Michelle (Golden) River, CPF

Michelle (Golden) River is a growth and profitability strategist and a seasoned Certified Professional Facilitator (CPF). She’s the former partner and growth leader of Top 60 accounting firm K·Coe Isom, and a 20-year industry consultant. She launched Fore LLC in 2017 to help CPAs understand and implement pricing-model changes that best serve both our evolving profession and CPA firms’ customers.

For over two decades, Michelle’s been a voice of both vision and practicality as a change agent in public accounting. With a strong background in CPA marketing, her subspecialties are pricing and positioning, including overall business strategy. Since 1994, she’s helped more than 170 firms grow and thrive.

Over the last six years, Michelle’s broken new ground in the U.S. accounting space having successfully guided seven of the nation’s Top 100 largest CPA firms (two among the top 25) through institutionalizing her up-front pricing model. To date, more than 1500 CPAs and consultants have acquired new pricing and positioning skills through her Advanced Pricing Methods® curriculum, achieving impressive results.

Michelle is recognized industry-wide for her original ideas and successful implementation. Honors include:

• Ten Most Powerful Women in Accounting in Accounting Today
• 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor
• Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting by Accounting Today
• Top 25 Thought Leaders in Public Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor
• Association for Accounting Marketing Hall of Fame

Catch some of her ideas online. Her acclaimed eight-year running practice-management blog Golden Practices is now followed by her new Fore What Its Worth blog.