Our View from Canal Street is not always about accounting or business. This article shares Our View from Canal Street via Shannon Lee’s story and how she ended up pursuing accounting as a career. We hope her story may speak to college students or young professionals and how one’s career path may have many twists and turns. We hope Our View from Canal Street highlights the importance of knowing what matters most to you as you forge your career and how you may find doors opening up for you when you least expect it.
In school, Shannon liked science and math. When she ‘accidentally’ pushed her younger sister off the monkey bars and her sister broke her arm, Shannon focused on the name of the bone that her sister had broken.
Growing up, Shannon was extremely quiet, a rule follower who played tennis, took dance, and sang in the church choir. She stayed in her comfort zone and set off to UMass-Amherst intending to become a doctor.
While in college, she secured an internship at Mass Eye & Ear on the surgical floor. As she prepared patients for surgery, she noticed a disconnect between her medical interests and the business of medicine. This experience dampened her interest. But she readily found interest in her economics class which drew her to pivot from pre-med to the Isenberg business school at UMass and a major in accounting. The first of many pivots that Shannon would make.
Shannon took an introductory accounting course and enjoyed the class, the professors and other like-minded students. She participated in a PWC Xternship competition that exposed her to broader business matters that she enjoyed. During her junior year, she secured an internship with PWC, working during the busy season.
While in her junior year, the top public accounting firms changed their program to eliminate the path to earning a master’s degree over the first two years with the firm. To be able to sit for the CPA exam, an undergraduate would have to graduate with 150 credits, or delay sitting for the exam until they accrued enough credits. This change left many undergraduates in a tough position. They were running out of available semesters and summers before graduation, so their path to advancing as a licensed CPA would most certainly be delayed.
Not for Shannon Lee. The ‘typical’ path would not be the path for her. She describes herself as always being driven, hardworking, and while maybe not the smartest in the room, no one would outwork her to get the job done well. She piled on the classes during her remaining semesters at UMass, took summer classes and graduated on time with the prerequisite 150 credits. She would eventually sit for the CPA exam, passing it and launching her professional career at PWC.
At PWC, Shannon was an Associate for three years and was made Senior Associate in her 4th year. While she had not been promoted early as she had hoped, she was a Lead Senior on a Mutual Fund account and had significant responsibility managing a team of 30. The grind of mutual fund accounting was brutal, with every month being akin to a yearend. The hours were long, and it was a ton of work. She became burnt out and done with public accounting.
The Next Pivot
Shannon left public accounting and PWC and joined another global firm, Philips, where she focused her career on financial planning and analysis. She spent five years at Philips in Andover, MA, including living through many reorganizations. They then announced they were moving their headquarters to Cambridge, MA.
At this point, Shannon was married and had two young children. She ‘tested’ the commute to Cambridge multiple times and made her decision: she would pivot her career again to find a balance that would enable her to have a successful and rewarding career while being the working parent she wanted to be. Commuting to Cambridge would prevent her from spending the time she wanted to spend raising her children along with her husband. It was time to pivot again.
Getting Her Taxes Done Leads to an Opportunity
In 2020, Shannon met with LCW CPAs’ Doug Thompson to prepare their taxes. During their conversation, Shannon shared what was going on with her work and offered that if LCW CPAs was ever looking to add accounting and audit expertise to their team, she would be interested. It so happened that LCW CPAs was committed to building its Audit Practice and was looking for a senior professional to lead the effort.
Note for young professionals: One never knows where your next career opportunity could come from. As you build relationships, share what you are thinking about as in this case, Shannon’s next career opportunity came from a discussion that happened to be timely and relevant.
Joining LCW CPAs – The Importance of Flexibility
While she had been a quiet child, Shannon had become confident and clear as to what was most important to her as a professional and a mother of three children. She was committed to being her authentic self and knowing what she needed in terms of flexibility from her next employer to suit her professional and personal goals.
As is common with women being presented a significant career opportunity, Shannon had reservations as to if she was ready for the role of building the Audit Practice at LCW CPAs and being part of the leadership team. It has been years since her public audit days and audits for LCW CPAs clients would be focused on small to mid-sized businesses. Was she ready or over her skis?
As Shannon reflects on being presented this career opportunity, she is extremely grateful to Tony Lopez and Mark Alaimo for seeing her capabilities and for understanding her need for flexibility. She reflects on the trust they had in her and she reinforces how she works to show that trust to her team. She feels good about what they have accomplished in growing the Audit Practice.
She recalls the risk she took in taking a pay cut and giving up other benefits to accept this opportunity while also pushing herself beyond her boundaries and to have a mindset of ‘going for it’ to prove to her doubting self that she was not over her skis. At LCW CPAs she had the support and trust to let her tap into her experience, knowledge, and work ethic to succeed.
LCW CPAs offered Shannon Lee a career opportunity that has been rewarding, fulfilling, and challenging. Every day is different, and she firmly sees her asking for and needing flexibility as something that the firm has embraced, for her and others. She gladly takes on the responsibility of ensuring her colleagues’ needs are met when it comes to flexibility and work demands. She comments on how ‘ridiculously difficult’ being a working parent can be.
While Shannon technically works a 32-hour week, she admits the lines are very blurred between working and being off, getting in an extra hour or two after the kids are in bed; doing whatever it takes to get the job done well and with pride.
Recently, Shannon listened to Mel Robbins and her Let Them audiobook, with her key takeaway being to “live a life that makes you proud”. A great mantra and one that Shannon is doing, pivoting as needed to get what she needs, asking for what she deserves, and having the career she wants.
When not working, Shannon likes to read books that let her mind slow down. If she had a superpower, it would be to clone herself. That superpower would certainly come in handy for a member of the Executive Team at LCW CPAs, the head of the Audit Practice, and the mother of three young children.
For the standard professional information about Shannon, click here.