H&R Block wants to be more than a tax company. It wants to be your year-round financial advisor

Curtis Campbell knows exactly what kind of company people think H&R Block is.

It is the place you go in late winter or early spring when your W-2s, 1099s, deductions, and deadlines are piling up, your refund feels urgent, and your anxiety is rising. It is familiar, local, and useful, but not the kind of company that usually comes to mind when people think about product velocity, AI deployment, or a culture of experimentation.

Campbell wants to change that.

The new CEO, who previously served as H&R Block’s president and chief product officer, is trying to turn the 70-year-old tax preparation giant into something more expansive: a year-round financial platform powered by software, data, and AI, while preserving the human trust that has long set the company apart. That means reimagining H&R Block not just as a seasonal tax brand, but as a business that can advise creators, serve small businesses, help customers manage money, and use technology to automate the most tedious parts of tax prep, so employees can focus on judgment, relationships, and guidance.

For Campbell, this is an operational exercise rather than a branding one. “Fundamentally, we do taxes, but we’re really not in the tax business,” he tells Fortune. “We’re in the business of trust and confidence.”

Campbell is leading H&R Block through a volatile tax period, as sweeping tax-law changes collide with a significantly downsized IRS. What he hears from the field is that clients want help understanding what the changes mean and reassurance that they are not missing out on money or making mistakes.

That urgency could benefit assisted tax preparation in the near term. But Campbell’s ambition reaches well past one potentially chaotic filing season.

More than a tax company

Campbell’s core thesis is that H&R Block should no longer think of itself as a company that shows up for customers once a year. He wants it to be present throughout the year, serving customers on their journey toward financial freedom.

Such a pivot requires looking beyond tax preparation, he says, to adjacent services such as payroll, bookkeeping, tax advisory, small-business support, and banking. It also means using the company’s enormous dataset and physical footprint to build continuous relationships with customers.

Campbell describes a future in which H&R Block becomes more embedded in clients’ lives, moving from “a once-a-year engagement” to “a multiyear engagement.”

He sees a strong opening in the growing ranks of independent workers, creators, and........

© Fortune