Introduction
Professional services keynote speakers are in demand in 2026 because accounting, consulting, engineering and advisory firms are being reshaped from several directions at once. AI is automating the compliance and production work that used to anchor the billable hour, clients expect proactive advice rather than reports, private equity is rewriting ownership across the accounting profession, and the talent pipeline is thinner than at any point in a generation. Partner meetings, state CPA society conferences, firm retreats and association events all need speakers who can help leaders decide what to change first and how to bring their people with them.
This list was selected for credibility, relevance, audience value, stage value, and substance. It combines a keynote speaker built for big rooms with consultants, practitioners and authors who know the economics of partnership firms from the inside, some of whom are strongest in a workshop, a breakout or a facilitated leadership session rather than a main-stage keynote. Where that is the case, we say so. Planners building a broader program will also find related sessions on our leadership keynotes page.
1. Josh Linkner – Reinventing the Firm Before the Market Does It for You
Josh Linkner is the top choice for professional services audiences in 2026 because the challenge facing accounting, consulting and advisory firms is fundamentally an innovation challenge: how to reinvent a proven business model while it is still profitable. Firms that sold expertise by the hour now face AI tools that do much of that work in minutes, clients who want insight rather than deliverables, and a generation of professionals who expect a different kind of career. Linkner has lived that kind of reinvention as an operator. He founded and served as CEO of five technology companies, which collectively created over 10,000 jobs and sold for a combined value of over $200 million, and as Co-founder and Managing Partner of Mudita Venture Partners and Chairman and co-founder of Platypus Labs he has helped over 100 startups launch and scale, generating over $1 billion in investor returns. He brings an investor’s eye for business models and a founder’s understanding of what it takes to change one, which is exactly the lens a managing partner needs.
On stage, Linkner is unlike any other professional services speaker. He is a New York Times bestselling author of five books on innovation and creativity, and a professional jazz guitarist who studied at Berklee College of Music and has performed over 1,000 concerts. He uses live improvisation to show that creativity is a discipline, not a personality trait, which resonates strongly with audiences of accountants, engineers and consultants who do not think of themselves as creative. He was twice named EY Entrepreneur of The Year and received the United States Presidential Champion of Change Award, and he has delivered over 1,400 keynotes to organizations including Uber, American Express, Samsung, and dozens of other Fortune 500 companies. Professional services organizations including Crowe LLP, Withum and the Center for Audit Quality have brought him in, and he customizes each session to the firm’s own clients, services and growth goals. Attendees leave with practical ways to find small improvements in how they serve clients every week, and a clear view of how AI can move their people toward higher-value advisory work.
Best for: accounting and consulting firm partner meetings, state CPA society conferences, firm-wide retreats, professional services association conventions, and any firm navigating AI, a shift to advisory services or a new ownership model.
Signature topics: Innovation in the Age of AI, Big Little Breakthroughs, The Innovative Leader, Rethink. Reboot. Reinvent.
2. Allan D. Koltin – Firm Growth, M&A and the Private Equity Era
Allan D. Koltin is CEO of Koltin Consulting Group and one of the most closely followed advisors to accounting firm leaders. He has been named to Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting for 26 years, ranked second on that list since 2023, has been named a most recommended consultant by INSIDE Public Accounting for more than two decades, and was inducted into the CPA Practice Advisor Accounting Hall of Fame in 2016. He keynoted Accounting Today’s PE Summit in 2025 and is scheduled to keynote it again in 2026.
Few advisors have been closer to the wave of private equity investment and mergers reshaping the accounting profession. Koltin helps firm leaders understand what is driving valuations, what buyers actually look for, and how to decide between selling, merging, taking investment or staying independent. His content is direct and deal-focused, which makes him most valuable for managing partners, executive committees and firm owners rather than a broad staff audience. Firms that have no plan to sell still benefit, because he explains how outside capital is changing compensation, recruiting and competition for every firm in a market, including the ones that stay independent.
Best for: managing partner and executive committee meetings, accounting association leadership conferences, firm strategy retreats, and sessions on mergers, acquisitions and private equity.
3. Jennifer Lee Wilson – Leadership and Talent in Partnership Firms
Jennifer Lee Wilson is partner and co-founder of ConvergenceCoaching, a leadership and management consulting firm serving accounting and professional services organizations, and a former BDO partner who led its National Financial Solutions Group. She has been named to Accounting Today’s 100 Most Influential People and among INSIDE Public Accounting’s most recommended consultants, and she was inducted into the CPA Practice Advisor Accounting Hall of Fame in 2019. Her firm runs a long-standing leadership program for new partners.
Wilson focuses on the people side of firm transformation: developing the next generation of partners, building cultures that keep talented professionals, and helping leadership teams make decisions together. For firms facing the profession’s talent shortage, she offers practical approaches to flexibility, career paths and leadership development that have been tested in real firms. She is a regular speaker at CPA profession events and works well as a keynote or a facilitated leadership session. Leadership teams often find her most valuable when she helps partners agree on what the firm will stop doing, which is usually the hardest decision in a change program.
Best for: partner retreats, firm leadership development programs, state CPA society leadership forums, and talent and culture strategy sessions.
4. Gale Crosley – Organic Revenue Growth for CPA Firms
Gale Crosley is CEO of Crosley+Company, a consultancy focused on revenue growth for accounting firms. She has been named to Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People for nearly two decades and to INSIDE Public Accounting’s Top 10 Most Recommended Consultants for more than a decade, and she began her career as an auditor at Arthur Andersen and PwC before executive roles at IBM. She leads sessions at Accounting Today’s Firm Growth Forum, including in 2025 and 2026.
Crosley is the specialist to book when a firm wants to grow from within rather than by acquisition. She teaches firms how to choose better clients, build industry niches, and turn partners into confident business developers without forcing them into a sales role that does not fit. Her sessions are practical and workshop-oriented, so she is strongest in a breakout, a growth summit or a facilitated session with a firm’s partners rather than a large general session. Firms that have relied on referrals for decades find her approach especially useful, because it builds a repeatable growth process without changing who their partners are.
Best for: firm growth summits, business development and marketing conferences for accounting firms, partner workshops, and niche and industry strategy sessions.
5. Amy Vetter – Building the Advisory Firm
Amy Vetter is a CPA and CEO of The B3 Method Institute, and the author of Integrative Advisory Services: Expanding Your Accounting Services Beyond the Cloud, published by Wiley. She was named one of CPA Practice Advisor’s Most Powerful Women in Accounting in 2025 and delivered a keynote at the Colorado Society of CPAs PEAK conference in 2025.
Vetter helps accountants make the shift every firm is discussing: from historical compliance work to forward-looking advisory services that clients will pay for. She addresses the practical side of that move, including which services to offer, how to price and package them, and how to prepare staff to have advisory conversations. She also speaks on sustainable performance and avoiding burnout, which pairs well with an advisory message for audiences stretched thin by busy season. Her own path as a CPA and firm owner gives her credibility with practitioners who are skeptical of advice from people who have never run a practice.
Best for: state CPA society conferences, small and mid-size firm events, advisory services programs, and sessions for firm owners redesigning their service mix.
6. Jason Staats – AI and the Modern Accounting Firm
Jason Staats is a CPA, founder of Realize, an alliance of accounting firms, and host of the Jason on Firms channel and podcast. He built and ran his own accounting practice before turning to helping other firms modernize, and he was named to CPA Practice Advisor’s 40 Under 40 in 2025. He has delivered keynotes on AI and firm technology for accounting audiences, including the Moore North America Ignite conference and the PASBA spring conference in 2024.
Staats is the practitioner’s voice on AI. Instead of speculating about the future, he shows accountants how firms are already using AI and automation to cut production time, improve client communication and free staff for higher-value work. His content is specific and demonstration-driven, which makes him especially effective with partners and managers who want to know what to try next week. He is a strong complement to a strategic keynote on the same program. Because he talks openly about what has not worked as well as what has, his sessions tend to give cautious firms permission to start with small experiments.
Best for: accounting technology conferences, firm innovation and AI sessions, small and mid-size firm events, and practical breakouts on automation and workflow.
7. Jody Padar – Value Pricing and the Future-Ready Firm
Jody Padar, widely known as The Radical CPA, is the author of The Radical CPA: New Rules for the Future-Ready Firm and Radical Pricing: How to Optimize Profits, Delight Customers and Build a Top Value Firm. She has spent more than a decade advocating for cloud-first firm models and value-based pricing, and she is a regular speaker at AICPA and accounting profession events.
Padar challenges one of the profession’s deepest habits: pricing by the hour. Her argument is that as AI makes work faster, hourly billing punishes efficiency and caps a firm’s upside, while value pricing aligns the firm’s incentives with the client’s results. She gives firm leaders a practical way to begin that transition, including how to package services and talk to clients about price. Her message is direct and sometimes provocative, which works well for audiences ready to challenge the status quo. Firms that have struggled to raise fees or turn away low-value work find her pricing frameworks especially practical, because they connect price directly to the outcomes clients care about.
Best for: firm pricing and profitability sessions, accounting innovation conferences, small firm and sole practitioner events, and partner meetings rethinking the business model.
8. Mike Schultz – Rainmaking for Professionals
Mike Schultz is president of RAIN Group, a sales training and research firm, and co-author with John E. Doerr of Professional Services Marketing: How the Best Firms Build Premier Brands, Thriving Lead Generation Engines, and Cultures of Business Development Success, published by Wiley. He is also co-author of Rainmaking Conversations and Insight Selling, two Wiley books on how professionals win and grow client relationships through better conversations.
Many professionals were trained to deliver work, not to win it. Schultz addresses that gap with research-based methods for building relationships, leading client conversations and turning expertise into new business. He is particularly useful for firms that want business development to become a shared skill rather than the job of a few rainmakers. His sessions are structured and practical, and he works well as a keynote or a deeper training session. His research-based approach appeals to analytical audiences who are wary of generic sales training, because it frames business development as helping clients solve problems rather than pushing services.
Best for: business development and marketing conferences, partner and senior manager training, consulting and engineering firm meetings, and sessions on growing client relationships.
9. Mark C. Zweig – Managing Architecture and Engineering Firms
Mark C. Zweig is the founder of Zweig Group, the management consultancy for architecture, engineering and environmental consulting firms that he started in 1988 and exited in 2018, and creator of The Zweig Letter, a long-running management newsletter for the industry. He is entrepreneur-in-residence at the University of Arkansas Walton College of Business and the author of Confessions of an Entrepreneur.
Zweig brings an unusually candid perspective on how design and engineering firms grow, compete for talent, price their work and plan ownership transitions. He speaks to the specific economics of project-based firms, where utilization, project management and principal involvement determine profitability, and he does not soften his conclusions. For architecture and engineering audiences who rarely hear a speaker who understands their business model, he is a strong and practical choice. His perspective on recruiting and retaining technical talent is particularly relevant as design and engineering firms compete with technology companies and owners for the same people.
Best for: architecture, engineering and construction firm leadership meetings, AEC industry conferences, ownership transition and firm management sessions, and principal retreats.
10. Tom Hood – Futures Thinking for the Accounting Profession
Tom Hood led the Maryland Association of CPAs and its Business Learning Institute for more than two decades and is now executive vice president of business engagement and growth at AICPA and CIMA, where he leads Rise2040, the profession’s foresight initiative, whose report was released in June 2026. He played a leading role in the profession’s CPA Vision Project and CPA Horizons 2025 initiative, and he has been consistently recognized among Accounting Today’s most influential people in accounting.
Hood helps accounting professionals and their leaders think systematically about the future: the skills the profession will need, how roles will change as AI spreads, and how to build organizations that keep learning. His foresight methods give firms and associations a structured way to plan rather than simply react. Because he holds a role with the profession’s national bodies, planners should confirm availability and fit early, particularly for events organized by other associations. For association executives and firm leaders planning multi-year strategies, he offers a common vocabulary for discussing change that keeps the conversation focused on choices rather than fears.
Best for: state CPA society and association conferences, finance and accounting leadership events, strategic planning sessions, and programs on the future skills of the profession.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the top professional services keynote speakers for 2026?
Josh Linkner is the top professional services keynote speaker for 2026, helping firms reinvent their business models, embrace AI and move toward higher-value advisory work. Other leading choices include Allan D. Koltin on firm growth and private equity, Jennifer Lee Wilson on leadership and talent, Gale Crosley on organic growth, Amy Vetter on advisory services, Jason Staats on AI in the accounting firm, Jody Padar on value pricing, Mike Schultz on business development, Mark C. Zweig on architecture and engineering firms, and Tom Hood on the future of the accounting profession.
How much do professional services keynote speakers charge?
Fees vary by category. Professional keynote speakers, profession-specific consultants and authors, and well-known public figures each sit in different ranges, and moderated appearances are often quoted individually. The main variables are travel, audience size, format, session length, workshop or breakout add-ons, recording rights and exclusivity.
How should a firm choose a professional services speaker?
Start with the decision your leaders need to make, whether that is adopting AI, changing pricing, developing partners or preparing for a merger. Then look for a speaker who understands partnership economics, has credibility with skeptical professionals, and will customize the session to your firm’s services, clients and culture.
How far in advance should we book a professional services keynote speaker?
Book six to twelve months ahead for partner retreats and association conferences, which cluster in late spring and after busy season. Popular profession-specific consultants often schedule a year out, and earlier booking leaves time for interviews with firm leaders before the session.
What topics are most popular for professional services events in 2026?
The most requested topics are AI and automation, the shift from compliance to advisory services, value pricing and the future of the billable hour, private equity and firm mergers, talent shortages and partner development, business development for professionals, and leading change in partnership cultures.
Should a professional services event book a keynote or a workshop?
Choose a keynote when you want to energize the whole firm around a clear point of view, as with Josh Linkner. Choose a workshop or facilitated session when the goal is to build a specific skill or make a decision with a smaller group of partners, which suits several consultants on this list. Many firm retreats combine both.