Doeren Mayhew Adds Novotny, McMurray Fox

Some accounting-firm acquisitions land with all the drama of a spreadsheet opening. This was not one of those moments. When Doeren Mayhew added West Michigan’s Novotny CPA Group and Middle Tennessee’s McMurray, Fox & Associates, the move signaled something much bigger than two tidy headlines. It showed how a fast-growing firm is building market density, adding niche expertise, and making a clear bet on regional expansion that actually makes operational sense.

On paper, the deals looked straightforward. McMurray Fox extended Doeren Mayhew’s reach around Nashville, adding offices in Hendersonville and Gallatin while strengthening audit and tax capabilities in a market where the firm had already been busy. Novotny, meanwhile, deepened Doeren Mayhew’s footprint in West Michigan, bringing in respected local leadership and folding professionals into the firm’s Grand Rapids and Grand Haven operations. But beneath the clean press-release language was a much more interesting story: this was about building a stronger platform, not just collecting zip codes like baseball cards.

That matters because today’s accounting industry is in the middle of a serious identity shift. Regional firms are getting bigger. Private equity has brought fresh capital and fresh pressure. Leadership teams are looking for scale, talent, better technology, stronger specialization, and more durable succession plans. So when a firm like Doeren Mayhew adds Novotny and McMurray Fox, it is not merely growing. It is choosing what kind of national-regional hybrid it wants to become.

Two Acquisitions, Two Very Different Strategic Wins

McMurray Fox gave Doeren Mayhew more than new Tennessee addresses

McMurray Fox was not a random pickup. The firm had built a long-standing presence in Middle Tennessee, serving businesses and individuals for decades with bookkeeping, tax, audit, and advisory work. Its industry mix made the combination especially attractive: construction, professional services, real estate, nonprofit, and manufacturing are not exactly sleepy sectors, and they fit neatly with the kinds of middle-market relationships regional firms want to deepen over time.

For Doeren Mayhew, the real advantage was not only the two new offices. It was the ability to broaden its local Nashville practice with audit capabilities while also strengthening tax expertise. That kind of addition matters because clients rarely wake up thinking, “I hope my CPA has a nicer logo today.” They care about whether the firm can solve more problems under one roof. A deeper bench in audit, construction, and real estate means more cross-functional service, stronger client retention, and more reasons for a business owner to stay put instead of shopping around.

There is also a timing angle here that should not be ignored. McMurray Fox followed Doeren Mayhew’s earlier 2025 Tennessee acquisitions, including Thurman Campbell Group and Carson & McKinney. That suggests the firm was not experimenting in Nashville. It was building a cluster. In professional services, clustered growth is often more valuable than isolated expansion because it creates recruiting momentum, local brand visibility, and operating leverage. In plain English: one office is a flag. Several connected deals start looking like a strategy.

Novotny strengthened a market Doeren Mayhew clearly wants to own

If the McMurray Fox transaction was about widening a fast-growing Tennessee platform, the Novotny deal was about deepening an already serious West Michigan push. Novotny CPA Group had served businesses and owners along the West Michigan lakeshore for more than 40 years, offering accounting, tax, and auditing services. When its team moved into Doeren Mayhew’s Grand Haven and Grand Rapids offices, the acquisition did more than add headcount. It tightened the firm’s regional network and pulled another trusted local brand into a larger operating system.

That is important because West Michigan is not the sort of market firms enter casually and dominate by accident. Relationships matter there. Reputation matters there. Local continuity matters there. By bringing in Novotny’s partners as principals and retaining team members in their roles, Doeren Mayhew preserved something many acquisitions lose too quickly: trust. Clients who have worked with a hometown CPA for years may tolerate a new name on the door, but only if the people they trust are still there and the service does not suddenly feel like a call center with better stationery.

The Novotny addition also fit a broader local pattern. Doeren Mayhew had already been expanding in West Michigan, and subsequent reporting showed the firm continuing to build aggressively across the lakeshore. That makes the Novotny transaction look less like a one-off event and more like a bolt in a larger frame. In other words, this was not just about picking up a respected firm in Norton Shores. It was about reinforcing a regional backbone.

Why These Deals Make Sense Together

At first glance, West Michigan and Middle Tennessee may seem like separate stories. In reality, they reveal the same playbook. Doeren Mayhew appears to favor acquisitions that bring one or more of the following: strong local leadership, sticky middle-market client relationships, complementary technical expertise, and a market where the firm can quickly become more visible. Both Novotny and McMurray Fox fit that description.

McMurray Fox expanded Doeren Mayhew’s Nashville-area presence with more audit depth and sector experience in construction and real estate. Novotny increased bench strength in tax and audit along the West Michigan coast and folded naturally into offices the firm already operated. One deal added breadth in an expansion market. The other added depth in a developing stronghold. Put those together, and the strategy starts to look refreshingly coherent.

That coherence matters because accounting M&A can go sideways when buyers chase size without compatibility. Bigger is not automatically better. Bigger and awkward is just awkward with more email addresses. The firms that tend to benefit most are the ones that add targeted expertise and preserve local credibility while giving employees and clients access to something meaningfully stronger. That appears to be what Doeren Mayhew was aiming for here.

The Bigger Story: Doeren Mayhew’s Expansion Machine

These two deals also need to be viewed in the context of Doeren Mayhew’s broader expansion model. After partnering with Audax Private Equity in 2024, the firm made it clear that growth through acquisitions would be part of the plan. The capital was intended to support a wider geographic footprint, stronger technology infrastructure, and broader service offerings. In other words, the firm did not take outside investment to admire it from a distance. It took it to move.

And move it did. By early 2026, Doeren Mayhew said it had completed 13 acquisitions in 2025, pushed its revenue to $240.1 million, grown headcount to more than 1,000, and moved up to No. 37 on Accounting Today’s Top 100 CPA Firms list. Those numbers help explain why the Novotny and McMurray Fox additions matter. They were not isolated events. They were part of an acceleration curve.

That growth curve also says something about management intent. Plenty of firms talk about “strategic growth” because it sounds terrific in interviews and on event badges. But strategy becomes real only when the pieces fit. Tennessee gave Doeren Mayhew a chance to build a more meaningful regional platform in a vibrant market. West Michigan gave it a chance to keep compounding scale where it already had traction. These are the kinds of decisions that suggest leadership is thinking in systems, not slogans.

What Clients Stand to Gain

For clients, the appeal of this kind of deal is usually simple: more resources without losing the local team. A business that once relied on a smaller firm for tax compliance may now gain easier access to broader advisory work, deeper audit resources, specialized industry insight, and more scalable support. That can be especially valuable for companies in construction, real estate, manufacturing, and nonprofit work, where complexity tends to grow faster than patience.

There is also a practical service benefit. As regional firms consolidate, clients increasingly want one trusted provider that can handle tax planning, attest work, operational advice, transaction support, and succession-related issues. They do not want to coordinate five outside specialists unless absolutely necessary. Acquisitions like these help create a fuller service menu, which can make the client relationship more durable and more profitable on both sides.

Of course, no acquisition guarantees a smoother client experience. Integrations can bring billing changes, new systems, unfamiliar workflows, and the occasional “Who exactly is my engagement manager now?” moment. But when the acquired team stays in place and joins a larger platform with complementary capabilities, the upside can outweigh the disruption. That is the promise Doeren Mayhew was selling, and it is a credible one when the fit is thoughtful.

What Employees and Future Recruits Will Notice

Accounting-firm M&A is not only about clients. It is also about talent. Smaller firms often face a familiar problem: talented people want meaningful career paths, better specialization, upgraded technology, and mentorship from a deeper leadership bench. Larger firms want those talented people before competitors hire them away. That is why so many acquisition announcements talk about “expanded opportunities” without even a hint of embarrassment.

In this case, the talent logic is easy to see. Employees from Novotny and McMurray Fox gained access to a broader platform and potentially wider career lanes. Doeren Mayhew gained professionals with established client relationships and market knowledge that cannot be downloaded from a training portal. For a profession still dealing with recruiting pressure and succession challenges, that exchange is valuable.

There is also signaling power in all of this. When a firm expands into specific markets repeatedly, recruits start paying attention. Candidates do not just see growth; they see movement, investment, and a place where things appear to be happening. In a profession that often struggles to look dynamic from the outside, that matters more than many firms would like to admit.

The Industry Context: Why This Headline Fits the Moment

Doeren Mayhew’s deals landed in an environment where accounting-firm M&A was already running hot. Industry reporting in 2025 described a sharp rise in private-equity-related transactions and firm combinations, while survey data showed meaningful shares of firms reporting mergers, acquisitions, and private equity investment over the prior three years. At the same time, AICPA was seeking feedback on independence questions tied to private-equity investment structures. That is a lot of change for a profession not traditionally known for behaving like a tech startup with calculators.

So the Novotny and McMurray Fox moves are noteworthy not because they were unusual, but because they were representative of the new market logic. Scale matters. Succession matters. Industry specialization matters. Geography matters. And increasingly, firms with capital and a clear thesis are moving faster than firms that still hope the old organic-growth playbook will magically reappear and rescue everyone by lunch.

Still, speed carries risk. Journal of Accountancy reporting has noted that the acquisition market remains hot, but with that heat comes professional liability, integration risk, and the challenge of maintaining culture and quality through rapid change. That is the fine print behind every triumphant expansion headline. Growth can be smart, but only if the operating model is strong enough to hold it.

Related Experience: What These Deals Feel Like After the Announcement

Here is the part that rarely makes the headline: after an acquisition is announced, the real experience begins in the ordinary moments. It begins with the first Monday morning when clients call the same number and hear a different greeting. It begins when staff log into a new portal, compare workflow systems, and quietly judge whether the new templates are brilliant or just aggressively beige. It begins when longtime clients ask a polite version of the same question: “So… what changes for me?”

In deals like Doeren Mayhew’s additions of Novotny and McMurray Fox, the answer usually works best when it is both boring and reassuring. Your people are still here. Your deadlines are still the same. Your tax return did not run away. Your audit will still happen. But behind that calm message, a lot is changing at once. Engagement teams are learning one another’s habits. Managers are mapping client books, service lines, and billing structures. Leadership is figuring out where the new expertise can create immediate value without overwhelming staff during busy season. Everyone wants the integration to feel seamless, even though seamless is usually just hard work wearing good manners.

For employees, the experience can be surprisingly energizing. People who joined a smaller local firm for its culture often worry that a larger platform will flatten everything into bureaucracy. Sometimes that fear is justified. But sometimes the opposite happens. Staff suddenly gain access to specialists they did not have before, clearer promotion tracks, larger clients, and better tools. A senior accountant who once handled a little of everything may now find a sharper lane in audit, tax planning, transaction support, outsourced accounting, or a niche industry practice. That kind of expansion can feel less like being absorbed and more like finally being plugged into a bigger circuit.

For clients, the transition tends to be judged on one thing above all: whether the relationship still feels personal. A local manufacturer in West Michigan or a construction company in Middle Tennessee does not care much about M&A theory. They care about whether their trusted advisor still picks up the phone, whether the work is accurate, and whether the expanded firm can solve tougher problems than before. If the client gets broader resources and keeps familiar faces, the deal starts to feel like an upgrade. If the client gets more forms, more confusion, and less responsiveness, the magic disappears in a hurry.

That is why the best acquisitions are not only financial events. They are trust events. They succeed when the acquiring firm respects the acquired firm’s local credibility and uses scale to support it rather than steamroll it. In that sense, the experiences surrounding Novotny and McMurray Fox are probably the real story. These firms did not simply add revenue lines to Doeren Mayhew. They added communities, habits, reputations, and working styles. Managing that blend well is what turns an acquisition from a headline into a durable win.

Final Take

Doeren Mayhew’s addition of Novotny CPA Group and McMurray Fox was not flashy for the sake of being flashy. It was a disciplined pair of moves that strengthened two markets in two different ways. In Tennessee, the firm added offices, audit depth, and sector experience that supported an already accelerating Nashville-area strategy. In West Michigan, it reinforced a regional platform with experienced professionals and deeper local trust.

More importantly, the deals showed how modern accounting-firm growth works when it is done with intention. This is not just about scale. It is about placing the right expertise in the right markets, keeping leadership close to clients, and turning acquisitions into a stronger operating platform. In a profession racing through consolidation, talent pressure, private-equity influence, and service-line expansion, that is the kind of growth story worth watching.

So yes, Doeren Mayhew added Novotny and McMurray Fox. But the bigger takeaway is this: the firm is not merely getting larger. It is becoming more deliberate about where it wants to win, how it wants to serve, and what kind of regional powerhouse it wants to be. In accounting, that may be the difference between a growth streak and an actual strategy.