---
title: Building M&A Brand Equity Transfer Playbook | RobinetteCMO Case Study
description: Discover how Justin Robinette at RobinetteCM integrated Lurie LLP through strategic marketing, talent retention, and a sustainable M&A playbook, resulting in significant growth and brand equity transfer.
---

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**Case Study**

# Building the M&A brand equity transfer playbook for a top-20 firm's entry into a new market

![EisnerAmper healthcare page on laptop and phone, with the integrated healthcare services wheel](https://www.robinetteadvisory.com/hs-fs/hubfs/eisneramper-healthcare-marketing-case-study-results-devices.webp?width=1700&height=1175&name=eisneramper-healthcare-marketing-case-study-results-devices.webp)

Results · EisnerAmper

2022–2024

- **M&A**playbook createdEnd-to-end marketing, PR and partner collaboration
- **10+**niche partners alignedOne healthcare go-to-market uniting national leaders behind a full advisory suite
- **#1**in year-one integration growthMinneapolis partners became EisnerAmper’s fastest‑growing location within a year

## The mandate

In August 2022, Lurie LLP's 200-plus professionals joined [EisnerAmper](https://tcbmag.com/lurie-to-merge-with-new-york-accounting-firm/), which was part of its growth strategy by a [top-20 national firm then approaching $500M in annual revenue to acquire top regional firms across the US through one of the largest private equity investments beginning in 2021](https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-to-merge-in-raich-ende-malter). Justin, with his Minneapolis-based marketing team, led the external marketing campaign from Lurie's side of the transaction — before he had access to EisnerAmper's own marketing resources or team capabilities — was tasked with putting together and running the marketing strategy withing the acquired firm's market. This included PR and journalist outreach, coaching Managing Partner Beth Kieffer Leonard through media interviews, directing ad design, copywriting, and media buying - among many other duties. EisnerAmper's corporate marketing team held a consult-and-approve role; Lurie's team, under Justin, ran strategy and execution.

There was real brand equity at stake. Lurie, under Justin’s marketing leadership and at the direction of [Managing Partner Beth Kieffer Leonard](https://tcbmag.com/honors/beth-kieffer-leonard/), had invested considerable time and resources into building a prominent advisory brand in the Twin Cities to support its partner’s market visibility.

### Brand equity transfer

Lurie’s brand, reputation, and revenue had soared in recent years. Lurie and its partners had earned numerous PR recognitions in 2021-2022, including [Most Admired CEO](https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2021/09/08/2021-most-admired-ceos-beth-kieffer-leonard-lurie.html), [40 Under 40](https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2022/03/07/2022-40-under-40-matt-brown-lurie.html), [Women In Business](https://accountingmoveproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/2022-MOVE-Project-final-release.pdf), [Notable Women in Tech](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/news/kate-siegrist-named-one-of-twin-cities-business-2022-notable-women-in-technology-1022/), [Notable Military Veteran Executives](https://tcbmag.com/notable/sean-linton/), [Best of the Best Firms](https://insidepublicaccounting.com/2022/08/30/inside-public-accounting-unveils-the-2022-ipa-best-of-the-best-accounting-firms/), [Regional Leader](https://www.accountingtoday.com/report/the-top-100-firms-and-regional-leaders-2022), [Best of Accounting Client Satisfaction](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/news/lurie-to-join-eisneramper-news-0822/), [2022 TCB Best of Business Winner for Accounting](https://tcbmag.com/2022-best-of-business/#FinancialServices), [Five Star Wealth Manager](https://tcbmag.com/notable/michele-martin/) – and more. And, worth mentioning, [Justin Robinette was also recognized as a 2022 Notable Leaders in Marketing](https://tcbmag.com/notable/justin-robinette/) that year.

The mandate was to transfer all that earned media exposure, community trust, goodwill, and visible expertise from the Lurie brand to the EisnerAmper brand – which was an unknown brand entity within the Twin Cities business market at the time. In addition, the challenge of a New York-based firm entering the Midwest marketplace needed the hometown connection and credibility for future marketing goals to leverage and maximize Lurie’s brand equity. Surely, EisnerAmper’s reputation was solid and the firm brought greatly expanded expertise to Lurie’s clients and network. But the marketing needed to make the connection clear for the business community.

### Talent retention

In addition, talent retention is consistently identified as [the single biggest determinant of a merger's success](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/m-and-a/our-insights/talent-retention-and-selection-in-m-and-a) — ahead of deal synergies or valuation — and the window for a firm to control its own narrative during a transaction is short and highly visible to competitors looking to poach unsettled talent.

### Tell our story, first

In a market as competitive as the Twin Cities, that made the marketing function's job specific: communicate Lurie's brand equity and community standing clearly, and on our own terms, before anyone else could reframe it. Our competition would certainly try to exploit this window to try and create a wedge with high-profile clients and high-caliber talent. 

## The approach

### **Ran the announcement, not just supported it**

Justin's team handled the full external campaign around the merger — PR, journalist relationships, executive media prep, creative, and media buying — resulting in coverage across [Twin Cities Business](https://tcbmag.com/lurie-to-merge-with-new-york-accounting-firm/), [Accounting Today](https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-to-merge-in-lurie), [PR Newswire](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper-301605832.html), and [CPA Practice Advisor](https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/2022/08/15/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper/69476/) before the deal had even closed.

### **Turned the campaign into a system**

The team documented the full approach behind that work — the copywriting and design standards, the PR and journalist outreach process, and the project management structure used to run it. That documentation became the template EisnerAmper's marketing organization drew on for the acquisition announcements and local business-journal media pushes that followed in subsequent deals.

### **Unified a fragmented practice**

Healthcare at the Minneapolis office had grown up as a set of separately marketed service lines. At the direction of the Minneapolis healthcare partners, Justin led months of cross-practice working sessions to bring those lines together around one collective go-to-market model — the integrated structure now shown as [the healthcare wheel](https://www.eisneramper.com/industries/healthcare/) — replacing a services-led approach with an offering-led one.

### **Carried the technical bench through the transition**

Lurie's technology-consulting group — including [Kate Siegrist](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/professional-directory/kate-siegrist/) and [Anna Fowler](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/hidden-bios/anna-fowler/) — moved into EisnerAmper as its national SOC and HITRUST practice under Justin's marketing remit, rather than getting absorbed and diluted into a larger generalist function.

## The result

Once the deal closed, Justin moved into EisnerAmper's matrixed marketing structure, taking national responsibility across three lanes at once: the Healthcare industry group, the SOC / Cybersecurity Advisory service line (including HITRUST), and the Minneapolis market — later expanding to Chicago once EisnerAmper acquired a firm there. It's worth naming plainly what that structure means: a marketer in this role doesn't own a single P&L. They own outcomes across an industry, a service line, and a geography simultaneously, in constant coordination with the partners who own each axis of the matrix.

Minneapolis was the first expansion for the Upper Midwest / Great Lakes region. It also proved to be one of the most successful acquisitions in terms of revenue growth and client expansion. Thus, the marketing M&A playbook we created became one important piece of the larger M&A playbook, as was widely praised (internally) at the time amongst EisnerAmper’s leadership.

An important caveat: Justin worked with an exceptional team and each acquisition that followed Lurie’s brought with it talented professionals from the acquisition. Undoubtedly the playbook improved over time. The key take way though is a **compounding marketing operation** and systems-based approach makes it possible for new professionals to onboard quickly, implement, and improve upon the foundation. [As of March 2026](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/eisneramper-announces-continuation-vehicle-transaction-with-towerbrook-302725048.html), EisnerAmper has completed 27 acquisitions and has grown to become the 13th largest accounting firm in the US, with more than $1.2 billion in revenue.

### **Transferred marketing contributions that have compounded value over time:**

- [The healthcare wheel's](https://www.eisneramper.com/industries/healthcare/) integrated model is still live on EisnerAmper's national site today, more than two years after Justin's departure and under a different healthcare industry leader — a structural change to how the firm goes to market that outlasted the person who built the partner consensus behind it.
- The SOC/HITRUST practice built from Lurie's technology-consulting bench still operates nationally under EisnerAmper, with current staff bios for [Kate Siegrist](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/professional-directory/kate-siegrist/) and [Anna Fowler](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/hidden-bios/anna-fowler/) crediting their Lurie origin directly.
- The merger campaign generated positive high-profile coverage across four independent outlets — [Twin Cities Business](https://tcbmag.com/lurie-to-merge-with-new-york-accounting-firm/), [Accounting Today](https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-to-merge-in-lurie), [PR Newswire](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper-301605832.html), and [CPA Practice Advisor](https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/2022/08/15/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper/69476/) — the kind of trade and business press a firm this size doesn't get without a team running it deliberately.
- The documentation from that campaign became the reusable template for EisnerAmper's subsequent acquisition announcements, turning a one-time push into a repeatable system — the clearest single proof point of Transfer in this case study: not a result Justin produced once, but a process the firm still runs without him.

---

## Sources

Twin Cities Business, ["Lurie to Merge with New York Accounting Firm"](https://tcbmag.com/lurie-to-merge-with-new-york-accounting-firm/) (Aug 15, 2022); PR Newswire, ["Lurie to Join Forces with EisnerAmper"](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper-301605832.html) (Aug 15, 2022); Accounting Today, ["EisnerAmper to Merge in Lurie"](https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-to-merge-in-lurie) (Aug 2022); CPA Practice Advisor, ["Lurie to Join Forces with EisnerAmper"](https://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/2022/08/15/lurie-to-join-forces-with-eisneramper/69476/) (Aug 15, 2022); EisnerAmper, [Healthcare industry page](https://www.eisneramper.com/industries/healthcare/) (accessed Sept 2026); EisnerAmper professional bios for [Kate Siegrist](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/professional-directory/kate-siegrist/) and [Anna Fowler](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/hidden-bios/anna-fowler/) (accessed Sept 2026); EisnerAmper, ["Kate Siegrist Named One of Twin Cities Business' 2022 Notable Women in Technology"](https://www.eisneramper.com/about-us/news/kate-siegrist-named-one-of-twin-cities-business-2022-notable-women-in-technology-1022/) (Apr 6, 2022); Matt [Brown Named 40 Under 40](https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2022/03/07/2022-40-under-40-matt-brown-lurie.html), Twin Cities Business Journals, Accounting Today, [2022 revenue figure](https://www.accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-to-merge-in-raich-ende-malter) and [2024 Top 100 ranking / $849M revenue figure](https://accountingtoday.com/news/eisneramper-adds-krost-cpas); McKinsey & Company, ["Talent Retention and Selection in M&A"](https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/m-and-a/our-insights/talent-retention-and-selection-in-m-and-a) (cited for the general M&A risk finding, not as a claim specific to this deal). Role scope (national lead for Healthcare, SOC, and the Minneapolis/Chicago market) is stated as Justin's job responsibility and is not independently verifiable via public sources. 

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