Though he’s a CPA, Randy Kroll knows that a family business’s success is measured by more than money. For his work providing both financial and family dynamics guidance to business-owning families, Kroll is the 2024 winner of the Hubler Award for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Working with Family Businesses.

“He’s a multi-hitter type of person,” says Tom Hubler, founder of Minneapolis-based consultancy Hubler for Business Families and creator of the Minnesota Family Business Awards. “He brings his financial acumen as well as his emotional acumen to provide solutions to critical family business issues.” Kroll combines his ability to connect on a human level and his financial skills “in service to the client’s goals of moving forward in a positive way,” Hubler adds.

For more than three decades, Kroll worked for Twin Cities-based CPA firm Wilkerson Guthmann (which merged in 2021 with Bloomington-based Boyum Barenscheer), including 10 years as president. In 2017, he joined The Platinum Group, a Minnetonka-based business advisory firm, as an executive consultant. “I get pulled into a number of different practice areas within the firm,” Kroll says. One of his specialties is working with family businesses, work he also pursued during his CPA career. Two years ago, he earned family business consultant certification.

In consulting with family businesses at The Platinum Group, Kroll integrates discussions of the family’s dynamics into his advisory services. “Some of the things we talk about include how we encourage and work toward loving family relationships in the context of business,” he says, “and what that means from the standpoint of the communication process and the ability to go deep into the wants, desires, and needs of the individuals in the business.”

Kroll approaches this work following several key principles. One is that “family relationships are worth more than the business, and enhancing family relationships is more important than the transition process.” Another principle: “The lead generation cannot be replaced. You’re ‘replacing’ them with individuals who have unique abilities that add value and leadership to the business so that it can continue to flourish.”

Kroll tells how he helped a father and his sons plan a business succession. “They couldn’t agree on what that transition would look like,” he recalls. “We were brought in to mediate a dialogue.” In Kroll’s practice, open communication between generations is essential, as is allowing the next generation to lead the business in its own way.

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