Layoff Watch ’26: RSM Trims Down in Audit

Posted on by Adrienne Gonzalez
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Seeing a couple Reddit posts about a wave of “Business Update” meetings being forced on people’s calendars at RSM yesterday. As we all know, “business update” is code for “you’re fired” and that’s exactly what happened to people who received those meetings. Nice of them to make people sweat it out all night.

To all of you at RSM getting a “business update” today
by u/elk33dp in Accounting

No numbers or specifics yet except that they seem to have cut a bunch of people who only started last year. We’ll dig around for more and in the meantime, if you have some info we’ll love you forever if you get in touch via email or text.

On the plus side, now some of you can have a proper post-busy season rest. Hang in there.

Update: It ended up being about 300 people, or 2% according to The Times. An RSM spokesperson had this to say about it: “We continually assess our business to ensure alignment with market demand and evolving client needs. As part of this process, we have made the difficult decision to reduce certain roles in our assurance practice and several corporate functions. We are grateful for the contributions of our colleagues, and we are providing severance and career transition support.”

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Chipman, Andrews, Goelzer All New to Accounting Today’s 100 Most Influential List

Continuing on with “list season” Accounting Today’s Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting launched late last week and while there are plenty of new names, it’s still a bit of a snoozer since this particular list isn’t a ranking like say, the Vanity Fair 100. See, the VF100 establishes a pecking order that can be antagonized over for days and weeks and just about when everyone is done giving a shit (or long after), the new edition comes out and people can rage on how last year’s list was so much better.

No, the AT100 is more like People’s 50 Most Beautiful issue. Not in the sense that you want to see these 100 accountants, politicians, professors, etc. etc. in the buff (or do you?) but that the influence (or the beauty) is subject to your own, er, tastes. Anyhoo, enough with the fluffing, let’s get on with it.


Some notables:

Rick Anderson, Chairman and CEO, Moss Adams (new to list in 2010)
C.E. Andrews, President, RSM McGladrey (new to list in 2010)
Bob Bunting, President, IFAC
Paul Caron, Dean of Faculty and Charles Hartsock Professor of Law at the University of Cincinnati College of Law
Stephen Chipman, CEO, Grant Thornton (new to list in 2010) – All the blogging paid off!
Dan Goelzer, Acting Chair, PCAOB (new to list in 2010)
Michelle Golden, Founder, Golden Practices Blog
Tom Hood, CEO and Executive Director, Maryland Association of CPAs
Jack Weisbaum, CEO, BDO (new to list in 2010)

Dropped from last year’s list:
Ben Bernanke
Charlie Rangel
Bernie Madoff

The list has its usual suspects including all the big dogs from all of the Big 4, Tim Geithner (get over it AG), Doug Shulman, Barney Frank, etc. etc. but there were some interesting honorable mentions (so to speak) on page 11 right next to Dennis Nally’s picture. Just so you know.

Accounting Today 100 Most Influential People In Accounting [Digital Version (registration required)]

Single Fat Accountant Also a Bit of a Hypocrite, Watches Royal Wedding

A couple of weeks ago, the Single Fat Accountant was suffering from a serious case of Kate and Willy envy. He had called for a blackout of all the Royal Wedding festivities but because he is A) fat; B) single and C) and accountant, the nuptials went on as planned.

Realizing the futility of the situation, SFA eventually succumbed to the pressure of being of loyal British subject (or maybe a party-pooper of a boss) and turned on the teevee to watch the historic event.

Realizing that he might catch some flak for this flip-flop, our hero felt the need to explain his actions:

I was feeling left out by not watching TV. I felt I was going againt the odds with the large proportion of people. It just felt wrong not to watch the wedding. Though my views in previous blog remain unchanged. I am thinking what this says about me:

• I like to belong rather than be the odd one out
• I am bit of a hypocrite!
• I am not strong enough to be an independent thinker.
• I just wanted to see how Kate looked! She looked great.

Kate did look lovely (and catching glimpses of Pippa was a nice bonus) but I can’t help but feel that SFA is buckling like a cheap belt here. On the other hand, it’s conceivable that our fat, lonely friend may have been thrown out of his country had he not complied. If anyone wants to weigh in – being supportive or sharing their own tale of Royal Wedding fever – feel free to do so now.

6 thoughts on “Layoff Watch ’26: RSM Trims Down in Audit”

  1. In completely unrelated news, RSM will increase their AI budget by an amount close to the cut salaries and benefits.

    Completely unrelated and a coincidence, of course.

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  2. RSM focuses on audit quality. Those who were laid off didn’t measure up to RSM standards.

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    2. This comment is bizarre!!!! Layoffs happened due to resizing and restructuring the audit division and not due to the audit quality issues…stop spreading misinformation

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