Minority Business America — Financial Services - Mitchell & Titus, LLP
Minority Business America — Financial Services - Mitchell & Titus, LLP
Minority Business America — Financial Services - Mitchell & Titus, LLP
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<strong>Minority</strong> <strong>Business</strong> <strong>America</strong> — <strong>Financial</strong> <strong>Services</strong><br />
<strong>Mitchell</strong> & <strong>Titus</strong> thrive as Ernst & Young<br />
member firm<br />
By Justin Jones<br />
There have been plenty of groundbreaking<br />
moments in the storied<br />
history of <strong>Mitchell</strong> & <strong>Titus</strong><br />
L.L.P. since Bert <strong>Mitchell</strong> and<br />
Robert <strong>Titus</strong> joined forces in 1974.<br />
What started as a small firm that wanted<br />
to offer better opportunities for minority<br />
CPAs and provide high-quality services to<br />
businesses has blossomed into the largest,<br />
minority-controlled accounting firm in the<br />
United States.<br />
With more than 175 people and offices in<br />
New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, Philadelphia,<br />
Chicago and Washington, D.C.,<br />
M&T has set the bar that many — if not all<br />
— minority accounting firms want to reach.<br />
When M&T CEO Anthony Kendall<br />
was asked if the co-founding visionaries<br />
could have conceived that the enterprise<br />
they started in 2006 would be a member<br />
firm of Ernst & Young Global Limited,<br />
his response was, “They would not have<br />
imagined it. They were just trying to build<br />
the best organization they could. They<br />
could not see that far out — that more<br />
than 30 years later they would become a<br />
member firm of Ernst & Young Global.”<br />
Anthony Kendall<br />
But, <strong>Mitchell</strong> and <strong>Titus</strong> did know what<br />
kind of organization they wanted. “They<br />
knew they wanted to build a firm of high<br />
quality, where people had a chance to excel<br />
and realize their potential,” Kendall<br />
said. “That was their goal and dream. To<br />
achieve what the firm has accomplished<br />
today was probably beyond their dreams<br />
at that time.”<br />
A unique relAtionship<br />
As a member firm, M&T follows Ernst<br />
& Young’s quality, risk management and<br />
independence procedures, in addition to<br />
having access to leading technological<br />
resources and the collective knowledge<br />
base of the other member firms around<br />
the world.<br />
However, M&T has maintained its brand<br />
identity and operates under its current ownership<br />
as a minority business enterprise.<br />
“We are in a unique situation because<br />
this membership allows us to bring the<br />
most advanced and sophisticated tools to<br />
the marketplace and to our clients that I<br />
don’t think other firms our size can offer,”<br />
Kendall said. “It also allows us to attract<br />
clients that maybe three years ago<br />
we could not attract, because we<br />
did not have the appropriate tools<br />
and resources.”<br />
Meanwhile, as companies con-<br />
tinue to come out of the economic<br />
downturn, Steve Howe, Ernst<br />
&Young’s <strong>America</strong>s area managing<br />
partner, believes this relationship<br />
is a differentiator that<br />
will help Ernst &Young grow and succeed<br />
in the future.<br />
To date, Ernst &Young has member<br />
firms in more than 140,000 countries.<br />
“Through our relationship, we are proving<br />
that diversity makes business sense,”<br />
Howe said. “We’re serving clients together<br />
and we’re committed not only to bringing<br />
more minorities into the accounting profession,<br />
but also to supporting entrepreneurship<br />
and supplier diversity. The M&T<br />
relationship hits on all of these critical areas,<br />
and it’s a real expression of the value<br />
of inclusiveness at Ernst & Young.”<br />
Keys to success<br />
This successful relationship also is a<br />
testament to both companies’ dedicated<br />
efforts to provide the highest quality of<br />
service for their clients.<br />
“We believe there is only one way you<br />
can sustain growth, and this is by providing<br />
quality service to your clients. If we<br />
don’t produce quality, our success will not<br />
be sustainable,” Kendall said. “If you look<br />
at Ernst & Young, their tagline is ‘quality<br />
in everything we do.’ If you put two organizations<br />
together that are committed to<br />
quality, the outcome will be high quality.<br />
We both recognize that quality has to be<br />
first and foremost. This is one of the reasons<br />
why it’s easy for us to work together.”<br />
The other keys to success, Kendall continued,<br />
are the companies’ mutual respect,<br />
great leadership, trust, open communication<br />
and a commitment to work through<br />
any situation.<br />
“We believe there is only one way you can<br />
sustain growth, and this is by providing quality<br />
service to your clients. If we don’t produce<br />
quality, our success will not be sustainable.”<br />
— Anthony Kendall<br />
130 MBN USA l CONFERENCE EDITION 2010 www.mbnusa.com