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Cool Careers in Accounting Ep. 10 - From Deloitte CEO to WNBA Commissioner with Cathy Engelbert
339 Plays28 days ago
Cathy Engelbert has a career that inspires. The first woman CEO of a Big 4 accounting firm and current Commissioner of the WNBA, she joins Becker National Instructor, Mike Potenza, to discuss her journey from CPA to international business leader. She shares the importance of mentorship and the challenges she has faced in leadership, emphasizing confidence, curiosity, and preparation in achieving success. Describing her efforts within the WNBA, she also gives valuable insight into her leadership philosophy, how to achieve your goals, and the balance of career and personal priorities.
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Transcript
Introduction of Kathy Engelbert
00:00:09
Speaker
Hey everyone, it's Mike Potenza from Becker Professional Education, and do we have an amazing guest for you today. In just a few short minutes, I'm gonna start an interview with none other than Kathy Engelbert. Now, when I first say that name, you might say, wait, who is that? But once I tell you who she is, you're gonna say, oh yeah, I know who Kathy is.
00:00:29
Speaker
Kathy is a super remarkable person. She is the first woman to ever be named the CEO of a big four public accounting firm. And now she's the first and only commissioner of the WNBA.
Interview Preparation and Approach
00:00:43
Speaker
So before I jump right into this interview with Kathy, We're going to be dealing with some concepts related to professional sports. So I thought I'd do something a little differently this time. I'm going to pull back the curtain and let you in to what we do before the podcast and after the podcast, almost like a professional sporting event.
00:01:01
Speaker
You know, you have the announcers do a little pregame analysis, postgame analysis. I'm going to tell you about our process and what we do. Okay. So Becker decided to give me Mike Patenza the ball for this interview. And they said, hey, Mike, we need you to interview Kathy. We want you to draw up and execute a game plan. So now I'm thinking to myself, oh, my goodness, what is the best approach for conducting an interview with Kathy?
00:01:26
Speaker
So I gave it a lot of thought because I know Kathy has a lot of great information she wants to share with our audience. So I have to be able to dive into Kathy Engelbert's head and really extract the greatest information that we can
Kathy's Educational Journey
00:01:41
Speaker
share with you. I mean, you think about Kathy's been named on Fortune's list of most powerful women.
00:01:47
Speaker
I mean, this is a pretty high end person we're dealing with here and I wanna make sure that I get all the greatest information from her. So I was thinking about approaching it this way when I was drawing up the game plan.
00:01:58
Speaker
I said, you know, we should learn a little bit about, you know Kathy's education, her college life, you know, what it was like before she went into accounting and what was part of the decision process there. Then I need to really make sure we dive into her professional career, understand ah what she did rising up the ranks through Deloitte, and even what she thinks about the accounting landscape today, right? A lot going on, 120, 150 hours.
00:02:22
Speaker
So there's a lot of things we need to talk about. Then I need to do a bit of a transition and I need to pivot from the world of public accounting into the WNBA because I know there's some fascinating stuff going on in the WNBA today.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then finally, we have to bring it full circle. We have to tie everything together with a pretty bow, make sure we get Kathy's perspective on her life, on her career. And one of the best things I bet she can do for us, maybe give some advice to our audience.
00:02:52
Speaker
You know, what goes on in her head? If she had to do it all over again, how would she do things? So I think we can all benefit from that. now I know there's a lot to accomplish in a very short amount of time, and Kathy does not have a lot of time.
00:03:06
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff going on right now in her life that she needs to get to. So I need to make sure I could properly design this, execute it, and pull off the game plan. So we're going to go early life college academics. We're going to go public accounting, WNBA, and really do a retrospective and try to get some advice. So I don't know about you, but I'm feeling good. I know it's a lot to accomplish, but I am super excited about this. So I'm about to bring Cathy in and see if I can execute this game plan that we laid out.
00:03:36
Speaker
Now, once it's all over, come on back for a post-game analysis and let's see, hey, did Mike pull it off or did Mike mess it up? Because if I mess it up, guess what? I might need a job. So I might need you to email me if you have any openings, okay? All right, let's go. Let's do this.
Career at Deloitte and Leadership Insights
00:03:51
Speaker
Hey everyone, it's Mike Potenza from Becker Professional Education. And do we have a treat for you today. With us is a trailblazer, a person whose name is synonymous with public accounting.
00:04:03
Speaker
We are so fortunate to have the Kathy Engelbert with us. And unless you have been living under that proverbial rock for the last 10 years, if you're involved in the world of public accounting or professional sports, you know the name Kathy Engelbert.
00:04:19
Speaker
Kathy is the first woman to be a CEO of a big four public accounting firm and the first and only commissioner of the WNBA. So Kathy, thank you so much for joining us here today.
00:04:33
Speaker
Mike, it's so great to be here. Look forward to the conversation. All right, Kathy, there's so much information I want to get from you. And really to do a good job with this interview, I need about a full week.
00:04:45
Speaker
So was your staff able to block off your schedule for the entire week for us? Yeah, it's a little busy coming up on March Madness here and coming up with our draft and our season. But yeah, we're good, Mike.
00:04:55
Speaker
All right. Well, all seriousness, I know how busy you are, and I do appreciate the time that you are giving us. So first thing I'd like to do, before we even talk about your professional career, can we just go back in time? Let's go back to when Kathy was just an 18 or 19-year-old girl and just out of high school, starting college.
00:05:16
Speaker
What motivated you to study accounting? Why did you want to be and accountant? did you want to be Yeah, it's actually, so um it was my sophomore year, i think the second semester of my sophomore year at Lehigh University.
00:05:30
Speaker
I was actually a computer science major at the time, and I had to take this Fortran programming course. And then next up was an electrical engineering course. And I said, wait a minute, this isn't what I'm meant to do. And someone said, there's the business school you can transfer there. And there's this thing called accounting.
00:05:47
Speaker
I would love to remember who said this to me, but they said there's this thing called accounting and there's two great things about it. One, it's the language of business and two, you'll get a job.
00:05:58
Speaker
and The latter one sounded really good. and I would get a job. and I found out after the fact when I transferred to the accounting major that it was Warren Buffett who said accounting is the language of business. so um Look, it really worked out for me. I love i've loved it. I've loved a career in public accounting. and um But that's how I got started, actually, as a computer science major who said, yeah, this maybe is not right for me, but accounting sounded good.
00:06:25
Speaker
Wow. Warren Buffett. Now that is some recommendation. And when you mentioned Fortran, I thought back to my undergraduate days as well. Big, big ah chill came over me. So that's scary language for sure.
00:06:39
Speaker
Now, when you were going to college, correct me if I'm wrong, but you were a college athlete. And how between trying to train for college athletics and the full workload of accounting, how did you balance all of that out?
00:06:53
Speaker
Well, I was recruited to play lacrosse at Lehigh. I actually ended up being a walk-on to the basketball team because, of course, I had all this free time. No, just kidding. um But um it's hard to be, I think, a two-sport athlete today in college sports, especially D1 like Lehigh was.
00:07:08
Speaker
But sports offered a way for me to, what I didn't know at the time, build my leadership skills. um That ultimately, I believe, is why I ended up having such a great career at Deloitte.
00:07:19
Speaker
I was one of the shyest people, Mike. my freshman year at Lehigh University. And sports really brought me out of my shell. And really, like, I became the captain my senior year in both lacrosse and basketball. And I, again, didn't know at the time, but that was early leadership skills that was building in that I could bring into public accounting and ultimately rise in an organization of the size and scale of Deloitte. So, um so yeah, sports, and it ah clearly taught me time management.
00:07:46
Speaker
I think when I came out of college being an accounting major, because accounting obviously is a great major, but it's hard and you got to study a lot and it didn't come necessarily natural to me.
00:07:58
Speaker
So I studied hard as well as, but it helped me, sports helped me do time management because I wasn't sitting around after classes or on a day I didn't have classes. I was out playing the sport and then that gave me kind of the motivation to sit down with the books.
00:08:12
Speaker
Wow. Well, all of those lessons, they served you well, that's for sure. And I'll say, I've seen you take over a room when you speak. So you telling me that you're shy, I find that really hard. I really was.
00:08:25
Speaker
i was one of eight kids and I was the fifth of eight, middle girl, five brothers. And yes, I was the shy one in the family. Yeah. So now you're getting close to graduating or maybe you just graduated and you realize I need a job and I need my CPA license. So how close to graduation did you sit for the exam and did you just study on your own or did you use a review course like Becker? How did you approach it?
00:08:49
Speaker
So I think I took the exam the fall after I graduated from college. And this would have been back in 1986, 7. And yes, I actually took Becker. I remember it vividly at the Sheridan in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I grew up in southern New Jersey.
00:09:03
Speaker
And yeah that was when you actually had to go to the sessions live with a teacher at the front of the room. Imagine that. There was no internet back then. And you had and also you had to take the CPA exam, all four parts at one time.
00:09:16
Speaker
um And it was only offered, I think in May and November, if my memory's correct. So only twice a year. But I will tell you to this day, one of my proudest moments was the day I found out I passed the CPA exam.
00:09:30
Speaker
But yes, with a little help from Becker. Wow. I know that feeling. It is a great feeling. And as I was asking you that question, I thought to myself, oh my God, if she says something other than Becker, I'm going to lose my job. So thank you so much. We didn't practice that, everybody. I did take a Becker course and it was amazing. But again, I attended it live for, think it was like three, seven to 10 at night because we were all working. We were all working in public accounting. And then we'd go from seven to 10 at night to a hotel conference room and take the courses.
00:10:02
Speaker
Oh, the good old days, that's for sure. All right, so now you're out of college and you say to yourself, I need to get a job. Was Deloitte your first job? And if so, did you work in tax or audit? And how did you handle those busy seasons that we all struggle with early on?
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah, I was audit. um Deloitte was my first job out of college. I had actually worked for a pediatrician for eight years through high school and and college on my breaks and things like that. But it was the big eight back then. So we all got jobs. And I joined the audit practice of Deloitte Haskins and Sells at the time, who Three years in, merged with Touche Ross and became Deloitte & Touche. And now Deloitte is the brand.
00:10:39
Speaker
But I didn't realize I was going to be there for 33 years. I really thought two years and out, we all did. um We didn't have computers back then, Mike, when I first started, but they came quickly after I started. We used to use this 12 column work paper and we used to carry around printers in the early days, along with our laptops, which were these compact computers.
00:10:59
Speaker
um But I began an audit. had opportunities to work in other parts of the business, obviously over a 33-year career. actually, about six years in, did an accounting research assignment for two years in the National Office of Deloitte.
00:11:12
Speaker
And I was a young manager, and that's when I became a financial instrument derivatives specialist with hedging and securitizations. And that became my niche as fair value accounting was were just being issued in the late ninety s so um I still think it's the greatest part to start a place to start your career. My son is now in the profession. He's in his second year.
00:11:34
Speaker
And I feel like now I get to see it from afar. um And he's learned so much in his first two years from like, I literally like watch him. He's dealing with interest rate swaps and pensions and stock compensation arrangements and investments in fixed income and equity securities. And I remember when I came out of college, I didn't even know the difference between a fixed fixed income and equity security. And, you know, um so now I have reflections from him coming off a busy season. And yes, he worked really hard in a ton of hours, but no better place to start your career. And especially to get that kind of build that business acumen that Warren Buffen talked about accounting language of business. I mean, now that I'm 38 years
00:12:13
Speaker
into careers, um it's amazing what you learn in those first few years. Well, those are great stories and great memories. And, you know, young accountants, your son, all of his peers, they they don't know what it was like to do this without a computer. So thank God for computers, right? And thank God for AI and making everyone's life a lot easy. But Yes, there's no better experience in starting out like that. And we say cutting your teeth in that area. So great, great memories.
00:12:41
Speaker
But speaking about, you know, your son and everybody going through accounting right now that are just young professionals, we are living in a very turbulent time with respect to public accounting, right? There's been a shrinking pipeline, and we hope that that's reversing now and starting to grow again.
00:12:57
Speaker
And there's a lot of debates going on, 150 versus 120 credit hours. We know certain states, whether it's Ohio, Illinois, Virginia, Minnesota, or some others that have either lowered the requirement or proposing legislation to lower the requirements as far as licensure. So let me ask your opinion, Kathy's opinion.
00:13:16
Speaker
Do you think we need to stick with the 150 credit hours for licensure? Or do you think the 120 credit hours with additional experience is a viable pathway to licensure?
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's an interesting question. I studied it, obviously, when I was in the profession. um I think you know back in 2000 or whenever the 150-hour requirement went in, there were good reasons for that. I think there are pros and cons now looking twenty almost 25 years later.
00:13:44
Speaker
Obviously, professional services firms have this apprenticeship model that's really hard to find in other industries. I know this in sports. There's no apprenticeship model. So it's It's a cool thing that you don't know until you're outside of the professional services world.
00:13:58
Speaker
um So I think there are pros to it. I think there are some cons to it. I think it might be preventing some kids from selecting it um as a major, because if you have to take 30 more hours of school, would you choose to do it? um you know i So I think it it'll be an interesting debate as to whether lowering the hours will help grow the number of accounting majors.
00:14:18
Speaker
I just know what it did for me to be an accounting major and how important it was to be in an apprenticeship model and to grow my skill set over the course of ah three decades.
00:14:29
Speaker
So i think, you know, I don't have the answer whether it absolutely should be, you know, kind of rolled back to the 120 hours. But I do think if you're looking for more diverse talent across the country and world, probably going 120 hours makes more sense.
00:14:45
Speaker
But I think there pros to that 150 hour model, too, especially those universities that have great master's in accounting program. I think you see kind of the entry in the workforce of a more mature and and learning type of individual. So I think there's pros and cons to both. But I think if it depends what our objective is. and Our objective is I believe, to get more diverse students into the accounting profession. And I would lower it then.
00:15:12
Speaker
Yeah, it makes sense. And it's it's a really interesting debate. And you know here at Becker, we're on top of it. We're watching every state. And you know we participate in a lot of panels to try to help grow the pipeline and and answer those questions. And it is. It's very gray area, right? There's not a right and a wrong answer. But you know we just have to pick and choose between um what what we feel is best by getting opinions of people like yourself. So that's really great insight. And we we do appreciate that.
00:15:38
Speaker
So now you're at Deloitte what you're doing is you're going up and down that ladder and you're trying to figure out I'm becoming ah more successful and I'm moving up and I'm getting promoted.
00:15:52
Speaker
But one of the things that happens is as you're in these more high level meetings, you might be the only woman in the room right now. How do you handle that? That may be intimidating. So how did you handle that situation? And do you have any advice for any young professional women that might be in a similar situation when you're the only woman in the room?
00:16:14
Speaker
Yeah, I think we made a lot of progress, not only in the profession, but you see Fortune 500 CEOs. When I became the CEO of Deloitte, I think it was 4% of the Fortune 500 CEOs were women. And now I think it's closer to 15%, but it it ebbs and flows.
00:16:29
Speaker
So I think we've made a lot of progress. but ah For me personally, I think there's where sports might have helped me and my competitiveness in those rooms of all men. And my mom used to say to me, um you're going to do fine in the business world, but you know, which is very male dominated because you're growing up next to five of them because I had five brothers.
00:16:46
Speaker
And she was right, by the way. I mean, I think we have a big voice at the table as women. I think it also always highlighted to me the importance of mentors and sponsors in my career who mostly were men behind the scenes pounding the table to give Kathy opportunities to do things. So if you're a part of this kind of culture where there's a lot of sponsorship, I think that's helpful.
00:17:09
Speaker
um As far as the advice I would give, um it the number one gap I see in young women is confidence. ah confidence that they may not be able to do everything they need to do while balancing maybe family and other obligations.
00:17:27
Speaker
And for me, it was literally about I always have these three C's, you know, confidence. You have to have confidence. yeah have to have curiosity. So lifelong learning. So Becker isn't just the course for the CPA exam, lifelong learning.
00:17:40
Speaker
learning type of things and on the job learning. And then courage. You have to have courage to speak up in a meeting and build your confidence so that you don't feel like just because you're not the only woman in the room, you can't, you know, aggressively kind of be part of the conversation. And, you know, one last thing is ah preparation. People who know me know if you send me a deck, whether it's 250 pages or two pages, i am going to read it and be prepared coming into a meeting, whether it's now the public company boards I serve,
00:18:09
Speaker
When it was when I was at Deloitte, and we were trying to decide whether invest in cloud computing or whether it's now at the WNBA, a place where I didn't know how to run a sports league. But I had this great training behind me called public accounting to help me learn so many different businesses of our clients so that when I came in here,
00:18:25
Speaker
It actually was very similar. Sports is just big business and big business is about relationships. So so that's an important part of the advice I'd give as well. So if you have curiosity, you have confidence and um and ultimately be prepared. The sky's the limit.
00:18:43
Speaker
Wow. It's great advice to give to anyone, not just women. And, you know I'm proud father of three daughters, no sons. And, and i you know, I see exactly what you're saying, you know, confidence, curiosity, really making sure that you're going to be prepared and that you're going to go full steam ahead.
00:19:01
Speaker
And ah it's very different today than it was, you know, 20, 30 years ago, for sure. And it is much more evenly balanced. And that's great to see between men and women. So, You know, you were a trailblazer in doing that. So thank you for that. And my daughters, thank you for that as well. I love that you're a girl dad, Mike. love it. am.
00:19:19
Speaker
I am
Transition to WNBA Commissioner
00:19:20
Speaker
a girl dad. i And I have my force. I'm on a golf course, myself my three daughters. So it's it's all good stuff for sure. There'll be a day where they're beating you on the golf course. side Oh yeah. I know that. You don't have to do much to beat me on the golf course.
00:19:33
Speaker
So um you brought up the WNBA. So let's just, let's do a transition. Now you're at Deloitte about 2015, you become the CEO and you're there in that position for about four years or so through 2019. And may I add,
00:19:47
Speaker
You were massively successful as the CEO at Deloitte. I mean you grew that business over 30%, which is simply amazing. i mean you must be really proud of your record at Deloitte. And then 2019 rolls around and you say, okay, you know what?
00:20:03
Speaker
I think I might be done with the public accounting. Let me go into professional sports, like you said, where you really have no experience. Tell us, how did that transition come about? Well, things when you're the CEO of a big four accounting and consulting firm, you have a term. So my term was ending in June of 2019.
00:20:20
Speaker
So in late 2018, I do a lot of things in my life in threes. I wrote three things on a piece of paper of what I wanted to do next. I had had such a great career, but I wanted to do something different, something with a broad women's leadership platform and something I had a passion for.
00:20:36
Speaker
So my father was actually drafted into the and NBA in 1957 by the Detroit Pistons. I had played college basketball for now Naismith Hall of Fame coach, Martha McGraw. So, um you know, it was really um something where I was well networked in the New York community and and across the country. And somebody gave me a call who used to work at Deloitte, who was now the head of league operations for the NBA and said, Kathy, I have the perfect job for you.
00:21:02
Speaker
commissioner of the WNBA. And I wasn't following my same advice on confidence. And I said, I don't know anything about running a sports league. No. And so I said no for about five months. But then I went back to those three things I wrote on a piece of paper.
00:21:16
Speaker
And I said something different, check, the WNBA definitely. Something with a broad women's leadership platform, check, check, check, especially diverse women. We're 80% women of color.
00:21:26
Speaker
and then something I have a passion for, clearly the game of basketball. so um So that's kind of how I got here. I was being courted by the traditional corporate jobs and things like that, but I did want to do something different. And I'm so glad I took the job.
00:21:41
Speaker
Sports is big business, big business about relationship. I had built lots of relationships in my three decades at Deloitte. And I'm so glad I took the job. I never thought we'd be where we are in the short time I've been here compared to most men's sports leagues, but women's sports is a huge growth property now. It wasn't five years ago. We were at the margins of professional sports, but I'm thrilled that I took it. And I i literally all the time give credit to my Deloitte experience, culture, and everything I learned from serving. I served pharmaceutical companies. I served banks. I served manufacturing companies um and how that kind of prepared me to run the longest tenured women's professional sports league in the world.
00:22:24
Speaker
Wow. that That is a great story how you got involved in that. And yes, it is super hot right now. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. But before we do, I want to ask you this question, because you said when you were first offered, you weren't going to do it, and then you were nervous about it, questioning your confidence.
00:22:39
Speaker
So you're there now at at least five years. In those five years, what's been the biggest challenge you faced as the commissioner of the WNBA? And how did you really tackle that?
00:22:50
Speaker
Well, one of the biggest challenges when I came into the league, I was given two stats and I'm a data to geek a bit from being a CPA. um One was less than 5% of all media coverage of sports is women's sports and less than 1% of all corporate partnership sponsor dollars that goes to sports.
Challenges and Successes in the WNBA
00:23:07
Speaker
is women's sports. And like the good CPI, I said, well, what's the denominator in that 1%, 5%? And if we needed to move it a couple hundred basis points, how hard can this be? Well, the denominators are huge because men's sports is huge globally and here in the US.
00:23:22
Speaker
um So it's been really hard to move the needle. um I think we had 80 of our games on national platforms when I was hired. Now we have over 200. So if you build it, they will come. So I've learned essentially how to Take a very small business with not a lot of people. Like I went from a firm of 100,000 people at Deloitte to a league of basically 144 players.
00:23:43
Speaker
That's a little bit of shock to the system. And then five months in, I actually, we hit the pandemic. And then we hit George Floyd in the social and racial unrest in the country. And then um we just hit, you know, we then I figured out pretty quickly that I needed to raise capital. So we did an outside capital raise of $75 million, dollars which what did that do? That allowed me to hire capability, whether it was digital, whether it was social, whether it was marketing people. We didn't even have a chief marketing officer.
00:24:14
Speaker
um And now and we had one person in marketing. Now we have 25. We had no growth revenue office. Now we have 27 people in that. So it literally that access to capital and raising it helped me hire great people to help grow the league. And that's what we've done. But it was challenging. I actually told people that our bubble season in 2020 after the pandemic hit.
00:24:35
Speaker
was so existential for the league because if we were out of the sports landscape for 20 months, which is what it would have been had we not had a season, we probably wouldn't be in business and I wouldn't be the commissioner today.
00:24:46
Speaker
So I worked for like a two-month period like I was on an IPO, Mike. Remember the initial public offering days where you worked around the clock and you were at the printer and That's how i how we worked to get the bubble stood up. And we were given like a 2% chance we were going to be successful. And I said, what do you do in the face of 98% failure rate? And I said, public accounting taught me you do everything in your power to prove them wrong.
00:25:10
Speaker
Those that didn't think you could pull it off. And we pulled it off with player health and safety one on the list. And now we went from barely surviving to thriving five years later. Wow.
00:25:21
Speaker
I mean, it's amazing to think about that 98% chance you are going to fail. All right, Kathy, we're going to give you a 2% shot. Let's see what you have and then what you did. And now it's amazing. mean, just to name a few things, we have Caitlin Clark.
00:25:36
Speaker
Angel Reese, New York Liberty, winning their first WNBA championship. This ticket is now the hottest ticket in town. What you have done, you have absolutely turned it around and made such huge strides in player pay, visibility, marketing, ratings. It's at an all-time high. So tell me now, how do you capitalize on this? How do you move forward? What are the next big steps for the WNBA?
00:26:02
Speaker
Well, the great thing is we were preparing after we raised that 75 million in February of 2022. We've been preparing for this moment, didn't know it would come as quickly as Caitlin Angel, et cetera. But we've been preparing for it. We did a total digital transformation, which I learned from all my clients when I was at Deloitte. They were all in the midst of a digital transformation.
00:26:21
Speaker
We created a new app, a new dot com. It powers our DTC product called our WNBA League Pass. We're focused on, I have a three-prong strategy, player first, stakeholder success, and fan engagement.
00:26:33
Speaker
We needed to make it easier to be a fan. more games on national television, more media coverage for partners. So, and now we're looking at expansion, expanding the number of teams. We only have 12 teams. Now we've named 15 on our way to more soon. So, um you know, we need to reach more cities and more markets.
Future of the WNBA and Interview Highlights
00:26:52
Speaker
We've got a ton of global growth ahead of us.
00:26:54
Speaker
We showed our games in India a couple years ago, and we got 22 million unique viewers of our games in India without ah one Indian player in the league or in the NCAA division one. So, And the last thing I'm really looking forward is the pipeline of talent, just like you think about in the professional services firm, the pipeline coming out of college.
00:27:13
Speaker
College and NCAA is our big feeder system. There is huge talent coming in, names like Juju Watkins from USC and Kiki Rice from UCLA. And ah there's a freshman at Vanderbilt, Michaela Blakes, who looks like she's going to be a great player. And then the under-17 team that's out there, I'm hearing great talent. So we've got at least a decade of Being able to storytell and brand build. And, you know, again, this was all stuff like I didn't know I'd be doing coming off of my Deloitte career. But um I think that there's a lot of upside for us both locally here at home and globally that that we're going to affect a big strategy on.
00:27:52
Speaker
Oh, my God, there sure is. and And right what's coming right down the road is, like you said, March Madness leading right then into the draft. I mean, amazing times coming ahead. So we're so excited for you and for the league and just what you have done for them and for women. It's just absolutely amazing.
00:28:09
Speaker
Now, you are making me so tired and exhausted right now. I'm thinking about everything you've done in college, at Deloitte, at the WNBA. I don't even know how you're you're still standing. You've done so much.
00:28:22
Speaker
So i'm to take a deep breath here. So if we look back, we do a little retrospective here for a minute. You have had some of the most demanding leadership roles, whether it's in public accounting, whether it's in professional sports.
00:28:36
Speaker
How did you personally really develop a work-life balance where you raise a family, you don't burn out? I don't even know how this is feasible, how it's possible. Tell us how you handle that.
00:28:49
Speaker
Well, first of all, I never used the word balance, the work-life balance, because we women are typically perfectionists and we never could find that balance. I called it work-life fit. What fits for you? It drives me crazy when people said, can you have it all?
00:29:04
Speaker
Well, the it in that case is defined by somebody else. I always said, could I do it all? Do it all as defined by me, not have it all. Do it all as defined by me. So I raised two children. I have a 27-year-old daughter and a 23-year-old son um and realized pretty early on that like raising kids and coaching my daughter's basketball team or going to my son's sports wasn't really important and that it wasn't linear either.
00:29:29
Speaker
So when my kids were like newborn toddlers, they needed me more in a different way. They would cling to my leg when I left the house and came home. They would hug me. And then they became teenagers and they didn't even care that when I got home from work, like literally.
00:29:43
Speaker
um But so work-life fit, it's not perfect. Don't get frustrated. it ebbs and flows and evolves with your stages of life. And I just happen to have different career opportunities at different points that fit for me.
00:29:59
Speaker
uh and you know i remember the days of busy season on saturdays when i would bring my son and daughter in with me when they were very young and it was great like the staff would like be throwing a football with my son while i was getting a lot of work done and they weren't but like they were my built-in babysitters and those are the fun parts of life and my kids remember that and the people who work for me remember that i was trying to balance it all and I would leave her away to coach my daughter's basketball team. But as technology permeated our life back in that day, I could still get my work done and I could still do something like coaching her team because I wanted other the girls and other moms to see that, like, we we could balance it all. So um it really is just a recognition that it's not linear. It's not always going to be perfect. Was it always perfect for me? No.
00:30:46
Speaker
But make it fit to how you want to live your life. Well, you definitely figured something out because you've reached the pinnacle and now you have great kids. So your congratulations to you on that. and And I'm sure that a lot of young people out there will hear your words and be like, well, you know Kathy did it, she figured it out. Let me figure out my it. I know I can do it too. So really appreciate all of this advice. And you know speaking of advice, I'm sure as you were moving up the firm ladder and you talked, you mentioned you had certain mentors that kind of would help you out.
00:31:19
Speaker
Can you think back and say maybe what was the best piece of a career advice that you've ever received? And maybe you can share it with the group and you're going to help a lot of people in our audience with this advice.
00:31:31
Speaker
A couple things. So one, um I always said, and I think I'm going to write a book someday, but like aspire to lead. Don't aspire to a box or a title on an org chart.
00:31:43
Speaker
Aspire to lead. I never thought I'd be a CEO. I never thought I'd be a commissioner, but I always wanted to lead because I wanted to build relationships and have followership. So that would be number one. The other thing is, and this is the most important thing, especially for women who seem to lack confidence sometimes,
00:31:59
Speaker
is raise your hand to build your capabilities. About six years into my career, I mentioned I went to our national office. I raised my hand to do that. I want to do something different. I want to learn something different. I want to network with a different um set of people. and And then when I made partner, I went into the capital markets group of Deloitte, where I worked on derivative financial instrument consulting and hedging.
00:32:23
Speaker
And that was something different and wasn't really my bailiwick, which I was serving audit clients. But I did that for about four years. And then I came back to audit when my two children were younger because I wanted to have a little more stability and not so much travel. So but at of various points in time, I always say I had five careers in the 33 years of joy. And Four of the five of them are because I raised my hand to say, I want to do something different. I see this.
00:32:48
Speaker
And I was never in M&A, but I tell people like mergers and acquisitions is a great place where auditors go and hone their business abilities, doing accounting due diligence or whatever. capital markets or you know whatever they call those groups, transaction services, those groups today, and building a little niche. So raising your hand, building your capabilities is people say, how did you get here, Cathy? I raised my hand a few times in my career, not a lot.
00:33:14
Speaker
And I took risks. But to me at the time, they weren't risks. It was because I was curious and I wanted to do something different. About every five to six years, that's what happened to me. And it worked. So again, it won't necessarily work for everything. And the last thing is when you become, if there's some new leaders out there, whether it's a new leader of of an audit engagement, of a tax client, you know, whatever it is, um do a few things of symbolic value when you first start for the people working for you. Find out what the friction is in their lives um and kind of help them through it and do a few things of symbolic value, because then the harder things like culture change or
00:33:49
Speaker
getting them to raise their hand to do different things are a lot easier if you build that trust with them early in your leadership. ah ah amazing advice. And, you know, I'm getting from you the three C's, know, make sure you raise your hand as a girl, dad, I think I'm getting more out of this interview than anybody in our audiences right now. So thank you so much for all of this great advice. So just one last question I want I want to ask you, you know, we started out with the very first question. I asked you to go back in time and think about young Kathy, 18, 19 in college. So I just want to go back in time one more time.
00:34:24
Speaker
And I want to ask, Would you do anything differently? Would you choose accounting all over again? And if so, why? how How could you tell someone who's coming out of high school now or just starting college why you would do accounting again, if that's what your answer would be?
00:34:39
Speaker
I absolutely would do accounting again. Such a great grounding in understanding business. I really think it is the language of business. And if you can understand accounting, you can do anything else. You can do finance. You can do M&A. You can even do sports leagues.
00:34:57
Speaker
um There's so many other things you can do, but it does give you such a great grounding. So I would do it over again. I'm sure there were a variety of other things I would change throughout my career, um but I would definitely be an accounting major again and go for my CPA.
00:35:11
Speaker
Well, Kathy, on behalf of all of us at Becker, really, we sincerely appreciate you taking the time out of your extremely busy schedule, sharing all your experiences, all your insight into public accounting, as well as the and NBA.
00:35:25
Speaker
I said it right before this started, but you are just inspiring. You are an inspiring leader And no doubt we know there's going to be even brand new mountains for you to climb in your future. And all of us at Becker and in our audience, we're going to be watching. We're going to be cheering for you every step of the way because you've done so much for accounting, for women. you know, we just can't wait to see what you have in your future.
00:35:48
Speaker
And I hope one day we get to sit down again and talk about all the great new mountains that you've climbed. So thank you again for doing this and being our guest on the show today. Yeah, thank you, Mike. And you and your daughters have to join me for a New York Liberty game this summer. So thanks so much.
00:36:04
Speaker
ah You don't have to ask me twice. So thanks again, Kathy. Thanks, everybody. All right, we are back. Little post-game analysis here. i just have one word.
00:36:15
Speaker
Wow, that was really some great information from Kathy. And if this were a basketball game and the announcers were to come back, a little post-game analysis and reviewing the team performance, what would they say, right? Did we execute that game plan?
00:36:29
Speaker
Did Mike? Three, two, one. Psh! hit that game-winning shot? I don't know. Well, listen, if we think about it, we talked about that college career, check, right? We talked about that work at the Big Four in Deloitte, check.
00:36:42
Speaker
We hit the WNBA, we did retrospective, we did advice. I think we nailed all of that stuff. So if I think back now about a couple of takeaways, some really good advice Kathy gave us.
00:36:53
Speaker
Probably my favorite was the three C's, right? She said, you need to be confident, curious, and courageous. Now, I don't care, man, woman, young, old, it does not matter.
00:37:06
Speaker
Those are words to live by, right? you need confident, Be prepared. Never walk into that meeting and be underprepared because it will show. You wanna to be successful, you make sure you are prepared.
00:37:19
Speaker
And then the last thing that I wanna take is that she said, raise that hand, right? so much of her success came because she was not afraid to say, I'll do it, right? You take on a little risk, you get out of your comfort zone, but that's how you grow.
00:37:36
Speaker
That's how you learn. That's how you make a name for yourself. And that's what she did. I interpret all of this as success is not coming looking for you. You need to go out and you need to take it.
00:37:50
Speaker
And that is exactly what Kathy did. And hopefully that's what we all will do after we hear this interview. All right. She said a few other things that resonated with me. She talked about sports being big business.
00:38:02
Speaker
And she said, big business is all about relationships. All right If you're in business, you know this to be true. How much business gets done because of word of mouth, referrals, relationships? Well, you might think, oh, that only happens in small or mid-sized businesses.
00:38:18
Speaker
Kathy's telling you, hey, look at Deloitte. Look at WNBA. This is big business and relationships are key. And the last thought that I wanna go to, one of the very first things Cathy said in the interview, she quoted Warren Buffett. She said, accounting is the language of business, right? Think about that. When you are someone that's really trying to decide what road, what path do you wanna choose,
00:38:43
Speaker
If you do go down that accounting road, guess what? It is going to set you up for success in so many other businesses and industries, not just accounting, because accounting is the language of business and it could be applied across the board. And that's what's so important to know.
00:39:01
Speaker
So I'd like to just thank everyone again for coming to listening to this podcast with Kathy and myself, and really a special thanks again to Kathy for joining us today. And I want to make sure everyone out there is aware you can actually earn CPE credits just for listening to this podcast.
00:39:19
Speaker
All you need to do is visit the link in the show notes to get your credit. And even better news, if you're a prime CPE subscriber, you can earn CPE credit at no extra cost.
00:39:31
Speaker
Just log in and finalize your credits. Lastly, again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for coming today. And I hope you really enjoyed it. And I really hope we see you again in a future Becker Accounting Podcast.