Theresa Richardson Creates Connection Points to Attract Talent

Ten years ago, Theresa Richarson was at Withum Smith+Brown’s annual partners’ retreat when her then-CEO Bill Hagaman asked her to meet with him over dinner when they returned to the office. She took the meeting, of course.

“I was so nervous, not knowing what to expect. I said to him, ‘I can’t even eat or drink anything until I know what this is all about,’” Richardson remembers. Her fears were allayed when she learned the firm leadership had recognized her people and strategy skills and wanted to know if she was interested in becoming the firm’s very first chief talent officer (CTO). The role would include overseeing campus and experienced hire recruitment, human resources, learning and development, coaching, inclusion and impact as well as engagement and retention.

When Richardson became Withum’s first CTO, she was adding to a list of firsts in her twenty-eight-year Withum career. In 2021, she became the first woman on the management committee and in 2025, was the first woman on Withum’s compensation committee. “I am very humbled and honored to serve on these committees,” Richardson says.

Richardson heads up a team of nearly sixty team members internationally and has the prime directive of attracting, developing, and retaining the greatest talent, Withum’s most valuable asset. To that end, Richardson shared various connection points designed to entice potential team members. The most entertaining, are Withum’s culture videos. Coopted from NBC and professionally produced, Withum’s videos combine the Saturday Night Live-like comedy, the glitz of Broadway, and the immediacy of music videos. “We invite our team members to participate. Our videos are a glimpse into our culture,” Richardson says.

In one, a retiring CEO Bill Hagaman passes a relay baton to current CEO Patrick Walsh, poised to take the helm. The baton is then passed from scene to scene as team members dance and lip-sync to Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke.” “Getting people engaged as part of those videos talks to our culture we continue to maintain as a firm,” Richardson says.

Another connection point for attracting talent is Withum’s unique benefits package. Some of the unique benefits offered are the Staff Hardship Relief Fund and the Childcare Reimbursement benefit. While many firms offer on-site daycare, such an arrangement rarely benefits those team members working from home. To help those, Withum began offering a 25 percent reimbursement for childcare costs. Withum also kicks in a portion of summer camp tuition.

Withum’s latest addition to its benefits package is a restricted stock unit program. “Select top performing Team members are rewarded with these stock units which helps retain them, Richardson says. Available to senior manager through the partner level, team members may defer a portion of their bonus to buy another unique benefit called Shadow Stock that allows team members to share in the growth of the firm.

Team member engagement is vital to a firm’s success. As Richardson says, “The firm that figures out engagement is going to win.” She has developed a variety of strategies to engage team members, one of which is a dedicated retention and engagement strategist as well as a team of eight professional coaches whose sole job is to help team members elevate to the next level.

In the past year, her coaching team developed a program in which accountants are coached on mindset for the CPA exam. We’ve seen a lot of success already with people passing the exam as a result of them putting this program together,” Richardson says. “Similar to this, we have a lot of programs where team members can engage, lead, and innovate.”

Richardson personally engages her team using a servant leadership management style, which is focused on serving others, prioritizing growth and the wellbeing of her team members and the communities she works with. 

Twenty-eight years ago, Richardson started an accounting career at Withum. In the intervening years, she honed skills in communication, emotional intelligence, empowerment, adaptability, and mentoring skills and applied all of them to leadership. “They have all carried me into the role that I’m in now. Instead of having thousands of external clients, I now have three thousand internal clients,” she says.