When legendary figure in the profession, Sam Allred, set an "expiration date" for his retirement, Upstream Academy spent five years preparing for the handoff before Jeremy Clopton officially became managing director. Jeremy joins Heath Alloway on Episode 21 of Common Threads to discuss that transition in detail. He felt anxiety at stepping into a widely respected leader's role, of course, but Sam's advice helped reframe things and steady his feet: build on a legacy rather than become it. Jeremy lays out five archetypes he's identified in leaders trying to figure out who they are, and these formed the cornerstone of his keynote at Upstream Academy's 25th Anniversary HeadWaters Conference this year. Jeremy is candid about which archetype nearly consumed him, what it took to climb out, and how his environment growing up made things like this for him. He also connects these ideas directly to the ethos of Sorren, making the brilliant point to anyone feeling like they've lost something, some part of their identity or their own legacy, that joining forces doesn't erase what came before it, it creates the responsibility, and greater ability, to build something even better.

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MaryEllen Prance knew she wanted to be an accountant by her sophomore year of high school, and she's never looked back. Now a partner at Sorren and a leader in its Construction and Real Estate sector, she tells Heath Alloway on Episode 20 of Common Threads that she has built a career around something most people don't associate with accounting: genuine human connection. According to MaryEllen, construction clients really are different, because they want advisors who actually understand their world, not just their books. Discussing how deep industry involvement through organizations like CFMA has shaped both her practice and her professional identity, MaryEllen also gets candid about the challenge of saying no, the slow build of becoming well-known (or "famous") in an industry, and what it really means to make an impact versus simply doing your work and staying busy.

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Michael Horwitz has spent 25 years building the BDO Alliance into the largest network of independent accounting firms in the country, and he's watched the profession compress a generation's worth of change into the last three years. On Episode 19 of Common Threads, the first featuring a guest external to Sorren, he spends time talking to Heath Alloway about a broad range of topics. BDO just set a target to double revenue to $6 billion within five years, part of a growth strategy built on selectivity, expanded advisory services, and deeper client relationships rather than chasing every deal. Private equity has reshaped ownership structures across the industry, AI is rewriting what junior staff actually do all day, and firms that once prided themselves on independence are quietly merging into larger platforms. Michael traces his own path from a property tax boutique acquired by EY to the principal role at BDO, and lays out a candid, sometimes surprising forecast for what accounting firms will look like a decade from now, including that many may not survive at all.

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Accounting was never the career Niki Neilon envisioned when she was younger. She wanted to be an attorney, then a teacher, and only found the profession by accident during a required class in college. On Episode 18 of Common Threads, she tells Heath Alloway that accident turned into a career built on mentorship, co-founding a firm in 2006, and eventually landing her the chair position of the NASBA board of directors. Along the way she helped extend CPA candidates' credit window from 18 to 30 months and opened a second pathway to licensure. She talks candidly about the parts of leadership she'd have done differently, the myth that AI is scaring people away from accounting rather than drawing them in, and what it actually takes for a self-described introvert to build client relationships. Her closing advice, borrowed from Richard Branson, is simple: say yes to the opportunity first, and figure out how to do the job later.

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Macy Smetzler learned the numbers before she learned the industry, entering QuickBooks for her parents' small business in southeast Idaho years before she ever sat in an accounting class. That early apprenticeship in hard work carried her through college soccer and into public accounting, but it also nearly burned her out before she made partner at Sorren. On Episode 17 of Common Threads, she talks candidly about the perfectionism that kept her up at night rewriting emails, the client who threatened her CPA license over aggressive tax positions, and the moment she decided to walk away from that account rather than compromise her integrity. Heath Alloway digs into how she rebuilt her approach around teaching her team instead of just fixing their work, freeing herself from being the only person who could handle her biggest clients. It's a conversation about ambition, boundaries, and what it actually costs to grow into leadership.

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Julie Cummings didn't set out to build a career in public accounting, instead stumbling into it while helping her husband find work after a restructuring. What followed was two decades of leading HR functions inside some of the profession's most complex firms, navigating mergers, culture clashes, and the slow work of turning many offices into one. Now, three months into launching Sorren's Human Capital Advisory practice, she's applying all of it from the outside in. On Episode 16 of Common Threads, Heath Alloway talks with Julie about what it actually takes to be a practitioner-turned-advisor, why so many firms have tried and abandoned this space, and what "one stop shop" really means. Along the way, she reflects on a career spent moving fast, and what she'd tell her younger self about the cost of never pausing to absorb the advice of people around you.

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Cheryl Guiddy has a world baton twirling championship title to her name, which turns out to be a surprisingly apt lens for her three-decade career in public accounting. On Episode 15 of Common Threads, she tells Heath Alloway that the same self-driven quality that had her practicing in the street every day after school became the engine behind her rise to Chief Practice Officer at Sorren, but that her drive didn't come without self-doubt along the way. Cheryl speaks candidly about imposter syndrome: where it comes from, how fear of failure can quietly hold talented people back, and what it actually takes to push through it. The role that mentorship played in her own journey threads through the whole discussion, alongside a broader point about how small gestures of encouragement can shift things for people who are struggling in ways no one around them can see.

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Heath Alloway is joined by Maynard Maduli and Ariel Orio from Sorren PH in the Philippines, who bring decades of experience to their roles overseas. The conversation on Episode 14 of Common Threads ranges from burnout and the importance of recharging—with Ariel's Japan trip getting a mention—to what keeps both of them genuinely passionate about the profession after all these years. A significant thread running through is the reality of remote, cross-timezone collaboration: what it actually takes to build trust when your counterparts are logging on as you're logging off. Maynard's framing is simple, that trust is built in the small everyday interactions, and silence is one of the fastest ways to break it. The episode also touches on hard conversations, client confidence, and the EBP practice that Sorren PH is now helping to build out for Sorren globally.

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Tyler Horn stumbled into accounting almost by accident. He chose Legacy Acuity over a Charlotte firm in 2015 largely because the other job required a suit and Acuity didn't. Eleven years later, he's one of the few people at Sorren whose entire focus is bringing in new clients, and his approach to that work is shaped less by traditional sales instincts than by a genuine obsession with helping people. In this conversation with Heath Alloway on Episode 13 of Common Threads, Tyler talks through what it actually looks like to build trust with strangers over video calls. He stresses the value of preparation, asking better questions, and being upfront about what you don't know. He gets into fee objections, the growing role of AI in client conversations, how Sorren's expanding network lets him route the right clients to the right people, and why he nearly reconsidered his role during COVID before a reframe from his CEO reminded him of the bigger picture.

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OJ Laos joins Common Threads five weeks into his tenure at Sorren and jumps straight into the question hanging over nearly every professional field: what happens when AI stops being a novelty and becomes part of the way work gets done? He talks to Heath Alloway on Episode 12 about how he's drawn on a career that runs from law school to software, consulting, and the founding of an AI lab, making the case that the real shift isn't about replacing people so much as changing the shape of their work. From debate club and distance running to billable hours, client value, security, the danger of treating experimentation like something to hide, and more, what emerges from this conversation is a grounded view of AI inside accounting: messy, fast-moving, and full of practical possibility for a firm like Sorren that's willing to learn in public and rethink what expertise looks like.

Get the full show notes and more resources at CommonThreads.Sorren.com