Customer Stories — How Cooper Parry Aims to Become the UK’s Fifth Biggest Accounting Firm by Rewriting the Sales Playbook
“Without Beauhurst, we simply couldn’t grow at the rate we’re growing.”
Sal Mingoia
Partner at Cooper Parry
Customer overview
Over the last decade, Cooper Parry has positioned itself as a modern, growth-focused alternative to traditional accountancy firms, combining specialist sector expertise with a strong emphasis on technology, data, and commercial insight.
“We’ve got very clear growth ambitions, and to achieve them, you need more than good people. You need data and systems that allow you to scale properly.”
We recently sat down with Sal Mingoia, Partner at Cooper Parry, to discuss their growth ambitions.
Cooper Parry is an accountancy and advisory firm focused on serving mid-market businesses. The firm provides audit, tax, advisory, digital, legal and wealth services to clients across the UK and Ireland, working with businesses at key moments in their growth — from investment and acquisition through to international expansion.
Over the past five years, Cooper Parry has increased turnover from £30m to nearly ten times that amount and has set a clear ambition to become the fifth-largest accountancy firm in the UK, with a goal of reaching £1b in revenue.
As part of this, Cooper Parry deliberately moved away from traditional, relationship-led origination and rebuilt its go-to-market approach around data, intelligence and insight. While partners were initially sceptical about shifting pitches away from senior, relationship-heavy sellers, the data quickly validated the model and demonstrated stronger outcomes.
At the centre of that approach sits a data-led go-to-market model — with Beauhurst playing a major role. An approach that is credited as a significant reason not only for growth but also a key factor in the investment it has received.
What Beauhurst delivered
Research time per originator reduced from around 35% to 5%
Data-driven origination strategy delivers up to 10x more revenue per person vs network driven approach
Average audit fees have increased by 5x
A 20% increase in team size resulted in a 75% increase in results
The challenge
Scaling origination without scaling headcount
As a PE-backed firm, Cooper Parry needed to grow organically at pace while maintaining control over quality, consistency and cost.
“When you’re trying to grow quickly, you can’t afford to have people spending a third of their time just figuring out who to talk to.”
The solution
Beauhurst as the starting point
Beauhurst became the first place Cooper Parry teams looked when identifying new prospects. Rather than relying on ad hoc research, teams could now see growth signals — including fundraising, acquisitions and ownership changes — in one place, updated continuously.
Beauhurst gives us access to live growth signals meaning teams can articulate the right value to the right target at the right time, improving relevance and conversion — way before our competition. This helps us show up, close deals and build stronger client relationships.
“Beauhurst is our starting point. It’s where we go first when we’re looking at markets, sectors, or individual businesses,” Sal said.
By integrating Beauhurst into its CRM via the Beauhurst API, Cooper Parry was able to enrich existing records and create a consistent, trusted view of the UK’s business landscape.
“Having Beauhurst integrated into our CRM means we’re all working from the same data. That consistency is really important at scale.”
Sal went on to tell us: “The fact that Beauhurst captures things that never make it into the public domain is incredibly valuable for us.”
The results
From intuition to evidence-led sales
With Beauhurst embedded into day-to-day workflows, Cooper Parry’s approach to origination became more structured and more repeatable.
Executives now lead the engaging of major clients and are responsible for selling significantly larger deals, driving up average audit fees by 5x. The move to data-led origination has also influenced hiring decisions, with Cooper Parry prioritising data-literate operators over traditional industry sellers. In one case, an executive hire delivered 10x the revenue in a single year compared to a senior, network-led industry hire.
“It allows us to have much more relevant conversations, because we actually understand what’s happening in that business before we pick up the phone.”
Rather than relying on generic outreach, teams can time conversations around real events and changes. Sal explained, “Sales is about articulating value at the right time. The data helps us get that timing right.”
Measurable gains in productivity and output
The shift to a data-led model has delivered clear operational benefits. “We cut research time from around 35% of an originator’s week to about 5% using Beauhurst,” Sal told us.
“What used to take days now takes minutes. That’s had a huge impact on how productive people are.”
With less time spent on research, individual output has increased significantly — by at least 30%, and in some teams, closer to 50%. This meant growth could be driven through better use of data and insight, rather than continually adding headcount. Sal explained, “We’d have needed a team 30–50% bigger without Beauhurst — it’s a huge cost saving.”
The benefits of using Beauhurst for productivity and output:
- A relatively small increase in headcount has driven disproportionate growth
- A 20% increase in team size resulted in a 75% increase in output
- Meetings and opportunities both increased by around 75% year-on-year
Better conversations, not just more of them
Beauhurst’s value extends beyond initial outreach. The data is also used to support higher-quality conversations with prospects and clients. “Being able to benchmark businesses properly changes the nature of the conversation. It removes a lot of subjectivity,” Sal explained.
By grounding discussions in evidence, Cooper Parry teams can demonstrate value more clearly and earlier in the relationship.
Saved searches, intelligence and insight have effectively become the firm’s new “black book” — replacing informal networks with a scalable, shared source of truth.
Key takeaways
How Beauhurst supports Cooper Parry’s growth
Significantly higher output per person
Beauhurst has increased output per individual by 30–50%, allowing Cooper Parry to generate far more activity and opportunity without increasing pressure on teams.
Executive data-driven approach ramps revenue
More junior data-driven executives proven to deliver up to 10x more revenue than much more senior network driver sales leaders.
Dramatic reduction in research time
Research time per originator has fallen from around 35% of the working week to about 5%, freeing teams to focus on engagement and value creation.
Scalable growth without proportional headcount increases
Cooper Parry estimates it would need a 30–50% larger team to achieve the same level of output without Beauhurst, delivering substantial cost savings.
Faster, more accurate targeting
Beauhurst enables teams to identify, prioritise and stay on top of high-value targets quickly — something that would not be possible at scale using manual research.
More effective, better-timed conversations
Access to live growth signals allows teams to articulate the right value to the right target at the right time, improving relevance and conversion.
A single, trusted day-to-day BD platform
Beauhurst acts as Cooper Parry’s core business development engine, supporting targeting, outreach and opportunity creation across the firm.
Sustained organic growth at pace
By underpinning origination with reliable, up-to-date data, Beauhurst enables Cooper Parry to grow faster and more predictably than would otherwise be possible.
A long-term partner for growth
Sal Mingoia has used Beauhurst for close to ten years across multiple businesses, and views it as a long-term partner rather than a tactical tool.
“As we’ve grown, Beauhurst has grown with us. That’s been really important.”
As the firm expands into new markets, including Ireland, access to consistent, high-quality data remains critical. “Without Beauhurst, we simply couldn’t grow at the rate we’re growing.”
About Cooper Parry
The rebels of accountancy
Having recently celebrated its 175th anniversary, Cooper Parry (CP) is one of the UK’s fastest-growing, culturally driven and rebellious firms. They’re creating the next-gen professional service group, with award-winning teams based in stunning superhub workspaces across the UK and Ireland: London, Midlands (E&W), Manchester, Leeds, Thames Valley, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They consistently deliver big firm capacity with boutique energy.
Fuelled by M&A and strengthened by culture, they support like-minded entrepreneurial businesses across the UK and overseas, providing tech-enabled services covering audit, tax, innovation, tech & high growth, outsourced financial services, law, deals (corporate finance, transaction services and tax) and wealth management.
The UK’s largest UK accountancy firm to attain B Corp status, CP’s headcount is fast approaching 2000 people (including 150+ Partners) and, for the past seven years, they’ve featured in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For (including #1 Accountancy firm to work for in the UK).
Amongst numerous accolades, they have been #1 in Accountancy Age’s Mid-tier Power Index (2022) and in the Top 40 Global Inspiring Workplaces list (2024) as well as Midlands Insider “Deal of the Year (£50m+)” Winner and Best Accountancy Firm at the Sustainable Times RISE awards.
In December 2024, CP’s growth was further accelerated by partnering with New York-based Lee Equity Partners. The firm’s turnover is now north of £250m+, aiming for £600m by 2028.
In two and a half years, the firm has now completed twenty deals, including the acquisition of Haines Watts London and its associated audit and advisory businesses across the South-East, Thames Valley and the Midlands, UHY Manchester, as well as London-based Cloud Orca, the fast-growing Salesforce consultancy, award-winning NetSuite consultancies, MacroFin and 3RP.
Most recently, Cooper Parry has acquired:
- Market leading management advisory firm, Liberty Corporate Finance
- Northern Ireland market-leading accountancy firm, Cavanagh Kelly
- Leading mid-market debt advisory firm, Fellwood Advisory
- Cyber security specialists, URM Consulting Services
- Scotland-based market disrupter, Hutcheon Mearns
- Digital Transformation consultancy, embracent
- South-West London Financial planners, Gem & Co.
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