ContactKassi Rushing, APR
The future does not build itself. Leadership matters.
Strategist · Speaker · Facilitator
Strategic Direction. Human Leadership.
Helping leaders build organizations designed to win in the future.
For more than 25 years, Kassi has helped organizations navigate growth, leadership, culture, and change. She builds places people want to work and leadership teams capable of carrying organizations into the future.
She partners with CEOs, managing partners, executive teams, finance leaders, and boards across the United States to clarify long-term direction, translate complexity into actionable strategy, and build organizations designed to win in the future of the profession.
As founder of Kassi Rushing Consulting, Kassi specializes in strategic vision development and multi-year roadmap creation for public accounting firms and finance teams. She is known for helping leaders move beyond incremental planning and into bold, future-focused strategy that aligns business model decisions, talent strategy, succession planning, technology adoption, and cultural architecture around a shared and compelling direction.
The work
Business strategy. People strategy. The future of work.
Kassi’s work sits at the intersection of all three.
- Strategic planning and executive team facilitation
- Leadership and partner development
- Organizational alignment and accountability
- Culture and employee experience strategy
- Succession and future workforce readiness
- Human leadership in an AI-enabled world
- Trust, communication, and change adoption
Across the profession
From firm leadership to profession-level strategy.
Kassi works as a strategic partner with the AICPA-CIMA and their Business Learning Institute. She was the lead architect and master facilitator for the Association’s global RISE 2040 visioning work and advises on the Profession Ready Initiative.
As a teacher and trainer, Kassi specializes in the future-ready skills necessary for the profession’s relevance.
Today, Kassi has worked with firms and finance teams across the profession, facilitated thousands of leaders through strategic planning processes and leadership academies, and been engaged by organizations ranging from small, local firms to the Big Four.
Her background in communication strategy, internal messaging, and employer brand development remains one of her greatest strengths. Kassi believes the best strategies fail without clarity, alignment, and belief, and that transformation only happens when people understand both the vision and their role in bringing it to life.
Experience and credentials
Grounded in the realities of leading change.
Before launching her consulting practice in 2020, Kassi spent more than a decade inside a Top 50 public accounting firm (which grew to a Top 25 firm) as Director of People, Growth & Engagement. She advised the managing partner, board of directors, and executive leadership team on culture strategy, leadership pipelines, succession readiness, and firmwide change initiatives.
Chief of StaffKRC Leadership
Marla Saxton
Chief of Staff
Strategic judgment. Operational leadership. Meaningful progress.
Marla Saxton is an experienced strategy and operations leader who serves as Chief of Staff at Kassi Rushing Consulting. She works alongside Kassi across the direction and day-to-day leadership of the firm, bringing an informed perspective to strategic decisions, client engagements, and business priorities.
Marla has built her career within the accounting profession and professional services organizations, leading complex, cross-functional work and advising leaders navigating competing priorities and organizational change. She is known for seeing connections across an organization, bringing clarity to complexity, and helping leaders make thoughtful decisions that produce meaningful progress.
Marla and Kassi’s working relationship began in 2013, when Marla first entered the accounting profession. Their partnership has continued across roles, organizations, and seasons of professional development. Built over more than a decade, that shared history allows them to challenge one another’s thinking, recognize opportunities quickly, and work from a level of trust and understanding that strengthens both KRC and its client work.
As Chief of Staff, Marla brings a strategic lens and strong operational judgment to every part of the business. She helps shape long-term priorities while guiding the firm’s day-to-day work, strengthens alignment across engagements, supports key relationships, and helps ensure KRC operates with the same clarity and intentionality it helps clients build within their own organizations.
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