Joseph Pease

Joseph V. Pease Jr. is a Cleveland-based certified public accountant and the founder of the firm now known as Pease Bell, CPAs. He graduated from Cleveland State University in 1979 with a BBA in accounting and earned his CPA license in 1980. Early in his career he was a partner at a large Cleveland-based accounting firm, and at age 29 he became the youngest-ever chairman of the Tax Division of CPAmerica International — one of the world's largest associations of independent accounting firms — later continuing on its advisory board.

In 1999 Pease left to launch Pease & Associates, CPAs, building it into one of the 25 largest accounting firms in Cleveland (roughly 45 employees, including 38 accountants, by the time of the CSU "Points of Pride" profile). The firm focused on tax, accounting, and business-consulting services. On the firm's 20th anniversary in 2019, Kuno Bell was appointed managing partner and the firm was subsequently rebranded as Pease Bell, CPAs; Pease stepped back from day-to-day leadership while remaining a member of the firm's executive board.

Across more than 35 years as a business advisor, Pease has specialized in advising business owners on the acquisition and sale of businesses, succession planning, business valuation, corporate tax planning, and executive compensation plans, and he is regularly engaged on litigation matters tied to M&A transactions. He is a member of the American Institute of CPAs and the Ohio Society of CPAs, a past president of the Cleveland State University Alumni Association (and a member of its business alumni board), and co-author of *Mergers and Acquisitions for Distributors: Expert Advice for Buyers and Sellers* (2015, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors).

His angel/advisory activity flows directly from this advisory practice: public profiles note that he sits on the advisory boards of several locally based companies, which is the basis for his classification as a seed-stage angel investor.

• Operates as an individual angel / advisory-board member rather than through a formal fund; his involvement grows out of his CPA and M&A-advisory practice.
• Sits on the advisory boards of multiple (reported as four) locally based Cleveland-area companies, indicating a hands-on, advisory-driven approach rather than passive capital deployment.
• Deep expertise in the financial mechanics that matter to early founders: business valuation, corporate tax planning, succession/exit planning, executive compensation, and the buy/sell mechanics of M&A.
• Strong regional orientation — closely tied to the Cleveland / Northeast Ohio business and Cleveland State University communities.
• (No publicly stated check size or written investment thesis was found; the "seed round" stage label reflects his advisory-board work with early-stage local companies.)