Keoki Wallace’s professional career got an early start when he uncovered a provision in the state law licensing real estate agents that allowed him to take and pass the exam and get his real estate license while still in high school. He has been finding ways to accomplish seemingly impossible things ever since. The following summarizes only a few highlights of his career.

He worked full-time during his undergraduate years, first as a salesman in a high-end men’s clothing store, and then as a staff accountant at Huntsman Christensen Corp, where he had the opportunity to also work with a neighboring company and its owner, Richard Pratt. Mr. Pratt was later appointed by the President of the United States as Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board.

Upon graduation, Keoki took a staff accountant position with a CPA firm. One of the firm’s clients had invested in a manufacturing company. The manufacturing company had been losing money for months and had gone through several managers in a row in vain attempts to turn the company around. Keoki was tasked with going into the manufacturing company as the controller with instructions to gather all assets and close the business. The investor-client expected the assignment would take three months to complete.

While performing his assigned duties, Keoki asked a lot of questions. As a “fresh-out-of-college” accountant, he desired to learn as much as possible. He made changes based on what he discovered by asking questions. The impact was almost immediate. At the end of the first month, the company broke even. At the end of the second month, the company made a small profit. Keoki was shocked— the client was shocked— as was the CPA firm. By the end of the third month, the manufacturing company was making substantial profits, and the company was turned over to a new general manager.

The CPA firm asked Keoki if he could do it again. He said he would try. He was assigned to another investment of another client— another manufacturing company. He did the same thing. He asked a lot of questions. He made changes based on what he discovered by asking questions. The impact was almost immediate. At the end of the first month, the company broke even for the first time in quite some time. The second month it made more. By the end of the third month— it was making substantial profits.

His almost magical skills and abilities were noticed and Keoki was appointed as the youngest managing officer at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the height of the Savings & Loan Crisis, where he took control of a significant number of failed financial institutions— where he became distinguished for his impressive recoveries. He also served in the Army National Guard for six years— trained as an interrogator and a linguist. As the bailout of the savings and loans became complete, Keoki, then only 28 years old, was transferred to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as a Grade 15 Step 6 government employee.

While working full time taking over failed financial institutions, he attended law school. Upon graduation, he took and passed first time the California Bar Exam, considered one of the toughest exams in the nation. In fact, only 45.9% of those that took that Bar Exam passed.

He was hired by Lorance & Thompson (based in Houston) and then worked with Dominguez & Talamante (Phoenix) prior to starting his own firm where he specialized in continuing what he had done at the CPA firm and at the Bank Board— taking active participation roles in his clients’ ventures, everything from marketing to general counsel and public relations to chief executive officer and fixing them, turning them around, and making them profitable.

In 2002, Mr. Wallace left the full-time private practice of law and started what today has become It’s More Than Just Numbers. The concept is simple in expression but decisively tricky for in the application. The best way to succeed is by accurately discovering the truth about what is going on around a business and then taking strategic steps based on fact. This requires a unique, high-impact business plan for each business because each and every business is unique. Even the same types of companies in the same neighborhood are unique. No “one-size-fits-all” system will ever be the honest answer. 

In 2017, Keoki started work on a PhD in Business Management with a specialization in finance and an emphasis in accounting which he finished in 2022. These studies helped give him insights into how to express and explain what he had been doing instinctively since his first job out of college as a staff accountant at the CPA firm. Mr. Wallace now makes these tools available to others through various services and programs offered by It’s More Than Just Numbers and its subsidiary corporation RevRock701.

In short, Keoki continues to do what he learned at the CPA firm and then mastered over the years— focusing on assisting companies as both a turnaround specialist for troubled and failing companies and as a counselor to highly successful companies— assisting them and assisting others to learn how to help them produce more revenue. In doing so, he often continues to take active participation roles, including such roles as Director of Public Relations, Director of Marketing, Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Compliance Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Chief Executive Officer. His efforts have generated more than half a billion dollars in additional revenue, with little or no additional cost.

Keoki also volunteers his services to associations and local communities. He served on the Oahu Visitors Bureau Public Relations Committee, the Business Development Committee for the State of Utah, the Committee on International Business Law in its Subcommittee on International Banking and Finance of the American Bar Association, on the Board of Directors of the Ko’olauloa Educational Alliance Corporation (non-profit), on the Board of Directors of North Oahu Hometown Opportunities Inc (non-profit), and as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mountain America Credit Union (non-profit), where he oversaw the merger of the Salt Lake Telephone Employees Credit Union and the Postal Workers Credit Union, creating Mountain America Credit Union, now the 15th largest credit union in the United States, with $5.7 billion in assets.

Keoki loves teaching and mentoring people. He served as an Adjunct Professor at Salt Lake Community College, Brigham Young University Hawaii, and the University of Utah, where he goes above and beyond what is expected of him to assist his students to obtain practical, useful information.