Last year, Ackerman moved to a new headquarters to accommodate its rapid growth. At the time, then-chief-executive-officer, Jim Callahan, told SDM, “We’ve made a concentrated effort to grow the size of the company.” (“Ackerman Outgrows Headquarters,” page 17, Sept., 2011 SDM).

The company recently reported that Ackerman doubled in size between 2007 and 2012, with $2 million in recurring monthly revenue, largely under the leadership of newly appointed president, Jim Callahan.

Callahan’s new appointment as president, he said, reflects the latest step in executing a succession plan that has been in place at the company for some time. “I’ll continue with the day-to-day running of the company. But in addition to that I’ll be even more involved in strategic planning, additional board interaction and direction. And I’ll involved more heavily with strategic banking and other financial relationships we have here at the company,” Callahan added.

Another part of that plan was Ackerman’s expansion in to the Washington D.C. market. After 26 months in the D.C. metro area — the two-year anniversary was this May — Ackerman currently has more than 9,000 clients there and a branch with 29 employees — grown from an initial nine.

“The entry into D.C. was our way of demonstrating that our business model would be scalable and serve us well in future markets and our growth campaign. We looked at D.C. for several reasons. Number one, I’m from there. I spent a good portion of my life in Maryland. And we looked at the demographics and the density of the area.” Callahan added that a mixture of high incomes, high population density and high transition rates due to changes in government every two and four years, made the D.C. market very attractive to Ackerman. “We felt that would work well for the model we utilize,” he continued. “And it turned out that a strategy we thought would be successful has been extremely successful in that marketplace.”

 Callahan re-stated his goal to see Ackerman in the top 20 of the SDM 100 within four years as well as to double its RMR by 2016. Ackerman’s continuing expansion efforts focus on organic growth, Callahan said, though Ackerman did gain roughly $9,000 in RMR in D.C. through an acquisition.