Geoffrey, Gallo Partner, H&CO
H&CO is not a traditional accounting firm. Instead, they have continued to innovate to meet the needs of an international client base, pioneering technology in business intelligence and building platforms for companies to thrive. As for how H&CO operates, “It’s a very entrepreneurial environment,” Geoffrey Gallo, a partner at the firm, said in a conversation with Invest:.
How is H&CO’s delivering unique value to clients?
I guess the core differentiator is that we are, first and foremost, a technology company. The company started as a CPA firm back in 1992. It was formed by two immigrants from Cuba who were educated in this country, and they started with a Latin- and South American-centric client base of wealthy families or businesses wanting to buy assets in the United States.
They created a turnkey international tax organization, which made the ability to conduct business in the U.S. easier for those who were from outside of the country.
As a result, they were very early adopters of technology.
They were one of the first CPA firms, certainly of its size, to use the SAP Business One ERP platform, which is what we use today. We utilize the power of our BI platform as well, and we have an IT department of nearly 100 staff and programmers scattered across 28 countries around the world. We built an infrastructure to support the CPA firm, but at the same time, several years ago, we started implementing and designing SAP Business One for small and mid-sized clients, mostly across Latin America and Europe.
So today, just on the SAP platform alone, there are over a thousand companies that are based both in this country and outside this country, and roughly 40% of our revenues are driven off of that platform.
H&CO has built an incredible organization to support 200 people in the U.S. and 650 people outside of the country, spanning from back-office accounting to tax and assurance. We have 280 people in India and hundreds more in Latin America and South America. We have a staffing organization that we built for ourselves that we now offer to our second-stage and third-stage business clients who need people.
What is your strategy in the tax service business?
We acquired a new subsidiary earlier this year called Corpag that H&CO has been using for the last 10 years to meet the needs of an international client base. They need the ability to easily set up and have their entities managed and governed by a company. We can provide the accounting and tax compliance services as well. This makes doing business in the United States easier for people who aren’t familiar with the terrain.
Through efficiency and sophistication derived from this, I would put our tax services up against any of the Big Four. We’ve got that capability built in across our South Florida and Central Florida group — including about 50 people in Orlando, Melbourne, and Tampa.
Now we’re adopting a lot of the technology and technical competence that H&CO has built a great reputation as being one of the top CPA firms to assist international clientele.
How do you see your business evolving, particularly in the areas of financial planning and strategic planning?
Essentially, AI is going to take over the basic accounting functions over time. What can we do to be a player with that eventuality? It’s starting right now by helping companies with their accounting, put them on our platform, and get them up to speed. We’re building the best strategic models to help clients track their growth, spot problems, and adjust in real-time. That means that you can’t have an annual or quarterly conversation with a client. It’s going to have to come back to monthly, weekly, and in some cases, daily interactions. In that case, you’ll need to have the capacity to do that. That’s what’s so powerful about the agent co-model. We can put the more granular elements into any part of the world that can produce the output. It allows all levels of our team to be front and center with a client on a more regular basis.
How has that technology transformed your client’s businesses?
Previously, our outsourced accounting group was essentially only doing write-up services for second-stage companies in Central Florida, but not ERP work. Within the last eight months, I’ve been involved with at least four different clients whom we are recommending, and we’ve made the conversions from what might have been a QuickBooks platform to an SAP platform.
A lot of our programmers are in South America or Latin America, and they’re multilingual. They’re able to give us a fast response time so that clients aren’t waiting too long. But in those cases, the clients have staff that we have to help train with that integration.
We’re creating an SAP accounting group based in Orlando who will bridge the accounting services until the clients’ staff can be trained, or the work is outsourced entirely.
We’re looking at processes right now that go far deeper into real-time analysis of data, data management, and converting that data into actionable steps for improvement. That is going to be the key. And having a platform like SAP and others is a great way to get that to happen.
That means you need to have a very strong strategic partner like us to help you do that. It’s not just us. We have a model that brings in people from other disciplines who can help complete the advisory service product.
How does H&CO implement initiatives to attract and retain that top talent?
The opportunity here is simple. We’re growing a company where our objective is to turn incoming talent into partners. Our goal is to grow 20% annually.
How in God’s name is that possible in our industry? It’s because we’ve already built the methodology to do so, the momentum is there, and the systems are in place. For example, Danay Ramirez, H&CO’s COO, is in her late 30s, but she was the No. 13 employee at H&CO and one of the six global partners.
It’s a very entrepreneurial environment. H&CO has planted themselves in various markets and created an image of working for an American company that is trailblazing in all these different areas, and there’s a place for everyone.
