CLA Brand Guidelines: CliftonLarsonAllen, a 2012 Merger & the CLA Global Network

Milwaukee and Minneapolis, merged.

CLA is the short form of CliftonLarsonAllen LLP, an American firm offering audit, tax, consulting, outsourcing and wealth-advisory services, and it was born from a merger. On 2 November 2011 the Journal of Accountancy reported that Clifton Gunderson, based in Milwaukee, and LarsonAllen, based in Minneapolis, planned to merge on 2 January 2012, creating one of the ten largest CPA firms in the country. The new firm would take the name CliftonLarsonAllen, abbreviated from the start as CLA.

Both halves were decades old. Clifton Gunderson was founded in 1960 and LarsonAllen in 1953, according to the same report, and each had about 1,800 professionals on staff. The plan set out three entities inside a holding company: CLA LLP for public accounting, plus specialist practices called CLA Wealth Advisory and CLA Outsourcing. The two chief executives, Kris McMasters and Gordy Viere, would both serve as chief executives of the new firm, with Milwaukee and Minneapolis as co-headquarters. The partners still had to approve the deal, and it needed clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, the magazine noted.

The Journal of Accountancy described the combined firm’s focus as private companies and their owners, along with industry niches such as health care, nonprofits, governments and agribusiness. McMasters called it a merger of peer firms that focused primarily on private companies.

English Wikipedia says the merger took effect on 2 January 2012, and that Clifton Gunderson had been the largest member of the HLB International network until it left after the merger. It adds that McMasters retired in 2013, that Denny Schleper led the firm from 2015, and that Jen Leary became chief executive in January 2021.

A settlement, then steady growth.

The firm’s early years included a significant legal case. Clifton Gunderson had been the outside auditor of the city of Dixon, Illinois, until 2005. After a city official was found to have taken city funds over two decades, Dixon sued its former auditors and its bank. On 25 September 2013 Sauk Valley Media reported that the city had reached a settlement with CliftonLarsonAllen, the bank and the firm that took over the city’s audits in 2005, with CliftonLarsonAllen paying the largest share. The firm issued its own statement at the time, the paper noted.

Since then CLA has grown largely by bringing other firms into its own. A PR Newswire release of August 2024, announcing that Axiom CPAs would join, said CLA had nearly 9,000 people and nearly 130 U.S. locations, and offices in the UK, providing wealth advisory, outsourcing, audit, tax and consulting services. The same release described the firm’s purpose as creating opportunities for its clients, its people and its communities, and closed with its standard promise “to know you and help you.”

Accounting Today, writing in June 2022, called CliftonLarsonAllen “a Top 10 Firm.” The wealth business set out in the 2011 plan still trades under the firm’s name: investment advisory services, the 2024 release says, are offered through CliftonLarsonAllen Wealth Advisors, LLC, an SEC-registered investment adviser.

How accounting networks present themselves.

Mid-tier accounting networks are built from independent firms that agree to share a name, standards and referrals. The networks in this guide describe themselves that way: their legal pages typically state that the international body provides no client services and that each member firm is a separate legal entity. The brand therefore has to do a lot of work, because it is often the main thing the member firms have in common.

Their identities tend to be restrained. A plain wordmark, usually set in a sans and paired with one strong colour, carries across dozens of countries and languages, and a short strapline or brand promise often sits beneath it. Many networks have moved from long lists of partners’ surnames to shorter names, initials or a single shared label, and some member firms have dropped their local names to take the network brand.

Their websites follow a common pattern. A global map or country selector leads to member firms; service pages are grouped under audit and assurance, tax and advisory, with industry pages for sectors such as manufacturing, real estate, nonprofits or the public sector. Insight articles on tax changes, regulation and technology fill the news pages, and many networks publish annual revenue figures and awards in press releases.

Two further page types are typical of the profession. Transparency reports, which many audit firms publish, set out governance and quality-control arrangements. Graduate and early-career recruitment pages are prominent too, because recruiting trainees is a constant task for the profession. This guide sets out what can be checked about each brand’s founding, ownership and network, and marks clearly what rests on the firm’s own word.

From one firm to CLA Global.

In 2022 the firm went international. Accounting Today reported on 30 June 2022 that CLA was forming CLA Global Limited with Evelyn Partners, a UK wealth-management group created from the 2020 merger of Tilney and Smith & Williamson. The network would start in the U.S., the U.K. and Ireland, launch on 1 July 2022, and then look to the rest of Europe and to Asia. Jen Leary told the magazine that member firms would stay independent — “still separate legal entities” — and that firms outside the U.S. would not be CLA offices, though they could carry CLA Global branding. The magazine said the network was expected to place CLA among the top 15 global accounting and advisory organisations by fee income.

CLA Global’s own website now names its founders as CliftonLarsonAllen LLP and S&W, previously Evelyn Partners, and describes the network as a global network and alliance of independent member firms, each a separate and independent legal entity, that does not itself provide services to clients. It says its members focus on privately owned, fast-growing, mid-market clients with cross-border needs. CLA’s 2024 release describes the US firm as an independent network member of CLA Global.

The network’s brand page sets out the verbal identity in unusual detail. Its brand promise is “Right there with you”, which it says speaks to responsiveness, dependability and the proximity of member firms to their clients. It lists three brand pillars — real relationships, entrepreneurial spirit and connected culture — and three shared values: caring for others, growing together and taking ownership. The purpose line, about creating opportunities for clients, people and communities, matches the wording CLA uses for itself in the United States.

For a design guide, CLA shows how a long merged name can be shortened to three letters and then stretched into a network brand with a written promise and pillars. Compare Baker Tilly, another US firm that carries a network name, and RSM. For this guide we use a deep navy, a warm coral and a pale stone with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep CLA’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.