Dawn Moeder, Managing Member, Lane Gorman Trubitt, LLC

Dawn Moeder, managing member at public accounting and wealth management firm, Lane Gorman Trubitt, talked to Invest: about how the growth of the North Texas economy has enabled the firm to reinvest in its headcount and technology. Moeder also discussed the key trends shaping the industry. “The number of businesses coming to the area is helping us grow our revenue and headcount and creating many opportunities for new partnerships,” she said.

What are the most important milestones and achievements for Lane Gorman Trubitt in the past year?

2024 has been great for our firm and we are preparing to celebrate our 75th anniversary next year. This is an opportunity to highlight the firm, as well as reuniting with our past LGT alumni, including employees and clients. It is always good to look at where you came from as you look to where you need to go. 

One of our biggest achievements was creating our Kindness Committee. With the busy schedule our team endures, we wanted to ensure we had an outlet for our employees to be inclusive, share positive feedback, celebrate milestones, and spread random acts of kindness. This new initiative was also featured in the Journal of Accountancy article in March. 

We’ve seen a lot of demand for accounting services in Dallas, especially for consulting and client accounting services. To meet this demand, we brought in a new partner to address and meet those needs. 

We also brought onto the team a Chief Investment Officer within our wealth management group, which is unusual for a company of our size. It helped us to increase assets under management in that group by 40% in the past year. 

As we wrap up the second anniversary of opening our Houston office, we have built a phenomenal team there. For all our employees, we also focused on reinvesting in our staff, their wellness, and their healthcare throughout the year. 

What are the most important trends shaping the North Texas economic landscape and how is Lane Gorman Trubitt capitalizing on them?

The number of businesses coming to the area is helping us grow our revenue and headcount. This creates opportunities for new partnerships and allows new employees to come in and lead teams that serve our clients. Interest and inflation are factors that affect everyone. We also have an exceptional international tax group focusing on advising our clients with international operations to be as tax efficient as possible.

We did see a slowing in investment opportunities in the region due to the interest rates increasing, but we anticipate this to go back to a normal trend as the Federal Reserve starts reducing them down. With that being said, we are spending time with our clients, consulting on their cash flow, to ensure they understand where their money goes to better cover for inflation and interest rate increases. Our goal is to help clients manage their cash flow, understand their profitability, and how to set revenues to ensure they are maintaining profitability. 

How is Lane Gorman Trubitt leveraging cybersecurity technology to help clients manage risks?

We are talking with clients about cybersecurity concerns. While it is not necessarily a service that we provide within our firm, we definitely have recommendations and relationships with local technology firms that can assist them with protecting their investments and client information. This is of huge importance to every company in our current digital environment. 

What regulations are you closely monitoring due to their potential impact on clients?

The sunsetting of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is approaching, so there are a lot of provisions that may go away. We are keeping an eye on those, along with watching the election process as it will affect a lot of the tax regulations going forward. We stay on the forefront of digesting this information in order to send to our clients in a format they can process and understand easily. 

In terms of environmental, social, and governance criteria, those affect public companies from an accounting and regulatory perspective and how that reporting trickles down to privately held companies that are suppliers to larger public entities, so we are available to consult with them on how to process through those new regulations. 

What are the biggest opportunities for growth in the North Texas accounting sector?

AI is already changing the game for both our firm and the accounting profession. The services we can provide to our clients will be almost unrecognizable. AI will also be helpful at risk management when it comes to audits. This new technology all comes down to efficiencies and how cost-effectively we can manage clients and the advice you provide in terms of how to guide them as they operate their businesses; ensuring they are as effective as possible.

What strategies has Lane Gorman Trubitt put in place to attract and retain skilled talent?

Retaining talent is about treating employees in a way they can come each day and enjoy being here. We work hard to maintain the culture of our firm between both offices to ensure our employees feel supported, trained, and invested in; including providing resources that show we care about our employees’ health, including both mental health and wellness, as well as continue to recognize good behavior through employee awards and our kindness committee.

In terms of attracting talent, the fact that we have an appropriately sized staffing pool is attractive because people know they are not coming to an environment where they will be overworked. Our work levels are realistic, even during the busiest season. All of this, alongside our Best Place to Work awards, helps our recruitment efforts.

What partnerships has Lane Gorman Trubitt developed with higher-ed institutions to promote the accounting profession?

Our HR department and on-campus recruiters do an amazing job at getting us into the local colleges for recruiting events, interviewing processes, and speaking events within accounting classes. The goal is to get as much involvement on campus as possible to show students who we are, what we can bring to their career, and what they bring to us through their education.

We are proud of our thriving internship program, through which we are able to hire a high percentage of those interns who join. Through our great relationships with our local colleges and universities, we are able to provide the school with speakers or hosting recruiting events at the office to create an environment for new accounting students to get involved and become more comfortable with the firm.

What are the top priorities of Lane Gorman Trubitt for the next two to three years?

The big thing is growth. We want to grow more as a firm and create opportunities for new partnerships both within our CPA firm and our wealth management group. We need to invest in our firm going forward, whether that is in expanding our headcount or technology. 

We want the headcount to come from the local economy so the wages we pay stay in the North Texas community, and accordingly we are investing back into our communities where we do business.