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March 4, 2024 2024 Power 50

2024 Power 50: 40. Drew Andrews

PHOTO | CONTRIBUTED Drew Andrews is the managing partner and CEO of Hartford accounting and consulting firm Whittlesey.
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How do you know you run a well-respected midsize CPA firm? You get constant calls from smaller firms looking for a merger or to be acquired.

Those calls come to Drew Andrews, who runs Hartford-based accounting and consulting firm Whittlesey, with about 160 employees.

It’s a position he’s held since 2008. Andrews is well-known in Hartford’s business community and a major backer of the city, having led the relocation of his firm to downtown in 2013.

Since that time, he’s helped grow Whittlesey through mergers and acquisitions into a regional player.

The latest deal was in December 2021, when Whittlesey announced that it absorbed Bova, Harrington & Associates, a CPA and financial consulting business in Northampton, Massachusetts. Whittlesey also has an office in Holyoke.

As managing partner and CEO, he oversees the firm’s business operations and provides internal leadership.

Find out who else is in the 2024 Power 50.

Andrews has been working to address perhaps his industry’s biggest challenge: a workforce shortage. Last year, he hired Whittlesey’s first ever full-time recruiter, whose main focus is to help bring in new talent.

He’s also preparing for what he expects to be explosive growth in the use of artificial intelligence over the next three to five years.

“I can’t even fathom where we’re going,” he told the HBJ in October, when describing the impact AI will have on the accounting industry.

Andrews is a graduate of Bryant University and a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and Connecticut Society of Certified Public Accountants.

He is also an active philanthropist and has held leadership positions with local nonprofits.

Find out who else is in the 2024 Power 50.

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