I hosted a session earlier this week for BDO Alliance firms on a question I get asked constantly: how do you actually build the next generation of business advisors?
Not the strategy deck version of the answer, the practical one.
For anyone who missed it or wants a refresher, here's what we covered (the full recording can be found here).
Why this is urgent now
Private equity consolidation, fee compression, and clients who expect more than compliance work are moving faster than most firms' talent models. Advisory is where the value is shifting. The problem is that recruiting strategies, onboarding programs, and traditional CPE were all built for a different firm, the one doing prep and review work at scale. Fixing recruiting alone won't close the gap, and neither will L&D working on its own. It takes both, moving together.
Skills, not competencies
A competency is a broad category. A skill is something you can actually observe and test, an "I can" statement tied to a specific behavior. At Spiirall we work from a library of nearly 600 of these across tax, audit, CAS, and success skills, because the mandate every firm is under right now is to develop people faster than the traditional three, five, or eight year timelines allow. That only works if you know precisely what someone needs to be able to do at each stage.
Recruiting for a different profile
Technical competence still matters, but it's no longer the whole story. Commercial curiosity, coachability, and executive presence predict advisory success in ways that GPA and CPA eligibility don't. Tools like Colby and PXT surface behavioral patterns that a resume can't, and case studies or simulations built into the interview process show you far more than a technical test alone.
Three stages of development
I walk firms through a model with three phases. Foundation is the first year or so, building business acumen and communication skills earlier than firms typically introduce them. Participation, roughly six to eighteen months in, is where people start drafting insights instead of just schedules, and sitting in on client calls instead of watching from the back. Ownership, from year two onward, is where they're managing distributed workflows, explaining results directly to clients, and starting to spot risk and opportunity on their own.
On realization
This was a live question during the session, and it's worth repeating here. If your model measures new professionals purely on chargeable productivity in year one, you'll keep getting exactly what you're getting. Advisory capability requires treating early development as an investment, not a cost to be minimized.
Where to start
Don't try to solve all of this at once. Pick a pilot group, a single office, or one process in recruiting or L&D and start there. Firms that move on even one piece of this are already ahead of the ones still waiting to see how AI shakes out.
Thanks to everyone who joined and contributed in the chat today. If we're not connected on LinkedIn yet, send me an invite to connect!
