Steve Bunch, Office Partner-in-Charge, Sorren

July 2026 — In an interview with Invest:, Steve Bunch, office partner-in-charge at Sorren, discussed balancing national growth with relationship-driven service, its focus on talent development, and the role of AI in reshaping accounting and advisory services. “Clients want a personal human connection because we’re humans. We like human connection. It is what makes us who we are, and AI cannot duplicate that,” Bunch said.

How are you balancing national growth with a personalized, relationship-driven approach?

We are focusing on elevating our associates, senior associates, managers, and senior managers. In accounting firms, there is often an idea that only the partner can manage the client, but the client really just wants to have someone to talk to. It does not always have to be the partner, because the reality is that there is an entire team under the partner servicing the client.

When a firm grows rapidly and the client relationship is siloed at the partner level, communication can get missed because the partner is spread thin. Then clients can feel like the firm is too big, that it is no longer personalized, or that they are not part of the relationship anymore.

The way to solve that is to expand client relationships and communication to more of the team. If I can spread the relationship across the team and have people below me manage and own relationships, then all of my clients are being touched. Clients want that personal relationship and contact so it does not feel like they are just another number.

There are some clients where I am the partner, but they would rather talk to the manager that is running the engagement, rather than me. I am their panic button if something goes wrong, but otherwise, they want to talk to their primary contact.

You can grow rapidly as long as you understand that clients want to develop a relationship with someone. It can be anyone who can develop that relationship. At the same time, you cannot just throw people in and tell them to manage the client without support.

This year, part of our thematic goal is getting everyone to level up and take more responsibility. If we can have more people in the firm develop client relationships, then we can serve more clients and continue to grow, because it is not all housed with 110 partners. We can use all 1,100 of our people to create that personal touch.

How are you approaching talent development and retention in an increasingly competitive accounting and advisory market?

Talent retention has never really been a problem for us. Before Sorren, our predecessor firm, SBF, was named one of the top places to work by the Tampa Bay Business Journal and the Tampa Bay Times. Every time we entered those competitions, we were named a top workplace.

The long story short is that we treat our people very well. They know and appreciate that. As we have joined a much bigger firm, that has not changed. I have a lot of autonomy to manage this office the way I want to and to treat my people how I want to, so even though we are part of a much bigger firm, that part of our culture remains.

Development is also a major part of retention. No one wants to be the person behind the leader, doing all the work but never talking to the client, never growing, and never being part of anything impactful. A lot of times, firms have big retreats, make promises, and then nothing happens after everyone leaves the room. For us, it is about telling people we want to develop them and then actually developing them. We have a project centered around professional development, and we are taking steps to show people that we are serious.

What key trends are driving demand for your services?

The biggest trend in any business right now is AI. It is enabling us to do more work more efficiently. It is also going to create a lot of talent development opportunities for us because if we can take away the routine, mundane work that the accounting industry is known for, we can allow our people to do higher-level, more meaningful work.

Nobody talks about accountants being the life of the party or accounting being an exciting job. We do a lot of repetitive work. Once AI is fully integrated into accounting, that repetative work can be handled by AI.

The major trend in our industry is understanding how to use it. Some larger firms have jumped in headfirst, but we do not have unlimited capital to throw at AI and hope it works. Our industry needs to understand each individual process, where AI fits into those processes, and how to integrate it neatly.

When we use AI, I want it to be seamless. I do not want to use it just to say we are using it, only for clients to feel confused by what they are receiving. We need to figure out how it folds into our business, how to do it right, and how to help our people supercharge their talent development alongside AI.

In this region, another major trend is the wealth transfer happening over the next 20 years. Florida has significant wealth migration, and there are a lot of opportunities around succession planning. Many business owners are excellent at running their businesses operationally but are not thinking about succession, what it looks like, or how to prepare for it.

You cannot show up on the day you retire and decide to start succession planning. It has to be planned and thought out. That creates advisory opportunities, particularly around succession and business consulting.

There are also a lot of people who want to be entrepreneurs and start businesses. It is relatively easy to start a business, but the question is how we can help them understand their financial statements and make their businesses successful. We are well-versed in financial statements. Many people either do not want to do that, are bored by it, or do not know how to do it, and that is what we do really well.

What are your key goals and priorities for the next two to three years?

The key goals are really a dual goal: wisely implementing artificial intelligence into our service offerings while also finding ways to elevate our people. There has been a lot of talk about AI replacing people. I am not an AI expert, and I am predisposed toward people, but there is a way to use AI alongside our current people to elevate what they do every day and make them better professionals.

I am not necessarily buying into the idea that AI is going to take jobs. AI is going to support jobs. For me, the goal is to seamlessly integrate AI so we continue delivering a great service that clients appreciate, understand, and feel good about, while also helping our people transition away from routine work and elevate their game. It is going to be all about client relationships. The super technical people may struggle more than people who know how to manage client relationships. AI is smarter and faster than all of us, but you cannot replicate human relationships.

Clients want a personal human connection because we’re humans. We like human connection. It is what makes us who we are, and AI cannot duplicate that.