Someone asks you at a party what you do for a living. What do you say?
I do taxes!
Given my personality – most people find it odd that I find taxes interesting. But to me, tax law is extremely interesting. If you follow its development over the decades, you realise it’s a game of chess between businesses and the Internal Revenue Service. Governments try to influence spending and economics by modifying laws, and businesses find interesting loopholes to stump the government!
Talk us through a typical working day.
I am lucky to find myself working remotely at Galway. My colleagues and team are all over the US as well, so I get a mix of email traffic at all hours.
After my kids are off to school, I try to get a workout in and am ready for work around 9am. I like to start my work day with a prayer and a candle. Taking the few minutes to be grateful helps centre me for the day, and keeps me positive and upbeat, especially when things are hectic.
I spend about the first 30 minutes quickly checking through my emails and wrapping up items that can be done quickly. Most days are packed with meetings, and I get work done between them. I use a variety of productivity tools, from focus timers to calendar blocking and task batching, depending on the season.
I make time throughout the day for my team to address any questions and help keep projects moving.
What are you working on at the moment?
It’s return season. We try to get our returns done by early summer, so we have some time left towards the latter half of the year for planning and process improvements.
Galway has a national presence, with both partnerships and corporations in our structure. So, we have over 500 tax returns to wrap up each year.
Other than that, Galway is highly acquisitive and constantly expanding through various initiatives. Therefore, I work on M&A deals, integration matters, as well as various tax planning and advisory projects.
We are a small team of three, including me. As such, we are always looking for ways to do things more effectively. I drive process improvements and automation for most of our projects, so we can free up time to do strategic work.
What is the most exciting aspect of your role and what is the most stressful?
I love working with people and technology. I truly enjoy taking any process, defining success, and identifying more effective ways of doing it. Bringing in the right technology, educating people and securing buy-in can be challenging, but it’s also the most fun for me.
I love learning how people do their work, what worries them, and trying to solve for it, to get buy-in. I also enjoying mentoring team members and seeing their success.
Working at Galway is very fast paced. There is always something happening, changes to consider, new markets entered, acquisitions, and more. There is very little downtime. And sometimes this can be stressful for me. Being on 24/7 all year round can get stressful and exhausting fast. That is when my calming routines, prayer, and time management techniques come into play.
Tell us the key characteristics that make a successful tax professional.
It’s not that different from any other field.
Attention to detail, critical thinking, drive, and diligence are great qualities. A good personality and being likeable is very important – because usually no one likes the tax guy! So it helps when they like you – otherwise getting good data on time will be a challenge.
I also think being self-aware and not taking everything personally is important.
What is the most common misconception about your work?
That it is boring. Every single day we work on interesting projects, spend time understanding the business objectives and how to support them from a tax perspective. We learn a lot about how things fit together. It’s complex but really fun.
What or who inspires you?
I find women leaders very inspiring. I have been lucky to meet many inspiring women in all walks of life.
If you weren't a tax professional, what would you be doing?
A lot of things. I had thought I’d be in marketing when I started. But somehow, I ended up becoming an accountant!
After that I also almost started a job in technology – becoming a business analyst. But the tax job paid way more money, and here I am.
Any advice you would give your younger self?
I have loved how my life has turned out, with all the mistakes as well as right decisions. I wouldn’t change anything. But here are some things I would tell my younger self:
Be kind to yourself and love yourself every day in every way; and
At the end of the day, relationships and people matter the most. People remember how you make them feel more than anything else about you.
Tell us what makes tax cool!
We do! Honestly though, tax is cool because it is complex. If it were easy, everyone would do it. I love that it is a complex game of chess. It keeps everyone on their toes.
