Senior Associate, Transaction Services

Overview

As a Senior Associate on our Transaction Services (TS) team
, you’ll focus exclusively on financial due diligence and transaction advisory work—supporting middle-market private equity firms, corporate buyers, and closely held businesses navigating critical transactions. You’ll work closely with experienced managers and partners, interact directly with business owners (often going through a transaction for the first time), and gain hands-on exposure across multiple industries, including manufacturing and distribution.

This role is ideal for someone with a strong audit foundation who wants to apply their accounting knowledge in a deal-driven, client-facing environment without the limitations often found at larger firms. At Cohen & Co, we put people first and foster a culture rooted in collaboration, growth, and real-world learning.

• Perform buy-side and sell-side financial due diligence, including quality of earnings, working capital, and cash flow analyses.
• Analyze historical financial statements to identify trends, risks, and transaction-related considerations.
• Prepare supporting schedules, analyses, and work papers for transaction reports and client deliverables.
• Apply strong technical accounting knowledge to assess complex financial data and transaction issues.

• Interact directly with target company personnel, business owners, and private equity or corporate clients.
• Communicate findings clearly and professionally to engagement teams and client stakeholders.
• Support client meetings by helping explain financial results and transaction considerations.
• Build trusted relationships through responsiveness, professionalism, and attention to detail.

• Manage multiple concurrent engagements, often juggling 3–4 projects within a given week.
• Meet deadlines by organizing priorities and adapting quickly in a fast-paced environment.
• Coordinate with managers and senior team members to ensure efficient engagement execution.
• Maintain high-quality standards across all work products and deliverables.

• Work within a pod-based team structure focused on transaction services and financial diligence.
• Collaborate closely with managers, partners, and peers throughout the transaction lifecycle.
• Support the development of junior team members through collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• Demonstrate initiative by asking questions, seeking feedback, and continuously building transaction expertise.

• Bachelor’s degree in accounting or related field required.
• 2+ years of progressive experience in public accounting assurance and/or client-facing transaction services or financial due diligence.
• Audit background required; experience with manufacturing, distribution, or similar industries strongly preferred.
• CPA designation preferred but not required.
• Transaction services or financial due diligence experience required.
• Strong understanding of financial statements and core accounting principles.
• Advanced Excel skills and comfort working with complex data sets.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, particularly in client-facing situations.
• Strong organizational skills, attention to detail, and ability to manage competing priorities.

• Cleveland, OH and Chicago, IL
• Hybrid work environment

Sure, we like numbers. (But we’ll never treat you like one.)

At Cohen & Co our foundational principles offer insight into how we achieve an inclusive, growth-oriented culture that fuels the success of our firm, our clients and our people. In particular, we honor our foundational principle of “great people first” by:

• Championing the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion by embracing the unique stories, backgrounds, perspectives and ideas that come from our people; and
• Offering a comprehensive and competitive Total Rewards package, which allows each employee to use the benefits that best suits their needs. Our offerings go beyond standard options, including time off outside of your standard PTO to give back to the community, annual discretionary merit increases and bonuses, talent development…