Beyond the Bottom Line
Beyond the Bottom Line is a podcast for founders and business owners who want practical insight they can actually use as they grow.
Hosted by Miguel Alexander Centeno, founder and CEO of Centurion Firm, the show features in-depth conversations with industry experts, clients, and business owners about how they think through tax, cash flow, operations, and the decisions that come with running a real business.
We focus on how things really work when you’re scaling, what challenges tend to come up, and how other founders, experts, and operators have dealt with them.
If you’re building or growing a business (often somewhere between $500K and $25M+ in revenue), this show is designed to help you make smarter financial and operational decisions and keep more of what you earn.
Beyond the Bottom Line
The Real Story Behind Leaving PwC to Build Centurion Firm
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What if the "raise" that was supposed to keep you happy was actually the moment you realized you needed to leave?
In this episode, Miguel Alexander Centeno joins Alex Roman, host of Humans in Accounting, for a wide-ranging conversation about the real path from Big Four tax to founding Centurion Firm. It's a rare chance to hear Miguel on the other side of the mic, answering the kinds of questions he usually asks his own guests.
For any founder or business owner who has ever wondered whether the leap from a stable paycheck to building something of their own is worth it, this conversation is a grounded, honest look at what that decision actually costs and what it can return. Miguel walks through the inflection point that pushed him out of public accounting (an 8% raise offer after growing an engagement into the millions), the reality of his first year in business (a $56K gross, and not even hitting his own salary target), and the mistake that nearly burned him out early: saying yes to every client regardless of fit.
The conversation also digs into how Miguel and his team found their footing by identifying the right niches: Airbnb hosts and digital marketers in the early days, and how that same instinct for finding "who you're uniquely positioned to serve" still shapes Centurion Firm's work today, including their focus on the R&D tax credit. Miguel and Alex also get into where AI fits into the future of accounting, why Miguel sees it as a tool rather than a threat, and the advice he'd give someone considering the leap in 2026.
Other insights from this episode include:
- The moment Miguel realized incremental raises weren't going to get him where he wanted to go
- Why "who wants to pay me for this" was Miguel's version of testing product-market fit
- The real numbers behind his first year in business, and why he didn't hit his own goal
- The client-mix mistake most new firm owners make, and how to avoid burning out on the wrong clients
- How Miguel identified Airbnb hosts and digital marketers as his first profitable niches, and why
- The role outbound sales played in scaling the firm, and bringing on Ashton as the first hire focused on it
- Miguel's take on AI's role in accounting, and why he sees it as an opportunity rather than a replacement
- The advice Miguel would give someone thinking about leaving a Big Four firm to start their own practice today
About Our Guest
Miguel Alexander Centeno is the Managing Partner of Centurion Firm and host of Beyond the Bottom Line. After beginning his career in Big Four tax at PwC, he left in 2017 to build a strategy-first tax advisory practice for founders, startups, and growing businesses.
Learn more about Humans in Accounting and Alex Roman's podcast.
Connect with Miguel on LinkedIn or media@centurionfirm.com