Douglas Kim
CPA, MBT
Principal
Twenty years with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte & Touche serving Fortune 500 tax practices. Specializes in federal and state tax credits, audit defense and complex compliance.
About Apex
A senior bench.
Built to outwork the work.
Apex Advisors is a specialty tax practice working with manufacturing, AEC and software businesses across the United States to recover the federal and state credits their operations have already earned.
Who we are
Tax credits demand technical fluency.
We hired for it.
Apex Advisors employs more than 50 professionals across accounting, tax law, architecture and engineering. The leadership bench are alumni of Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche and Arthur Andersen — practitioners who built tax-credit practices inside the largest accounting firms before starting Apex to bring the same depth to mid-market companies.
We work the way a top-tier firm works: principals lead engagements, every study is documented to withstand audit, and we stand behind our filings with a free audit-defense promise.
Apex is headquartered in Los Angeles and serves clients nationwide. Engagements are structured around fixed scope and aligned fees so the math works the same way for both sides of the table.
Leadership
The principals you meet —
stay the principals on the work.
David Ahn
CPA, MBT
Principal
More than twenty years in accounting and financial audit — including eleven years between Ernst & Young and Deloitte & Touche. Oversees Apex's R&D tax-credit practice end-to-end.
Annika Vanghagen
JD, LL.M
Director of Tax Controversy
Former in-house tax counsel for Qwest Communications. Ten-plus years on R&D expenditure analysis, IRS examinations and appeals — Apex's audit-defense lead.
John Kim
JD, CPA
Senior Tax Manager
Decade-plus as financial auditor and tax attorney with prior service in the IRS Examination Division and Office of Chief Counsel. Brings the regulator's view to every engagement.
Jessica Creevy
JD, LL.M
Senior Project Manager
Manages engineering-heavy R&D engagements across aerospace, advanced manufacturing and AEC clients. Tax-attorney background; deep expertise in qualifying-activity scoping.
David Porada
JD
Director, Client Development
Pairs a tax-law background with lean six-sigma operating experience. Bridges accounting, legal and engineering conversations from manufacturing to high-tech.
Specialized practice areas
Engineering TeamManufacturing Specialization TeamProject Accounting Data (PAD) TeamAEC Specialization TeamTax Controversy TeamSoftware Specialization Team
Partners & affiliations
The trade bodies our practice
contributes to and learns from.
CalCPA
ACEC
NAM
International Council
By the numbers
Recent engagements —
representative outcomes.
Specific dollar amounts vary by qualifying activity, year and jurisdiction. These three engagements illustrate the size of the opportunity for firms in our core industries.
Engineering
$462K
- Employees 122
- Revenue $27M
Software
$1.0M
- Employees 526
- Revenue $71M
Manufacturing
$166K
- Employees 190
- Revenue $15.9M
Ready for a complimentary preliminary assessment?
One conversation. Twenty minutes. By the end you'll have a quantified view of what your firm has likely already earned.