In 1924, 26-year-old Alexander Richardson Grant founded Alexander Grant & Co. in Chicago. Grant had been a senior accountant with Ernst & Ernst (now Ernst & Young). He chose to leave the comfort of an established company to pursue his plan for public accounting. Like our vision today, Alexander Grant was committed to being a business leader in the mid-size companies.
When Grant died in 1938, he was just 40 years old. Despite this unexpected loss, Alexander Grant & Co. survived the change in leadership and continued to grow nationally under the guidance of several dynamic and innovative chief executive officers. The 1950s and early 1960s were a time of both explosive growth and centralization for the firm. The national office in Chicago was established and net revenue exceeded $5 million in 1961.
During the mid-1960s, the firm’s leadership decided it was the ideal time to expand internationally. With Wallace E. Olson at the helm, in 1969, Alexander Grant & Co. joined with firms from Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom to establish the firm of Alexander Grant Tansley Witt. This organization operated successfully for 10 years.
In 1980, Grant joined with 49 other international accounting firms to form Grant Thornton International. Alexander Grant & Co. became the nation’s ninth largest accounting firm in 1985, behind that era’s "Big Eight" firms, following its merger with Denver-based Fox & Co.
In 2002, we changed our name to Grant Thornton, reflecting our affiliation with the United Kingdom firm Thornton Baker, which also changed its name to Grant Thornton.
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