Journey to OAK Advisors CPAs
OAK Advisors CPAs is a firm dedicated to helping business owners achieve and prosper through services that simplify the complex, but to get to that point, we had to go through a journey to start OAK in the first place. This is a story about that journey from the perspective of our partners, Ash Abuesheh and Omar Kasani.
Ash’s Beginnings
Most kids don’t dream of becoming accountants or don’t even know what an accountant is. That was definitely the case for me. However, by the time I reached college, I knew that becoming a CPA would lead to a good career, and I decided to major in accounting. My goal from that day forward was to become an auditor and audit partner in one of the big U.S. firms.
In my career, I worked with large firms like Grant Thornton while I was overseas. After immigrating to the US, I worked for some regional firms and then a global firm - RSM. Like many others, I witnessed significant changes in the market as a result of COVID, including dramatic shortages in employees and employers in ways that failed to satisfy the market. Everyone was feeling the pinch. It was during this time with RSM that I started thinking about establishing my own firm. I wanted to achieve better work-life balance, reduce my stress, and improve reachability for my clients. With larger firms, things can get busy, and it can be more difficult for clients to reach their CPAs.
Omar’s Beginnings
Before I was the tax partner for OAK Advisors, I started my career overseas in the “Big Four” as an auditor 25 years ago. I worked with Deloitte for 3 years and then moved to the U.S. and became a CPA. After working in the industry for a few years with non-public companies, I decided to build my own tax practice. I’ve been in Houston for about 18 years.
“When You Know, You Know”
While Ash was thinking about starting a firm, he met who would become his future partner.
You know how they say, “When you know, you know”? That’s how it was with us. We met through a mutual connection. Ash was in the limbo period of deciding whether to keep working for a firm or start his own business. After our mutual connection provided Ash with strong encouragement to introduce himself to Omar, we both got the feeling we needed to talk more.
Omar had established a firm 18 years ago specializing in tax and consultation. We met and discussed how we could marry his practice with my experience in audit. It only took about a day for us to decide to establish our firm as an LLC. Within the first 2 months, we attained 5 audit and assurance engagements, which showed us that there is a demand in the market for what we have to offer. OAK Advisors was built to offer tax, audit & assurance, and advisory services for small to medium-sized businesses.
Omar knows the Houston market and has established a lot of trust in the community. Our partnership started with a good feeling, and it’s Omar’s spirit of generosity and trust that has made OAK Advisors such a great collaboration from the very first day.
Our Goal With OAK Advisors CPAs
Between the two of us, we share the same goal. Of course, who doesn’t want to become a rich and generous philanthropist? But our goals go deeper than that. We want to offer our clients high-quality, above-average service. It’s why we’re billing ourselves as the most reachable firm, because we want to be there for our clients in a way that is hard to find these days. We also want to simplify complicated concepts, a problem that plagues the accounting and tax world. Instead of being worried about Rev Rec ASC 606 and ASC 842 Lease standards, clients can simplify their path to reaching their business goals, making it easier to prosper.
Our Current and Future Focus
We’re currently focused on hiring, scaling, and growing - creating prosperity together with our clients. In the future, we want to be a playmaker in the environment. We strive to be your trusted advisors, not just in the Texas market, but in the greater U.S. market as well.
Our plan to scale starts with integrity and simplicity at our base. We formed our partnership on integrity and a mutual agreement of equity and everything has been built out from there. We both enjoy keeping things simple where we can. Omar, for example, is unflappable and always finds a path forward. He knows how to navigate complex tax issues with confidence. Whether it’s an issue presented by a client or a request from the IRS, he approaches problems with positivity and finds a way to break things down into manageable steps.
As we grow, expect to see additional services appear on our site. If you’re a business owner looking for a certain kind of support, please reach out. Requests will shape what our firm focuses on in the coming years.
That takes us to the present day. We look forward to meeting you wherever you are on your journey. Learn more about joining us by checking out our services and contacting us today!