is a licensed CPA and spent six years at EY in international transaction tax before founding Bizora. Adam works with firms on putting AI into real tax workflows without disrupting how the firm already operates, and has presented on IRC §7216 and AI compliance at multiple venues.
AI tools can create significant efficiencies in a CAS practice, but using them with client information introduces compliance considerations that firms may not have fully addressed. This session will examine how IRC Section 7216 and Circular 230 apply when incorporating AI into client service workflows, with a practical focus on consent, disclosure, and the handling of client data. Attendees will explore common AI use cases, where compliance risks can arise, and what firms should consider before client information is entered into an AI platform. The session will provide a practical framework for evaluating AI tools and workflows so CAS teams can take advantage of emerging technology while maintaining appropriate safeguards and meeting their professional obligations
General Session
- Break
General Session
- Advisory Without the Overhaul: Finding Opportunities in the Work You Already Do
Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, Firm FounderAl-Nesha Jones
Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, MBA, MOM, is the founder of ASE Group, a full-service accounting, tax, and advisory firm focused on empowering small business owners to build strong and sustainable businesses. ASE Group specializes in making the dollars make sense through solid recordkeeping, proactive tax planning, tax preparation, and year-round advisory support for entrepreneurs.
Al-Nesha was recently recognized as a 2026 & 2025 Best-in-State CPA by Forbes, 2025 Top 200 CPA by Forbes, 2025 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor, and one of Ignition’s 2024 & 2023 Top 50 Women in Accounting. She currently leads a 100% female team, where they have flexibility in both their schedule and work location, to ensure they can prioritize all of the nouns that bring them joy.
Firms don’t always need to build an entirely new service line to become more advisory. This session will focus on recognizing advisory opportunities within the work firms are already doing and identifying the moments where a different conversation can create more value for clients. We’ll also walk through a simple framework for formalizing the offer and share a practical approach for integrating advisory into your existing workflows and client relationships. Attendees will leave with a framework they can adapt to move from identifying advisory opportunities to actually implementing them, without overhauling their firm in the process.
General Session
- Break
General Session
- The New Burnout: Stopping the Treadmill and Building Sustainable Teams
Lynnette Oss Connell, CPA, CoachLynnette Oss Connell
Lynnette Oss Connell believes that sustainable success happens at the intersection of self-awareness and strategy, not on the altar of self-sacrifice.
Lynnette is your Burnout Bestie™, a real-life, real-human coach dedicated to helping individual accountants and firm leaders escape the burnout cycle and create healthier, more sustainable lives and organizations. With warmth, wit, and wisdom, she engages clients and audiences on a profound, perspective-shifting journey of deep self-discovery paired with actionable, data-backed strategy. Whether you are leading a team struggling with burnout or quietly battling burnout yourself, Lynnette’s grounded and actionable approach will leave you feeling reinspired and empowered to take back control over chronic stress and the systems that reinforce it.
With over two decades in the accounting industry, Lynnette deeply understands the pressures accounting professionals face. Starting as an auditor in public accounting, then as a fractional controller, and finally as the co-owner of a successful CAS firm, she bought into the narrative that success is purchased at the price of one’s mental health. After health challenges forced her to confront her chronic, cyclical burnout head-on, Lynnette made the decision to exit her own accounting firm and dedicate herself to helping others prevent and recover from burnout at all stages of their careers.
Lynnette currently provides individual coaching to accountants, group training sessions, and keynote presentations. When not deep in conversation or down a research rabbit-hole, she can be found in the yoga studio or out on a hike.
The old rules of accounting burnout no longer apply. While traditional public accounting burnout was driven by raw, seasonal hour spikes, modern CAS faces a different challenge: the relentless, recurring monthly treadmill. Between continuous close cycles, tech-stack change fatigue, and constant digital noise, today’s CAS professionals aren’t just tired—they’re cognitively fragmented and too frazzled to fix it.
In this powerful closing keynote, former CAS firm owner Lynnette Oss Connell reframes burnout from an industry inevitability into an organizational design opportunity. Together, we’ll explore the foundational truth that combatting burnout is both an Inside Job (individual responsibility and stress management) and an Outside Job (leadership structures, intentional boundaries, and operational design).
Designed specifically for firm leaders—with insights every team member can use—this session moves past generic wellness advice and delivers practical strategies to transform your department’s culture. You’ll discover how to lead by example without sacrificing your own productivity, coach your team through constant change as a collaborative effort, and navigate compassionate boundaries with struggling staff. Leave the summit inspired and equipped with practical tools to cultivate a resilient team culture where personal accountability and firm leadership work hand in hand.
General Session
- Adjourn
General Session
- Networking Reception
Leader(s):
- Adam Tahir, CPA, Founder & CEO
- Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, Firm Founder
- Alec Taylor, ATTM Technologies
- Anna Hoobler, Employee Benefits Client Advisor
- Dan Tritch, Director, YPTC
- Erin Pohan, Founder
- Grant Shaver, CPA, Clark Nuber PS
- Kimberly Jones, Senior Manager, Sweeney Conrad
- Lynnette Oss Connell, CPA, Coach
- Matthew Sutorius, CPA, Clark Nuber PS
Leader Bios
Adam Tahir, CPA, Founder & CEO
Adam Tahir is the founder and CEO of Bizora AI, a tax research and advisory platform. He is a licensed CPA and spent six years at EY in international transaction tax before founding Bizora. Adam works with firms on putting AI into real tax workflows without disrupting how the firm already operates, and has presented on IRC §7216 and AI compliance at multiple venues.
Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, Firm Founder
Al-Nesha Jones, CPA, MBA, MOM, is the founder of ASE Group, a full-service accounting, tax, and advisory firm focused on empowering small business owners to build strong and sustainable businesses. ASE Group specializes in making the dollars make sense through solid recordkeeping, proactive tax planning, tax preparation, and year-round advisory support for entrepreneurs.
Al-Nesha was recently recognized as a 2026 & 2025 Best-in-State CPA by Forbes, 2025 Top 200 CPA by Forbes, 2025 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor, and one of Ignition’s 2024 & 2023 Top 50 Women in Accounting. She currently leads a 100% female team, where they have flexibility in both their schedule and work location, to ensure they can prioritize all of the nouns that bring them joy.
Alec Taylor, ATTM Technologies
Alec Taylor has 32 years of experience in information technology, cybersecurity and leadership. Alec spent 7 years at T-Mobile, managing systems engineering & information security, and 16 years as co-owner of IVOXY Consulting, focusing on building scalable, secure & high-performance platforms & systems for banks, hospitals, and state organizations. Alec now focuses his efforts in assisting businesses minimize digital risk, ensuring compliance with government information security laws, and improving their experience with technology.
Erin Pohan, Founder
Erin Pohan is the Founder of UpKeeping®, where she’s leading a new kind of conversation in the accounting world - one that’s collaborative, future-focused, and grounded in real-world innovation. With degrees in Accounting from Liberty University and the University of Maryland, Erin has built a firm that reflects her unique strength: bringing people together to solve meaningful challenges. She’s known for creating spaces where accounting leaders can share openly, think creatively, and explore what’s next. Through UpKeeping®, Erin and her team are leveraging technology, automation, and AI to build a smarter, more sustainable firm that supports an exceptional client experience.
Grant Shaver, CPA, Clark Nuber PS
If you ever receive an email from Grant saying he’s “out of the office,” he really means it! An avid mountaineer, rock climber, biker, canoer, skier, and more, Grant loves moving around the great outdoors whichever way he can.
When he’s indoors, Grant works as a principal for Clark Nuber’s State and Local Tax Services Group. During his fifteen-year career in state and local tax, he has served clients across many industries including healthcare, life science, technology, and higher education. Grant now focuses primarily on assisting his clients with indirect tax issues. Prior to joining Clark Nuber, he was with KPMG in Seattle.
Kimberly Jones, Senior Manager, Sweeney Conrad
Kim Jones, CPA, supports Sweeney Conrad’s Client Accounting & Advisory Services clients with rich day-to-day accounting knowledge to help them focus on what they do best. She works with a range of clients, including nonprofits, associations, retail businesses, construction firms, and other small businesses. She particularly enjoys improving the efficiency of a business’ accounting processes, as well as ensuring that they have the information they need to make timely, accurate decisions.
In addition to Kim’s exceptional accounting skillset, she also understands the reality of day to day business operations. During the COVID-19 pandemic she assisted a medical associate with ordering and distributing PPE, leading instruction in tax law changes and incentives, developing an emergency loan program, and working with the governor’s office to guarantee that patients had access to their doctors. Prior to joining Sweeney Conrad, Kim spent 10 years running a retail accounting service that provided bookkeeping and tax services to nonprofits and other businesses. She also served as the finance director of a tour company that featured LGBTQ artists.
Lynnette Oss Connell, CPA, Coach
Lynnette Oss Connell believes that sustainable success happens at the intersection of self-awareness and strategy, not on the altar of self-sacrifice.
Lynnette is your Burnout Bestie™, a real-life, real-human coach dedicated to helping individual accountants and firm leaders escape the burnout cycle and create healthier, more sustainable lives and organizations. With warmth, wit, and wisdom, she engages clients and audiences on a profound, perspective-shifting journey of deep self-discovery paired with actionable, data-backed strategy. Whether you are leading a team struggling with burnout or quietly battling burnout yourself, Lynnette’s grounded and actionable approach will leave you feeling reinspired and empowered to take back control over chronic stress and the systems that reinforce it.
With over two decades in the accounting industry, Lynnette deeply understands the pressures accounting professionals face. Starting as an auditor in public accounting, then as a fractional controller, and finally as the co-owner of a successful CAS firm, she bought into the narrative that success is purchased at the price of one’s mental health. After health challenges forced her to confront her chronic, cyclical burnout head-on, Lynnette made the decision to exit her own accounting firm and dedicate herself to helping others prevent and recover from burnout at all stages of their careers.
Lynnette currently provides individual coaching to accountants, group training sessions, and keynote presentations. When not deep in conversation or down a research rabbit-hole, she can be found in the yoga studio or out on a hike.
Matthew Sutorius, CPA, Clark Nuber PS
Matt Sutorius, CPA, is a Shareholder at Clark Nuber who works with privately held and emerging companies on complex business, accounting, and assurance matters. His experience includes financial statement audits, internal controls, complex financing arrangements, revenue recognition under ASC 606, and specialized engagements tailored to clients’ needs, with particular experience in the technology sector.
Matt also brings his expertise to the classroom as an adjunct professor at Seattle University and the University of Washington Bothell and serves as host of Clark Nuber’s Making Change podcast.
Outside of work, Matt is an endurance cyclist who applies an accountant’s mindset to his training, complete with performance analytics and custom spreadsheets to track his progress.
Non-Member Price $519.00
Member Price $409.00