Suggestions
Larry Hughes
Retired Partner, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP
Professional Background
Larry Hughes is a distinguished professional with a remarkable career spanning over three decades in the fields of accounting and healthcare management. His journey began in 1987 when he joined Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, a prominent firm where he excelled as a full-time partner until his retirement on June 1, 2014. During his tenure, he played a pivotal role as the Firm’s Member in Charge of the Healthcare Group, guiding its comprehensive healthcare niche which serves a wide array of organizations including acute care facilities, long-term care providers, senior housing entities, physicians, hospices, and home health services. Under Larry's leadership, the healthcare niche became the largest sector within the firm, showcasing his expertise and strategic acumen in the healthcare arena.
In addition to his leadership role at Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, Larry made significant contributions to the healthcare industry. He served as President of the North Carolina Healthcare Financial Managers Association (NCHFMA), where he actively engaged in advocating for healthcare financial management professionals and sharing his vast knowledge through presentations and speaking engagements. His active involvement in the industry further extended to his role representing the firm’s associate membership to the Hospital Association of North Carolina, demonstrating his commitment to the advancement and support of healthcare services in the state.
Upon his retirement, Larry did not slow down his pace. Instead, he decided to dedicate his time to several charitable organizations underscoring his passion for giving back. He became actively involved with Samaritan’s Purse International Relief—an organization focused on providing spiritual and physical assistance to hurting people worldwide. Additionally, he contributes to Water Missions International, an organization dedicated to providing safe water, and Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to community service and humanitarian efforts.
Education and Achievements
Larry's educational foundation is grounded in accountancy, having earned his BSBA in Accountancy from Western Carolina University. This strong educational background equipped him with critical financial and analytical skills that would serve him well throughout his career in the accounting and healthcare sectors. Currently, he is pursuing a Master’s in Practical Theology at Pfeiffer University, reflecting his dedication to personal growth and an ongoing desire to serve and lead through a spiritual lens.
Larry's commitment to the healthcare industry and financial management has positioned him as a prominent voice within the healthcare community. His knowledge of accounting updates, IRS regulations—including the new Form 990—and various changes in the healthcare landscape have made him a sought-after speaker and educator. His contributions to NCHFMA and the broader healthcare financial community underscore his dedication to sharing insights and best practices, enhancing the financial management capabilities of healthcare organizations across North Carolina and beyond.
Volunteer Activities
Even after retiring from the bustling world of corporate finance, Larry has channeled his experience and leadership skills into meaningful volunteer initiatives. His involvement with Samaritan’s Purse International Relief allows him to bring relief to those in dire need globally, making a tangible difference in the lives of many. Larry’s volunteer spirit continues through his work with Water Missions International, which focuses on providing access to clean water, a vital component for health and wellbeing. Furthermore, his engagement with Forsyth Jail and Prison Ministry reflects his belief in redemption and the importance of second chances, reinforcing his values of compassion and service.
Achievements
Larry Hughes boasts a long list of achievements in his illustrious career. He has set high standards for financial management in healthcare and has influenced the practices of many through his leadership roles and personalized mentoring. His success in implementing effective strategies within Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP contributed not only to the firm's growth but also positively impacted countless healthcare organizations across North Carolina.
Furthermore, Larry's active participation in professional associations, educational events, and public speaking engagements has cemented his reputation as a thought leader in the healthcare finance sector. His comprehensive understanding of healthcare dynamics, IRS updates, and industry changes has enabled him to advocate effectively for the healthcare community, ensuring that organizations understand and adapt to evolving regulations and standards.
Larry's journey since being diagnosed with ALS in 2013 has been one of resilience and determination. He continues to inspire others through his advocacy work, embodying an attitude of hope and purpose in the face of life's challenges. His ongoing pursuit of knowledge through theological education at Pfeiffer University further illuminates his commitment to personal and spiritual development, seeking to make an impact in both professional and personal realms.
Larry Hughes exemplifies a career dedicated not only to professional excellence in healthcare accounting but also to profound community service and theological exploration. His life and work continue to inspire those looking to make a difference in their professions and communities.
Location
People also viewed
Related People
Clay is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Clay centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Clay works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Clay offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Clay is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Clay is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Clay as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Clay offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Clay takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Clay encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Clay work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Clay is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Clay is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Clay is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Clay offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Clay offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Clay for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Clay accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Clay offers extensive integration capabilities. Clay introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Clay supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Clay also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Clay's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Clay makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Clay's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Clay is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Clay stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Clay excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Clay is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Clay offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Clay's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Clay has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Clay is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Clay beneficial.
Clay offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Clay offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Clay's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Clay offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Clay focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Clay also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Clay offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Clay isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Clay instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Clay is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Clay can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Clay is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Clay helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Clay's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Clay has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Clay a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Clay's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Clay has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Clay's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Clay as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Clay eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.