Spotlight On: Thomas Boothby, Managing Partner, Forvis Mazars – Charlotte Office

Key points:

• Charlotte is a legacy growth market, central to the firm’s leadership pipeline and global Forvis Mazars integration.
• Strategic priorities center on talent development, partnership stewardship, consulting strength, and AI-enabled innovation.
• Community engagement and an “Unmatched Client Experience” anchor long-term growth and differentiation.

February 2026 — In an interview with Invest:, Thomas Boothby, managing partner of Forvis Mazars, said that the firm’s strategic growth is deeply rooted in its people, innovation, and community engagement. “We’re renewing our focus on delivering an unmatched client experience, which begins with ensuring our people are truly invested in how we serve clients,” Boothby said.

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What makes the Charlotte market such an important focus for business?

A few things come to mind. Not only has our firm experienced significant growth, but our Charlotte office specifically has seen remarkable expansion. I’d say the Charlotte practice plays an outsized role within the broader firm, especially given that many of our firm leaders have roots in Charlotte or currently call it home.

When we think about our commitment to Charlotte and the broader Carolinas, this region is a legacy area for our firm. These are key business development markets for us, and we’re incredibly proud of the number of firm leaders who have come out of the Charlotte office and gone on to lead in other areas of the organization.

To give some perspective, we surpassed $2.2 billion in revenue this past year as a full-service accounting and advisory firm. Nationally, we added around 1,000 people through key transactions. One highlight I want to emphasize about the Charlotte office is our involvement in forming our global network. On June 1, 2024, we officially became Forvis Mazars through a strategic transaction with Mazars, and Charlotte played a pivotal role in that effort.

This alignment with our global growth strategy enables us to support Charlotte-based companies that have international ties, offering them a unique experience on the global stage. That’s been one of the most exciting developments in our Charlotte practice this past year.

What are your top priorities, and how do they align with the firm’s broader national and global vision?

One of my main priorities since stepping into my role has been to capitalize on Charlotte’s tremendous growth. It’s a dynamic city with expanding opportunities, and we want to ensure our firm’s local presence and resources scale in tandem with the market.

I’ve spent the last 25 years of my career in North Carolina, and I’m excited to build new relationships here while leveraging my existing network across the state. Talent development is another top priority. As a CPA firm, we’ve maintained a traditional partnership model, which is becoming increasingly rare in our industry. Many firms are shifting to alternative ownership structures, but we believe strongly in stewardship, preserving the firm for future generations of partners.

I also serve on the firm’s governing board, a role I’ve held since 2020, and I’m part of our global assurance committee. These positions allow me to bring national and global best practices back to Charlotte, ensuring our clients here benefit from the full strength of the firm.

Lastly, we’re deeply committed to what we call our Unmatched Client Experience. This means staying flexible and agile in how we support our clients. Innovation is core to this, and we hold our leaders accountable for delivering on our brand promise.

Which industries are currently driving the most demand for your advisory and assurance services in the Charlotte region?

In short, we focus on advising companies with exciting growth potential. Whether they’re navigating succession planning, leadership transitions, or tackling today’s complex challenges, we aim to go beyond just being an accountant or auditor. We want to be their strategic advisor. 

Charlotte is home to many companies that are seeing exciting growth. We serve a wide range of sectors, including owner-operated businesses, private equity-owned firms, and organizations in leadership transition. While some firms in Charlotte tend to have a narrow focus, we have the scale to offer specialized services across nearly every major industry that Forvis Mazars supports.

Some key sectors we serve include financial services, insurance, construction, real estate, manufacturing, and higher education, which is an area of growing demand. But it’s not just about sectors. We support companies that are growing and in need of guidance to reach their next stage.

Our Charlotte office also has a particularly large consulting practice. While we do provide assurance and tax services, much of our value lies in our advisory capabilities. That strong consulting presence sets us apart from many competitors in the market.

Can you share how you’re balancing innovation and what kinds of investments the firm is making in technology?

We have made a significant investment in AI. Because we view AI as a tool to augment our people, our focus has been on deploying AI tools that support and enhance the work our teams do every day. We’re confident that as we continue to grow, we’ll keep expanding our employee base alongside our technological capabilities.

We also benefit from having the leader of our national innovation team right here in Charlotte. EDGE, our Enterprise Digital Growth and Enablement group, works closely with our team to drive both national strategy and local innovation.

We’re also deeply focused on data integrity and confidentiality. As technology evolves, we strive to stay ahead of it, ensuring our clients’ data is secure. Additionally, we regularly host innovation tournaments across the firm, encouraging our teams to think creatively about how we can better serve clients tomorrow, not just today. This gives everyone in the firm a voice in shaping our tech strategy and maximizing the impact of our investments.

How is the Charlotte office approaching talent recruitment and retention in this competitive market?

We’re incredibly proud of the culture we’ve built. We’ve received national recognition as a top place to work in Charlotte and across the country. Our talent strategy starts with strong partnerships with local and regional universities. We’ve invested in professorships and scholarships and are hiring more graduates from local institutions than ever before.

For instance, we’ve made recent endowment contributions at UNC Charlotte that created one of the largest accounting scholarship funds in the school’s history. That’s helped us create a robust talent pipeline.

We also heavily value in-person collaboration. While it’s common for team members to work remotely when needed, we believe our in-office culture is critical to how we serve clients. When our team isn’t in the office, we encourage them to be out meeting with clients in person.

Leadership development is another area of focus. We invest in programs to develop our future leaders and encourage them not only to lead internally, but also within the community. Being a leader at Forvis Mazars means making an impact beyond the office.

How does community engagement play into your brand and positioning in the market?

We are passionate about community engagement. We have an internal group called the IMPACT Committee, an employee-led initiative that helps determine where we direct our time, resources, and charitable efforts. We’re well into our 2026 community priorities, making sure they reflect the causes our employees care most about.

We’re also designing a major signature event for 2026, which will be shaped entirely by our Charlotte team. The idea is to mobilize our 500+ local employees around causes to make a meaningful impact in the community.

Beyond that, we host events like economic impact summits, where we bring together local leaders and industry professionals to educate and inform clients on important topics. This includes AI, tariffs, and tax legislation. We see it as our responsibility to share our knowledge and build strong relationships across the community, including with local nonprofits. Ultimately, it’s about amplifying our impact for everyone.

How are your Charlotte clients navigating challenges, and how is Forvis Mazars helping?

Our support goes well beyond accounting. We help clients build the right structures to capitalize on growth and overcome challenges, both domestically and globally. One area where we’ve provided especially impactful support is in healthcare. With all the regulatory changes in that sector, our dedicated healthcare consulting team has played a vital role.

They bring deep expertise in cost control, operations, and strategic planning for large practices and healthcare systems. We even support leadership gaps through our executive search capabilities. When clients need help turning ideas into action, our consultants walk alongside them and their boards to help execute on those plans.

What are your top goals for the Charlotte office over the next two to three years, and how do they align with the firm’s overall direction?

I’d start with our people, our greatest asset. We’re renewing our focus on delivering an Unmatched Client Experience, which begins with ensuring our people are truly invested in how we serve clients.

One priority is getting our team further engaged in the community, deepening authentic relationships, and showing up as true business leaders. That builds both our internal culture and our external impact.

We know our people come to us for a strong accounting career, but they stay because they believe in our broader mission, how we support clients, and how we uplift the community. That purpose-driven culture is what makes us different.

We’re proud of the national awards we’ve received for workplace culture and talent development. My vision is clear: create a world-class experience for every employee and client in Charlotte. While simple in concept, it takes real work to train, prepare, and support our teams to meet that bar and to hold ourselves accountable to delivering on our promises. We want open communication with our clients, and we want them to feel empowered to tell us when we’re not meeting expectations. That’s what we’re focused on.

Want more? Read the Invest: Charlotte report.