Tag Archive for: pwc

Voice of Experience: Bin Hwee Quek, Vice-Chairman of PwC Singapore and the Markets Leader of PwC Asia

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Bin Hwee Quek“The barriers to success for women in our profession are sometimes ourselves,” says the Vice-Chairman of PwC Singapore and the Markets Leader of PwC Asia Bin Hwee Quek. “We sometimes believe we cannot reach the pinnacle of our career. This is not always true. It is possible for those who desire it. These women tend to embrace change and always keep an open mind.”

In her current position, Bin oversees all industries and sectors, both in Singapore and in the Asia Pacific Region, including financial services, health, technology, infrastructure and government. “I spearhead the markets and industries initiatives to enhance a high-performance culture and propel growth,” she says. “For each industry and sector, we aim to bring the best solution to our clients through our subject matter experts.”

Additionally she sits on the Global Markets Core Leadership Team which is charged with developing client solutions for the future. The Team identifies megatrends and determines how to help PwC win in the market, which is rapidly becoming more complex, transparent, interdependent and subject to continuous and accelerating digital disruptions.

“I feel privileged to work with talented people on projects ranging from statutory audit to restructuring, debt and equity financing and fraud investigation,” she says. “I am most proud when my team pulls together to deliver the best solutions for our clients and whenever our clients acknowledge our contribution to their success.”

As she has ascended through the hierarchy of PwC, she hasserved in various capacities including Asset Management Leader, Government Leader, Real Estate Leader and Human Resource Leader (Assurance).

With today’s rapidly changing world, full of new technology and disruptions, she is interested in how they work together to create new businesses and drive out old ones. In addition, she is intrigued by Big Data. “It has many secrets yet to be revealed,” she believes. “Data analytics will provide hindsights, insights and foresights to enable faster informed decisions for operational excellence and business growth.”

Advice from the Top

As Bin reflects on her career, she sees that she has always been more externally focused, thoroughly enjoying her work with clients and various government agencies. However, looking back, she believes she would have benefitted from spending more time with her colleagues to take advantage of increased opportunities to collaborate.

She encourages women in the industry to put themselves forward for different roles within their firms and in the network, advising that an overseas stint can greatly enhance work experience. And she believes that women should contribute to their community in areas where they are most passionate. “I strongly encourage everyone to make time in their busy schedule to contribute and to give back to our society,” she says. “Each little bit goes a long way.”

A Philanthropic Mindset

She puts that advice into practice, serving on a number of boards herself, including various Singapore Government statutory boards, such as The Housing and Development Board (“HDB”), where she was honored to receive the Public Service Award from the Singapore Government for her contribution to HDB. “It is humbling to know I have made a difference in the lives of my fellow Singaporeans.”

Other boards she has served on are those for Industrial and Services Co-operative Society and The National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre, and she currently serves on the boards of Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and Health Promotion Board, where she chairs the audit committees, and The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

She also has volunteered her time for the prison ministry for the past 10 years, which stems from her belief that everyone deserves a second chance. Further, as president of the Singapore Anti-Narcotics Association (“SANA”), she is a firm believer in keeping Singapore drug-free. SANA is committed to empowering the pillars they have identified as the bedrock of a drug-free society: youth, family and the community. “Together, we can work toward creating a crime-free and drug-free Singapore,” she says.

In her remaining free time, she loves outdoor activities, including skiing, trekking, cycling, playing golf and running, having completed a marathon.

Many of her adventures include her husband and three children, who enjoy spending time together skiing, trekking and snorkeling. “I remember feeling a sense of achievement at the summit of Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan and am looking forward to trekking in Patagonia in September this year,” she says.

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Pauline Ho, Assurance Leader, PwC Malaysia

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Pauline Ho“Women need to understand that they have opportunities, but there will be sacrifices along the way. It’s not easy: you might have to give up your “me” time to be with the family, and you may have to take a back seat for a short time to concentrate on your family and then return to focus on your career,” says Pauline Ho. “It’s a balance that each person has to figure out for themselves.”

Since 1993, Ho has worked for PwC in the Malaysia office, augmented by a two-year international assignment with PwC UK, working with clients in the energy and utilities sectors among others. She became Partner in 2005 and almost immediately learnt that she was pregnant with triplets. Confined to bed rest towards the end of the pregnancy, she worked from her hospital room until her doctor banned her from conference calls. “I am not one to take it easy. However it is a choice,” she says.

When she did return, she decided to take on client work that didn’t involve much travel demands in addition to taking on what she felt would be a more stable position overseeing Human Capital and Methodology for the Assurance practice.

After three years, she relinquished the Methodology duties in order to oversee larger clients, eventually leading to being asked to lead the Assurance practice for Malaysia – the first female Assurance Leader in Malaysia.

She names this as the professional achievement she is most proud of, overseeing 1,200 professionals which is roughly half the firm in Malaysia.

Right now she is focused on working with PwC on building trust in a competitive marketplace, noting that Assurance is the foundation for that trust. “The audit market is very mature, but we are working to change mindsets to view assurance in a broader lens, to demonstrate the value we can bring to our clients.”

Learning to Take Risks

As she has progressed throughout her career, Ho says that she has learned that it’s ok to make mistakes because trying new things is how you learn. She says that in the past she had taken the approach that if she wasn’t certain about something, she’d better not do it.

That held her back, she says, but as she progressed she had mentors who pushed her along and helped her take on more courageous roles and new challenges.

She cites one time when her Managing Partner asked her who would be suited to take on a new role, and she offered three names, excluding her own, and explained why those people could do the job. When he asked about her, she said that it had never crossed her mind because she wasn’t ready. When he said I think you are the person, I agreed,” she remembers, reflecting on a conversation playing in her mind about other times she had turned down a role because it required too much travel or otherwise was outside of her comfort zone.

Making Strides In Equal Representation

Ho is proud that the firm has excellent female representation at all levels – 60 percent of its graduate intakes are women, along with 40 percent of partners and directors, and even two of the nine executive board members, including Ho.

One area where it is trickier to maintain equality generally, but desired by female millennials, is in mobility since it is more challenging for women to take their family overseas in the Asian culture than men.

She also sees that many women take a break when they have children and it is challenging for them to return. The firm is addressing that by supporting the national “Back2Work” program, where they help women re-acclimate, and the firm also offers flexible working arrangements, which allows people to work a minimum of three days a week..

The board level is another place where she sees women can have an impact. “When people retire from board positions, they try to find others whom they know to take their places, so it’s important for women to remember to do the same for women.”

She is also a believer in mentoring, and recently volunteered to help in a pilot program to mentor young, high-potential women called “Womentum,” an idea that came from her Markets Leader, another female partner on the executive board of PwC Malaysia. “Women need to help each other more, share their stories and let people see that there are successes and failures, and it’s ok to do something out of your comfort zone,” Ho says.

She herself benefited from a mentoring program earlier in her career, when she was fortunate to be assigned by the firm’s former chairman to a female CEO of an international bank in Malaysia, whom she says was instrumental in helping her prioritize what was important and how to make it happen.

Away from the Office

Ho’s triplets, now nine, keep her busy away from the office with their sports and activities. The family also prioritizes quarterly holidays – whether to the beach or the slopes to enjoy family time.

 

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Voice of Experience: Beth Paul, Assurance Partner with PwC US

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Beth PaulBeth Paul made partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) after she was with the firm 13 years. A graduate from Pace University and a skilled accountant, she is guided by a quiet pragmatism and sharp intellect. These qualities give Paul a confidence and sensibility that remains down to earth despite her great success.

Paul began working at PwC directly upon graduation in 1992. Her career began in the auditing practice working on companies in the industrial products sector. After spending seven years in that sector, she joined the national professional service group for what was supposed to be a two-year tour in PwC’s SEC services group. Instead, she stayed in that group and was made a partner in 2005, a feat she acknowledges as her proudest professional achievement. “That day created a memory that will last forever. It has been 10 years, but in some ways, it feels like yesterday.”

Use feedback to build your brand

After 22 years with PwC, Paul feels that young women coming into the profession will benefit from understanding the importance of building their brand as well as some of the barriers that can prevent them from doing it most effectively. Essentially, Paul believes that your professional growth is built upon being able to hear what your co-workers, supervisors and mentors have to say about their impression of you and your work.

“You have to get candid feedback early and often. You will get different feedback at each stage of your career—but in order for you to advance, people have to be able to see you in the role. You need to be able to build a brand that allows you to project that image. That is why the feedback is so important; we can all have blinders on as to what we are really like. If you don’t get feedback, you won’t know how to progress—you can’t fix what nobody’s telling you need adjustment.”

Accessible accounting practices are best

In 2012, Paul was asked to join the firm’s accounting services group within the national professional services group as the strategic thought leader. In this role, she works with other leaders in her firm to determine the firm’s position on emerging trends in auditing, accounting and financial reporting. Paul is now deeply engaged in her new role and one of her primary goals is to help the firm share their insights and perspectives on accounting developments through new mediums, such as videos and new distribution channels such as the use of social media and PwC’s CFOdirect e-newsletter and website.

“I am most excited about the fact that we are trying new and different things, like social media, to distribute our content. We are also looking to expand our audience by tailoring the message to a variety of audiences.”

She says that one of the most interesting trends in accounting today is the Financial Accounting Standard Board’s simplification initiative.

“Thinking about ways to change the current standards to remove complexity will help reduce costs, minimize the possibility of inconsistent or incorrect application, and ultimately make it easier for all stakeholders.”

You won’t ever be in the locker room

In terms of barriers for women in her industry, Paul loops back to the importance of being able to receive feedback, and using this feedback in a productive manner instead of dwelling on it or letting it get you down. She reflects about some great advice she was given as a new partner that helped her understand this process and how it can affect women differently than men.

“I was a brand new partner, and a very seasoned female partner said to me, ‘when men are in the locker room together, they can tell each other what they did wrong, then slap each other on the butt and walk out of there with insight into what they need to do better next time. You aren’t going to be in the locker room so, you are going to need to be more proactive in how you get the feedback you need to succeed.’”

This advice helped Paul see how important it was for women to find an advocate who would not be afraid to speak openly with them about their performance. Paul is clear that women and men are definitely different, but she lays part of the responsibility to see that difference—and do something about it – with women.

“You can’t just ignore it; you have to do something about it. You have to be willing to listen to the feedback constructively because the more you are willing to listen, the more people are going to be willing to give you that feedback and help you.”

And, for the women who share a seat at her table, she believes they owe it those who are less tenured to reach out, mentor them and be engaged with the younger women making their way up the ladder.

A calm focus wins over fast and busy

Paul believes that PwC provides a very supportive working environment, for men and women alike. PwC offers flexibility programs to help women and men accommodate their family life and navigate the many decisions between balancing life and work. “I’m proud that we have a very inclusive and collaborative culture.”

Outside the office

When not at work, Paul enjoys her daughter’s competitive cheer competitions. To help balance out the busyness, Paul started practicing yoga three years ago and finds it tremendously beneficial.

“Yoga is really about being in the moment and having that clear focus. I think there is a real place for that. It has impacted me greatly, and not just in a healthy, get-fit way, but from a broader perspective. When you apply that focus to work, you can really get a lot done in a short amount of time.”

By Rebecca S. Caum

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Voice of Experience: Janet Visbeen, Partner, PwC Netherlands

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Janet Visbeen (PWC)For PwC Partner Janet Visbeen, her status as a lesbian professional benefits her career. “If you are open about your diversity, you offer a unique selling point that others don’t,” she says. “My orientation colors how I think about the world and gives me some depth. It helps me be visible and defines my personal brand. Anything that makes you stand out is a blessing in this industry.”

Visbeen’s entire career has been spent in the consulting industry. Universities in the Netherlands are business-focused, so Visbeen studied economics business administration, focusing on the tax side, which provided a clear path to either an accounting or a law firm. With her interest in working in an international environment, she joined Coopers Lybrand (which ultimately became PwC), with a short stint at Arthur Andersen after six years. Her next move was to start her own company with some colleagues, but she realized after a few years that despite the positive experience, she had always had the urge to be top notch in her field, which necessitated returning to a larger firm. She rejoined PwC and one year later became partner focusing on the firm’s executive reward design and delivery function.

Being part of an international network of firms has led Visbeen to her belief that many of the issues in the world today can better be solved by big international companies than governments. “Advising clients on how they can improve their performance and seeing where the companies fit within society is a balance that keeps me energized in my work,” she says.

For Visbeen, helping advance the careers of those on her team and contributing to their success has been the achievement of which she is most proud. But she also believes that business will succeed because of the “power of one.”

In her view, approaches today are theme based. “We will offer our clients an ‘Ocean’s 11’ approach where we staff a team with the best people for the job from within or outside of the firm, and then when the job is done they part ways.”

Growing Your Career

Visbeen believes that women need to advocate for themselves, because although they might have great achievements, they don’t always communicate them.

“I find that women tend to talk about ‘we’ instead of ‘I,’ but in a corporate world where you have to continually compete, it’s vital to get the story out there that you are the best person for any particular role,” she said.

Interestingly, she finds that while most women consultants are tough when it concerns their clients, they don’t bring that same tenacity and self-confidence to promoting themselves.

She believes women must be clear about what they want and go for it. “To be successful in business, you have to rely on yourself and your own compass. If you do that as a free thinker you add more value to your clients.”

A Culture of Acceptance

Visbeen has always appreciated the openness that the professional services industry offers for LGBT individuals. “This field attracts well-educated people, and though they might not be more open minded, they deal with it differently.” In fact, she believes that LGBT offers a unique selling point as a consultant. “Your diversity can be an important tool to help you stand out.”

Of course, she acknowledges, you have to be comfortable with yourself, and while gender or cultural diversity can’t be hidden, LGBT orientation can be private. However, as she says, “The consulting business requires more than regular office hours. Do you want to work somewhere where you can’t be yourself? Everyone has to answer that question for themselves.” For Visbeen the answer is clear. She believes that respecting coworkers is what brings out their best, so an open environment is a requirement.

She sees the issue as one that offers two clear choices: you might not be universally loved if you are open, but you are able to have deeper relationships. She characterizes it as “brand or bland.”

“There will always be some people for whom you who won’t be their cup of tea, but the others will love you for it.”

Visbeen has been active in Gay Lesbians and Everyone Else (GLEE), a strong PwC network that reaches beyond the firm to include others in its gatherings. As a business network, it blends networking with advocacy. “As a global network of firms, it’s part of PwC’s DNA to make sure that it is as safe to be an LGBT consultant in Amsterdam as it is anywhere in the world. It’s what we stand for.”

In addition, Visbeen takes that advocacy outside the workplace as a member of the Netherlands Committee of Human Rights Watch. “Economies that have a lot of wealth can take care of human rights and social issues. In economies where there is less wealth, there is less well-being. I believe they go hand in hand.”

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Voice of Experience: Sarita Mohapatra, Partner, PwC US

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Sarita Mohapatra“Even though I was committed to continuing my career after my maternity leave, the first few months were still challenging. So now I proactively connect with other returning women to provide support and encourage retention because I know women can successfully juggle work and a family.”

Sarita Mohapatra, a tax principal with PwC, talks often about how to balance family life and her busy client schedule.

She’s been with PwC since 2001, becoming a partner in 2010. She initially studied economics in India and after earning her MBA came to the United States. A PhD in Economics followed, and she realized she had a love for teaching and spent four years as a faculty member at Utah State University. She decided she wanted to get back to the corporate world and subsequently moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking a position in professional services that incorporated her background in applied economics. After briefly working at another firm, she joined PwC.

Her work remains constantly fascinating to her, particularly the technological advancements that seem to occur on a daily basis. With changes occurring globally related to transfer pricing and the intersection of economics and tax, she finds herself delving into new areas to identify solutions for her clients who are under lots of pressure to deal with regulatory compliance issues.

Don’t Make a Decision for Your Whole Life Based on Today

She worries that young women walk away from opportunities because they sometimes anticipate difficult situations than may never happen. She says that when she started, there weren’t many structured programs to help working moms. Even though she had no idea how to make it work, she knew she wanted to. She saw her male colleagues who have kids and still work, and she figured there was no reason why she couldn’t do the same.

“I learned that you can’t make a life decision based on the one problem ahead of you that day,” she says, citing child care coverage as an example of an issue that is transient in the big picture of your whole career.

“It’s a blip in your career. In a span of 35 years, it’s not much, but too many women think ‘I can’t be here tomorrow,’ so they walk away from everything today.”

Mohapatra says she took her clients into confidence early on, and set boundaries — for example, that two days of the week she had pick-up duties.

“I was fortunate that I had a lot of support and my colleagues and clients, both male and female, always supported me. Women wonder if it’s possible to have it all, so I try to talk to as many as I can to say, yes, it is possible. Even though everyone’s story will be different, this is how I did it. I really try to be a good role model for working moms because even though I had great support from my mentors, I wish I had more working moms as my role models when I was making those decisions.”

Speak Up To Get the Opportunities You Need

Mohapatra advises women to be outspoken and open about their aspirations. She says that while male candidates will routinely ask how long until they make partner, she’s found very few women will start a discussion to find out their prospects for career advancement potential.

“It’s not that they’re not ambitious — I see that drive and hunger — but they hold back,” she says. “I think they are concerned that I might think they are getting ahead of themselves. I coach my managers and staff constantly that if they want to advance, then they need to tell someone, because speaking up allows managers to give interested people the opportunity to acquire the skills and expertise they need.”

She says she focuses on this through her own experience – she had assumed everyone knew she wanted to make partner, so was surprised when she found out they didn’t. Someone asked if others knew, and she said “I think so! This is why I’m working this hard.” But she found out you can’t assume and went back to amend her career plan with long-term and short-term goals.

And the advice can translate for women she would consider her peers. She says that sometimes even at the higher levels, she still sees women will hold back in meetings and discussions.

She credits her viewpoints with her upbringing in India, when her parents would tell her that to succeed in the corporate sector in India without losing her identity she needed to be proud of who she is and what she brought to the table. “They would say, ‘We don’t want you to emulate men to be successful! Be yourself.’” Those words stick with her as she maintains her authenticity in her career.

Networking for Success

Mohapatra says that when she began in public accounting, there weren’t too many learning and development programs so she tried to build up her network naturally by participating in firm-sponsored events or organizing informal lunches or drinks.

“If I could, I would go back and cast my net a lot wider,” she says. “I tell my team to step outside their comfort zone from immediate coworkers and be more strategic about networking beyond those you meet organically.”
Mohapatra is very engaged in PwC’s Office of Diversity initiatives and recently gave the keynote address on the power of networking at the national convention of Ascend, a Pan-Asian organization with which she is involved locally and nationally.

“I tell my team to step outside their comfort zone from immediate coworkers and be more strategic about networking beyond those you meet organically.”

Family Focus

Mohapatra remembers that one of her partners had suggested she network more outside of business hours, which seemed challenging in light of the many long hours she already put in. But she realized that many of her clients also had kids around the same age so she started planning events that included families. “I realized I had to incorporate both my life and work to make better use of the time I had.”

She carries that double-duty ethos into her community service outreach as well, helping in her son’s school and working with Habitat for Humanity, which she combines into a team-building activity with her staff.

When she’s not working, she enjoys gardening, a hobby that she and her family can do together.

Her family loves to travel, looking for areas off the beaten path to get a true flavor of the culture. Her son, who is 12, has already been to 13 countries. “When people ask him to tell a fun fact about himself he loves to say that he’s been to more countries than he is years old.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover & Shaker: Aoife Flood, Senior Manager, Global Diversity and Inclusion Program, PwC

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Aoife Flood“You don’t have to be 100 percent qualified in every aspect of a job to know you can do it well,” says Aoife Flood, senior manager for PwC’s global diversity and inclusion program. “You want to grow and be challenged, so don’t be afraid to put your hand up even if you don’t feel you tick every box.”

That philosophy has shaped Flood’s career at PwC. Unsure what she wanted to do, Flood began her career, as she puts it, “at the very bottom of the chain.” But for her, it became a powerful awakening. “I had struggled with my confidence, and at first I was intimidated by how highly educated all my colleagues were. But, I embarked on part-time studies and started to raise my hand to see if I could help design or deliver a program, and that’s when my trajectory started to shift.”

After five years with PwC Ireland, she saw an opening for a global opportunity but the position was more senior than hers. However, something about the job posting made her think the role was for her. She spoke to her director about why she thought she thought it would be a good fit. Though the director managed her expectations, she encouraged her to take a chance. Flood applied, creating an entire appendix that included a portfolio of all the work she’d done, and was offered what was described to her as a “courtesy interview,” given the effort she’d put in since she was the least-qualified candidate.

During the interview, Flood says she felt surprisingly calm, and they ended up talking for two hours. Three more interviews followed and she secured the position, which started with a six-month international assignment in Boston. “It was the first time I took a really brave step, and I still sometimes wonder who that person was,” she says.

Only 25 at the time, she had never lived outside her family home much less lived abroad. Once she arrived, it proved tougher than she had imagined as it was a new role that didn’t have a large team, so at times Flood felt very isolated.

“Through that experience I realized how it feels to be brave, which has made me less career risk averse. In fact, now I grow bored when I’m inside my comfort zone. I found out that variety is the spice of life in my career.”

She subsequently moved into her next global role, her first management position and then moved into global diversity. With every role at PwC, Flood feels she has had the opportunity to facilitate positive cultural change which is very important to her.

Growing Through New Assignments

Not only did that first global experience earn her a coveted position, it earned Flood her first sponsor as well. The initial interviewer, Coeni Van Beek, became the global ethics and business conduct leader at PwC and continued to monitor her progress. After three weeks of being in Boston, he told her that she was already outperforming what he had expected.

“I will make sure you’re a manager by the time you finish this tour of duty,” he said, and followed through on the promise by advocating for Flood when she was interviewing for her next position. “The team had concerns since I didn’t have any technical expertise, but he told them that they needed to take a chance on me and would not regret it.”

Right now, Flood is excited about a recent thought leadership research project she delivered focused on the female millennial, having led the project from initial concept through execution. “As a millennial woman it’s fascinating to take something from my own experience and help shape the end deliverable.”

In her current role, she also co-authors PwC’s Gender Agenda blog. Flood identifies that being positioned as a global expert with a strong external profile has also had a catapulting effect on her internal profile. While she had a very strong internal global network at PwC based on those she had worked with during her career, this external profile has really strengthened her profile with those she had not been exposed to through the course of her career. “It’s been really powerful for me to change their mindset of me in my starting position to a global diversity expert.”

Ultimately, she believes that success lies in being willing to take on stretch assignments, being passionate about what you do and willing to deliver more than is expected.

Role Models Shape Her Professional Success

Her first role model is her mother, who works but doesn’t have a “career,” per se. Flood says her mom grew up in an economic climate in Ireland where she did not have very many opportunities, but she always advocated for her four children to have opportunities she didn’t have. Specifically, she encouraged Flood to enroll in speech and drama classes as a child, which although she didn’t like them at the time, increased her comfort level with speaking. “My mom is a very powerful role model of resilience in the face of adversity.”

At work, Flood cites her current bossAgnès Hussherr, whom she says is the perfect role model of someone who can have it all: a leader, who is quintessentially female but strong and successful, has a family and even managed to become a pilot in her spare time.

Reading and Writing Are Passions Outside of Work

Flood has always enjoyed reading and loves to go on holiday with her Kindle loaded with books. But over the past few years she’s been surprised to find how much she enjoys writing. Over the course of writing many papers and a 30,000-word dissertation during an executive master’s program she completed three years ago, she discovered she had a flair for it so she appreciates that her current role provides her the opportunity to write. “I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up but now I do – a writer. And if I won the lotto tomorrow, I’d quit and write for fun!”

By Cathie Ericson

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Voice of Experience: Candace Ewell, Principal, PwC US

Candace Ewell“Be open to a career that isn’t exactly what you thought it would be. I don’t know that anyone can predict the opportunities and challenges they will face when they are only 18 and in college,” says PwC’s Candace Ewell.

And that is particularly sage advice coming from a current PwC principal, who spent the first seven years of her career as a nurse. Ewell thought that the healthcare industry would be her career path, but when she decided to go to law school with the goal of studying health law or health policy, a core tax class piqued her interest. “I had a lot of fun in tax; I really enjoyed my professor and the content. It was the first law school class that I really connected with,” she says.

When she returned for the third year, her professor offered her guidance on finding other tax courses and she ended up continuing straight through to complete her Master’s of Law (LLM), in part, she says to prove how serious she was about tax.

After graduate school, Ewell took a position at the IRS Associate Chief Counsel corporate division. While she appreciated the foundation it gave her in understanding the IRS and how regulations and guidance were promulgated, she also felt she was missing the bigger picture on how taxpayers work to be compliant, so she decided to move on.

Ewell’s next stop was in the Office of Advocacy at the Small Business Administration, where she was involved in new ways of thinking about compliance for smaller businesses. While there, she learned all she could from that perspective, but felt the isolation of being the only tax person and decided she wanted to be in a larger community of professionals. She found her home at PwC in mid-2007. “It was a challenging environment to get lots of experience quickly at a faster pace and higher level. It really was a lot of fun.”

In July 2013, she was named principal, which she considers the professional achievement she is most proud of. “I didn’t come to the firm thinking it was an option; I was just looking for an interesting community and challenging work, so being able to achieve this honor is very gratifying.”

Right now she is thrilled to be at the forefront of a new wave of information reporting, a broad subject that has developed over the past years to become more global. She has watched foreign governments embrace information reporting to help improve global compliance. “I get to talk about what I do every day to people and governments that never considered they could ask for so much information. Here in the United States, we have a culture where tax compliance is expected, but it’s not that way everywhere.”

She sees the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) as having a big impact worldwide. Other new regulations, including basis reporting which follows the sale of securities, that will continue to dominate her work are also of significant impact. Of particular interest to her are the information reporting requirements for payments made on the Internet. “It is fascinating to learn how Internet commerce works and how they engage with their customers and clients.”

“Merging Gracefully”

Ewell learned an important career lesson from her first start in the nursing field, the art of “merging gracefully.” In other words, she says she would often approach a new challenge with the belief that she could bring a new perspective and that she knew as much as other, more established professionals. “That got me in trouble when I assumed I knew more than the people whom I reported to. Through this journey, I’ve learned that when you’re starting a career, you’re excited and focused and yearn to make a big impact. But it’s a matter of picking your spot — you have to see that you will have the opportunity to bring perspective, but you can’t start with the ‘bull in the china shop’ mentality.”

Her other advice to those beginning their careers is to have patience and let your career develop. “We let go of some of our goals and desires because we ‘quit early,’ putting them to the side before we get started. You have to be open for how opportunities will present themselves.”

Ewell says that one of the reasons it was an easy decision to come to PwC was its mentoring program, which includes both a coach and relationship partner. “In addition to the fact that this was a community of high-achieving people, I knew that it would be useful to have designated points of contact to call on and help me get to the next stage of my career.” She says that since she is a bit of an introvert, she finds one-on-one coaching to be the most valuable, among the many other programs PwC offers for women in the workplace.

And she says that she takes seriously the charge to now give back to both women and men and facilitate the opportunities for them to meet their goals. “I try to be as candid as possible about how the firm works and the types of experiences people need to meet their goals. I was lucky enough to have people do that for me and I want to do it for others.”

Carving out Time for Renewal

And, as careers mature, she said it’s key to remember that this is high-pace, high-demand work, and it’s vital to carve out time to renew and take care of yourself, something she thinks all women struggle with.

For Ewell, that renewal comes when she carves out time for her family. Married for 20 years, she has an 11-year-old son who is a swimmer, so they spend lots of family time at the pool. Another favorite family activity is delivering food to seniors together because as she knows, anything you do together becomes family time.

By Cathie Ericson

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Kathryn Kaminsky, Partner, PwC

Kathryn KaminskyKathryn Kaminsky will be a panelist at theglasshammer.com’s 4th Annual Navigating, Negotiating, & Building Your Strategic Network Event on February 26th.

“There is a lot we can learn from men in the workforce,” says Kathryn Kaminsky, a Partner at PwC. “When they leave early to attend one of their kid’s sporting event, they do it with pride. They don’t slink out of the office — they’re excited, and women should behave that way too.”

Kaminsky, who started her career with PwC in Canada before moving to the firm’s New York office, has always been cognizant of the fact that she works in an organization where only 19 percent of the partners are women. “Male relationships are critical so I have always tried to build my relationships to be gender neutral,” she says.

Going on her tenth year as a Partner, Kaminsky has appreciated that during her 20-year tenure at PwC, she has been constantly challenged, noting the opportunity to be in a career where she can do different jobs at the same place. She’s moved from the asset management space to banking and capital markets.

“Being admitted to the partnership is definitely the professional achievement I am proudest of,” she says, adding that she is always looking forward to the new experiences and new engagements that she will undertake as she moves up the partnership ranks.

The industry is constantly changing and she is fascinated by where it might go. “Ten years from now, will we all bank via cell phone??” she muses. She sees huge potential for disruption in the financial services industry, especially with tech companies that can stay nimble and entrepreneurial since they are not hampered by the regulations that banks have to grapple with.

Confidence Builds Careers

Kaminsky sees confidence as a trait that women need to learn to develop as they progress in their careers. “It can be hard to be in a room where you are the minority but you have to speak up – you can’t be in a meeting and not talk.”

That confidence translates into knowing how to discern among competing priorities. “You have to evaluate internal versus external focus,” she says, noting that in a client-based business, you often need to choose the client side.

One thing that Kaminsky has learned over the course of her career is that “this too shall pass.” She says there are times that she wishes she’d had a thicker skin and realized that what seemed like a big deal at the time wouldn’t be in the long run. “I wish I hadn’t taken things so seriously and lost sleep over things that I shouldn’t have cared about,” she says.

She knows from experience that you have to have a stellar work performance, but success is based on more than that. “Aim high – don’t just put your head down. Get out and meet people – growth comes from experiences and relationship building, both internally and with clients. Business books alone won’t tell you what’s going on in the world, you have to get out there.”

And while you’re out there, she advises having some fun. “In the 20 years that I’ve been at the firm, I definitely could have had a little more fun!”

Lessons to Be Learned from Men

“Many people don’t like to hear it, but there are lots of things men do very well that we could emulate,” she says. For example, she appreciates that men are more open in how they talk about things. She says they’re more apt to admit they’re having a bad day, or discuss something they’re struggling with rather than sit behind a closed office door by themselves.

They also are more likely to own the career decisions they make. Currently, she works in the New York office while her family has relocated to the west coast for her husband’s job. “Men commute all the time, and don’t have any problems with it. I have found that my schedule allows me to focus on work during the week and home on the weekend, which is a benefit for everyone, but somehow that is not as accepted with women as with men.”

As part of her desire to create a gender-neutral network, Kaminsky has worked within the wide range of programs PwC offers – some specific to women, and some geared toward general career development. In particular, she has benefitted from an Advocacy and Sponsorship group which matches professionals with more senior partners. Over the years, her male match became a friend, sponsor and advocate, someone she confides in on a regular basis. Kaminsky says that women don’t necessarily need to be sponsored by women – it’s more important to just make sure it’s the right person.

And she finds that at PwC mentorship is inherent in a wide variety of day-to-day activities even aside from dedicated programs.

Still, she says that there is competition even as you climb the ranks, and she feels fortunate that even though she has great male friends and sponsors, she has a network of four to five women who are the ones she calls upon for the closer friendship that everyone needs. “It’s important to remember that not everyone is a competitor.”

Weekends Are For Family

Mom to three boys – an eight year old and seven year old twins, Kaminsky in many ways feels her dual life allows her more focus than if she was home every night. Throughout the week, they FaceTime and talk, and she is able to have “me time” on the plane each way. That allows her to focus exclusively on her kids when she is home. This fall she was the association treasurer and team mom for her twins’ Pop Warner football team. “Our weekend is extremely active with family time with the kids,” she says, always ending with Sunday night dinner. “That’s what weekends are for me – 100 percent focus on my family. They know all about my work life and are very involved with it. But when I’m home, I’m home.”

By Cathie Ericson

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Mover & Shaker: Silvia Lucena Gosalvez, M&A Director, PwC Spain

 

woman sitting at deskSilvia Lucena Gosalvez has spent her entire career on the M&A team for PwC Spain, having joined 15 years ago after a short stint at a family business while finishing her tax advisement master’s degree. And for her that has been a perfect fit.

“Being on the M&A team has given me the opportunity to work on complex international projects, exploring the full continuum of deals — from restructuring to execution to post-deal integration.”

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Voice of Experience: Emmanuelle Rivet, Partner, PwC US

Welcome to The Glass Hammer’s “Women in Tech” month! We will be celebrating successful women in technology all month long!

“Embrace the fact that you might be different and have a different way of approaching things,” said Emmanuelle Rivet, Partner at PwC US. “Focus instead on what drives you and find your internal purpose,” she continued.

This is just one key piece of advice that Rivet offered to young women starting out in their career, and it is something that helped her immensely when she was making an important transition in her own career; transferring from PwC France to pursue opportunities within the US firm’s Silicon Valley office.

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