1129: Turning Transactions into Strategy | Laura LaPeer, CFO, UHY

On her first day as CFO of UHY, Laura LaPeer asked a simple question: “Do you guys do Copilot?” She had grown accustomed to using Microsoft’s AI assistant for tasks ranging from summarizing documents to creating slides, and she wanted it in place immediately. The request, she tells us, reflected both her pragmatism and her view that technology should be leveraged quickly, but carefully, to support higher-value work. That same instinct—to look beyond the surface of a task—has shaped her career. At an earlier company, LaPeer noticed that procurement and treasury were being handled transactionally. Purchase orders were checked for compliance, and cash was managed cyclically. By zooming out, she recognized the chance to turn these into strategic functions: evaluating vendor risks, aligning relationships with business goals, and putting idle cash to work. This shift, she tells us, allowed finance to deliver tangible impact. Her time at ProQuest, where she witnessed growth through M&A, gave her a business lens she later carried into her CFO role at Plante Moran. Now at UHY, she applies the same perspective. With Summit Partners as a new investor, the firm is targeting $1 billion in revenue within five years, LaPeer tells us. Growth will come through both acquisitions and services such as outsourced accounting, valuation, and state and local tax. To get there, she emphasizes unity. “One UHY,” she says, requires integrating regional groups, building the bench, and ensuring technology like Workday delivers consistent, firm-wide insights.