Leo has a passion for assisting privately-held and family owned business owners and their managers in the Chicagoland area to better run their business and plan for the future by understanding their tax and financial position.

Leo joined Dugan & Lopatka in 1997 and has been a practicing public accountant since 1986.  He heads our Outsourced Accounting and Accounting & Advisory Services Departments while specializes in tax and business planning for closely held companies and their shareholders.

His approach to business planning is to help management understand their financial numbers and how to apply this knowledge to the current operations and long-term plans for the business. Leo also encourages his clients to share their ideas, opportunities and challenges with him. “I like my clients to know that they have someone they can trust to share information and ideas with and receive meaningful feedback.”

Leo has experience in helping clients comply with their tax filing and financial statement reporting requirements. In addition to the basic compliance work he helps clients through their entire business life cycle by providing financial management support from suggesting accounting department procedure improvements, tracking job profitability, analyzing expansion needs to assisting with the sale or transition of the business to the next generation.

Leo is a licensed Certified Public Accountant (since 1986) and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and Illinois CPA Society.  He is also a Chartered Global Management Accountant (CGMA) since 2014.

Leo has shown his commitment to the communities in which he lives as a longstanding volunteer with the hunger relief agency Loaves and Fishes, and the temporary shelter agency DuPage Pads.  He is a former board member and treasurer of the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce and the Naperville Jaycees.

Leo also served as the former finance chairman of the Naperville Celebration 2000 Committee and was a former executive director of the Naperville Last Fling, the communities annual Labor Day celebration.

Leo has contributed articles that have appeared in the Daily Herald Business Ledger, including:

• Outsourced accounting.  What’s it all about? (July 2019).
• Family vs. business: Formal family meetings best (July 2018).
• Good accountants can do more than crunch numbers (2013).

He is also an active speaker on understanding business financial statements, succession planning and family owned business planning. His most recent speaking engagements have been:

• Financials for Non-Financials, Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce (November 2017).
• Financials for Non-Financials, Valley Industrial Association Annual Conference (September 2017).
• Daily Herald Business Ledger’s Newsmakers’ Forum (2014).

• Illinois State University, Bachelor of Science in Accounting (1983).
• Licensed Certified Public Accountant in the State of Illinois (1987).

Leo enjoy’s reading about American history, following his children’s lives, and all Chicago sports teams.  He enjoys exercise in any form.  His greatest joy is visiting with his first granddaughter, born in March of 2017.

Leo’s earliest sports memory is following the 1969 Cubs who had four future baseball Hall of Famers on the team, Fergie Jenkins, Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo. He can still recite the entire starting lineup and pitching rotation.  Leo was also a college wrestler at Illinois State University.