Industry Spotlight: Q&A With Withum’s Justin O’Horo

Withum is recognized in the tri-state area as a leading public accounting and advisory firm serving the Real Estate, Construction, and Architecture & Engineering industries.  Withum empowers clients with innovative tools and solutions to address their accounting, tax and advisory needs. Commercial Observer’s Partner Insights team sat down with Justin O’Horo, CPA, Partner and Team Leader of Architecture and Engineering at Withum to discuss how Withum is continuing to serve clients amidst COVID-19.

Commercial Observer’s Partner Insights: With the first quarter of 2020 closed, most likely not as planned, how has Withum been able to motivate and encourage clients during this difficult and uncertain time? 

Justin O’Horo: Simply by being accessible, adaptable and compassionate. The accessibility piece was natural because our culture and commitment to our clients always demanded accessibility of us. Still, in the parlance of the times, every single one of our team members has kicked that up a notch by proactively reaching out to clients — sometimes with ideas and other times just to stay current on their experiences and feelings. That’s where the adaptability and compassion came in.  Clients are facing new problems, and in response, their priorities are changing.  That leads to shifting needs, and one of the things that our firm is supremely proud of is how quickly we adapted our skillsets to help our clients address those needs.  With clients facing so much uncertainty and so often struggling for clear guidance, we were able to motivate and encourage them just by being there with them in the trenches, working together to solve their most important problems.

With many large industries served, what would you like the community to take away from your services? 

O’Horo: That we don’t see ourselves as accountants, we see ourselves as advisors with accounting expertise.  We offer the type of core compliance (think audit and tax) that companies typically need when they think of CPA firms, but we are really so much more than that.  In these times, we’ve helped companies implement technologies and strategies for managing a remote workforce.  We’ve provided incident response support for clients that were breached by ransomware attacks. The list goes on, but to me, the most important takeaway when I think about our menu of services is that collaboration is in our DNA. We approach our client relationships by thinking not only about what we can offer to a company but, more importantly, about how we can function as part of a team that can think strategically. We can see around corners and provide clients with guidance that makes a positive impact on an organizational level.

What is the most important thing you would tell your newest client? 

O’Horo: If there is anything we’ve learned from the current craziness, it’s that the needs of our clients have changed but our ability to provide solutions hasn’t.  Most companies hire a CPA firm with a specific, singular need in mind. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but often that translates to having the need serviced by a single individual.  The most important thing I would tell a new client is that you aren’t ‘my’ newest client … you are ‘our’ newest client.  I’m excited to be your quarterback, but when you join the Withum family, you have access to a deep bench of talented people that enjoy working together to help solve your business challenges and provide the advice that’s critical to charting your strategic direction.

Join Justin O’Horo and other CRE professionals at the 4th Annual Transportation, Infrastructure & Building Repositioning Construction Forum on April 28, 2020. Click here for more information.