Lara Abrash, CPA, Chair Of Deloitte, Brings Vulnerability, Empathy To Her Clients

Lara Abrash, CPA

Firm: Deloitte US

Title: Chair of the Board

Forbes List: America’s Top 200 CPAs 2025

Home to the three top stock exchanges in the world, New York City is the epicenter of the business universe—and it is there, leading the world’s largest CPA firm, that Lara Abrash has risen to the top of her profession by adhering to the adage: love what you do, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.

Today, this self-declared reader of 11 newspapers every morning is the chair of the U.S. accounting firm, Deloitte. But more than three decades ago, Abrash was a student at Baruch College, pursuing her masters in business administration and taking the “really long” train ride from Long Island to New York City to work the rest of the day at a small accounting firm. “I’d be doing my homework in Penn Station around 9:00 or 10:00 at night at the Penn Station bar,” she recalls. In truth, she was chasing a love for accounting that she says she felt the very first time she balanced a set of books—back in middle school.

Today, Abrash has been recognized by Accounting Today as one of the Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting, by the National Association of Black Accountants as CEO of the Year, and by CPA Practice Advisor and the AICPA as one of the Most Powerful Women in Accounting. And that leadership extends to her community, through work with the Jackie Robinson Foundation, and as a member of the Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) Governing Board and a Trustee on the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) Board.

“CPAs have a demonstrated track record of strategic insight and ethical leadership in financial integrity, risk management, and data quality,” Abrash says. “By harnessing their unique skills and perspectives, I’m confident CPAs will continue to rise to the challenge, staying at the forefront of change and safeguarding the integrity of financial reporting in an increasingly complex and data-driven world.”

Abrash—a mother, as well—says she brings vulnerability, empathy and compassion to her work with clients. To wit: when she spoke at the commencement at the Wharton School, she told the grads of arguably the top finance school in America that she always had the wind at her back from her mom, and advised the grads, in closing, to “call your mom.”

Beyond that, Abrash aims to provide her clients and their organizations with solid foundations for growth—befitting a person who has worked at the same firm for over 30 years. “People sort of get themselves very focused on, ‘I want this job,’” says Abrash, who has held no fewer than seven different positions on her way to the top of the Deloitte ladder. “I try to think about goals now around what are the experiences that I may want to have…people I want to work with, things I want to learn, places I want to go.”

For the full list of America’s Top 200 CPAs, click here.