Wipfli’s CFO combines enterprise transformation experience, disciplined financial leadership and a collaborative approach to help position the firm for sustainable growth.
Kristy Britt has built her career by helping organizations understand where they are headed — and what it will take to get there. As Wipfli’s chief financial officer, she brings more than two decades of experience across financial strategy, operations, mergers and acquisitions, and enterprise transformation. Just as important, she brings a leadership style grounded in curiosity, trust and accountability.
Britt’s role extends beyond reporting financial results. She sees finance as a strategic partner — one that gives leaders a clear view of emerging opportunities, investment needs and potential risks. That forward-looking perspective will help Wipfli continue to scale while preserving the client relationships and culture that distinguish the firm.
Transformation expertise built at scale
Britt developed her breadth of experience during a 24-year career at Thomson Reuters, where she advanced from financial analyst to a CFO-level executive. Across 17 roles, multiple locations and diverse business units, she repeatedly stepped into unfamiliar environments, learned the business quickly and helped teams navigate change.
One of her most consequential assignments took her to Switzerland, where she led finance for the company’s operations and technology organization and helped direct a major enterprise transformation. The program called for a $600 million investment designed to generate $750 million in recurring expense savings and two additional points of growth.
With 27 workstreams and significant public visibility, the initiative demanded disciplined planning, cross-functional alignment and an ability to translate strategy into measurable results. “There was a ton of external visibility to all the work we were doing,” Britt said. “It changed the organization.”
That experience sharpened skills that are central to Britt’s work at Wipfli: Connecting investments to business outcomes, creating operating discipline and guiding complex organizations through change without losing sight of customers or people.
Turning financial insight into a “headlights view”
At Wipfli, Britt is focused on strengthening the infrastructure, systems and decision-making practices that can support the firm’s next phase of growth. For her, the value of finance is providing a “headlights view,” that is, helping leaders see what is ahead, determine where to invest and put the right people, processes and priorities in place.
Her approach balances consistency with flexibility. Britt understands that growth requires greater scale and standardization, but she also recognizes that effective solutions must reflect how different parts of a business operate. Rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all model, she emphasizes thoughtful alignment, creating enough consistency to improve performance while protecting the agility, culture and client focus that make the organization successful.
“How do you deliver top-line growth while creating efficiencies and maintaining the culture at the same time?” Britt added.
Leadership grounded in trust and accountability
Britt pairs analytical rigor with an inclusive leadership style. She listens first, asks questions and develops hypotheses before moving to action. She sets clear goals, trusts people to lead within their areas of expertise and remains close enough to remove obstacles and provide support.
“I lean on my teams to lead,” Britt said. “I provide backup and support, and I help remove the blockers they’re seeing.”
This combination of clarity and empowerment helps teams move with confidence. It also reflects Britt’s belief that the people closest to the work often have the strongest view of where opportunities exist. By connecting those insights to enterprise priorities, she helps turn financial strategy into coordinated action.
Her experience at Osaic, a private equity-backed wealth management company, further strengthened her ability to enter a new industry, identify its critical value drivers and help lead through a significant transaction. That adaptability complements her deep finance expertise and gives her a broad perspective on growth, transformation and value creation.
Building on Wipfli’s strengths
Britt was drawn to Wipfli by the strength of its client relationships and culture — two assets she sees as essential to sustainable growth. Her mandate is not to reinvent those strengths, but to help the firm build on them with greater financial visibility, scalable processes and disciplined investment decisions.
For Wipfli’s clients and communities, that work supports a firm equipped to invest in talent, technology and capabilities that create lasting value. Britt brings a strategic perspective that connects today’s decisions to tomorrow’s possibilities, along with the operational experience to turn that vision into results.
Curiosity that extends beyond the office
Outside of work, Britt protects time with her son, Eddy, as well as travel and exercise. Their shared curiosity has taken them from Europe to Japan and Hawaii, while regular workouts remain a standing commitment on her calendar. The discipline reflects how she approaches leadership: Make room for what matters, stay open to new experiences and bring energy to difficult challenges.
“If it were easy, I wouldn’t be the person I’d hire,” Britt said.
It is a fitting perspective for a CFO whose career has been defined by complex assignments, thoughtful transformation and the ability to help organizations move forward with confidence.