Dark Horse CPAs

Suzi Drennen ran her own CPA practice for 25 years before joining Dark Horse as a principal in its North County San Diego office. Her work centers on 1031 exchanges and entity structure for closely held businesses, and her clients come as often from content creators and entertainers as from restaurants or real estate. Two other CPA principals sit here: Hayes Hokanson, who took her accounting degree at UC Santa Barbara and began her career at Ernst & Young, and Mike Madden, who also holds an MBA.

The firm is built as an accounting department for hire rather than a fixed package. Bookkeeping comes first; operational support for payroll and billing follows as a business grows; a fractional CFO then takes on forecasting, KPIs and the capital stack. Tax work extends past the current year's return to amended filings and IRS or state notices. There is also a cybersecurity advisory arm, grounded in Zero Trust architecture and sold to businesses outside accounting.