Scaling New Heights® 2026: Bold Strategies for our Strange New World

The theme for Scaling New Heights 2026, "Strange New World' was announced last month at the Scaling New Heights 2025 conference. The content for next year will go beyond informing you about upcoming changes by equipping you to respond proactively, and prepare intentionally. Simply put, at Scaling New Heights 2026, accounting professionals will take on big changes and learn how to succeed in our rapidly changing world.

The accounting profession is starting to feel a bit “strange.” Artificial intelligence, worker shortages, and the introduction of private equity are all making big impacts. Scaling New Heights 2026 is a place where accountants, bookkeepers, and practice leaders will address these and other changes.

A timely theme: turning disruption into opportunity

The 2026 theme tackles four major issues affecting accounting today:

Mergers and acquisitions: Driven by trillions of dollars of private equity, accounting firms and CAS practices are consolidating at unprecedented levels and structuring the ownership of these consolidated entities differently than the traditional partnership model.

Staffing shortages: The accounting profession is facing an historic staffing crisis caused by a shortfall of college graduates seeking the profession, an increasingly complicated learning curve among new workers, and a mass “retire-off” from partners and sole practitioners.

Artificial intelligence: Artificial Intelligence is experiencing exponential growth ability and reach and will have a revolutionary impact on the type of work accounting professionals will perform in the near future.

Scaled competition: New, enterprise-level companies from outside the profession have entered the competitive landscape (e.g., Pilot) or have expanded the types of services they offer to include advisory (e.g., H&R Block).

True to the conference’s brand and nature, many sessions will also focus on a wider range of practice goals and technical training, including pricing, technology exploration, leadership strategies, marketing, sales strategies…and more, all revolving around Woodard’s Ideal Practice Model™ - designed to equip practices in the areas of brand, technology, processes, teams, client engagement structures, and services.

Featured futurists and thought leaders

Two well-known experts will speak at Scaling New Heights 2026:

Dr. Daniel Susskind

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Dr. Daniel Susskind is a bestselling author and Research Professor in Economics at King’s College London, with affiliations at Oxford and Stanford. He explores the future of work and society in the age of technological advancement, especially artificial intelligence (AI).

Susskind’s works, including A World Without Work and The Future of the Professions (co-authored), offer optimistic yet pragmatic blueprints for adapting to a world reshaped by AI.

April Rinne

April-Rinne April Rinne – change navigator, speaker, investor, author, and adventurer. Her work and travels in more than 100 countries have given her a front-row seat to a world in flux, as well as a world of wisdom to navigate the unknown. April, ranked one of the 50 Leading Female Futurists by Forbes, is a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum, a member of the Silicon Guild and Thinkers50 Radar, a Fulbright Scholar, and the author of the international bestseller Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change.

Transparent pricing and inclusive membership

Even with rising prices in many areas, Scaling New Heights 2026’s price will remain the same as the 2025 event, $1095 for a standard registration and $1,495 for a Plus registration.

Continuing the mission of transformation

Scaling New Heights is more than just a conference. It is the cornerstone of Woodard’s mission to empower business advisors to enrich their business clients. The event provides resources, education, and access to a wide range of technologies so accountants, bookkeepers, tax preparers and other business advisors can advance their practices and have a higher impact on their clients.