Her Story
About Aleisha
My professional life is a balance between two worlds that I'm equally passionate about. During the day, I work as a tax professional at Deloitte, where I handle 1065 returns, K1s, and serve as a tax specialist on audits. I started my career at KPMG and took a risk to transfer to Deloitte, the number one accounting firm in the world, and I've really enjoyed being part of the Deloitte community for the past 5 years. But my true passion lies in what I do outside of my 9 to 5 - I'm an entrepreneur with my dad, running our family farm that's been passed down since my great-grandparents immigrated from Slovakia. We've been actively developing the farm since 2022, rehabilitating a barn built in 1846 on our 500 acres where we grow sweet corn and sunflowers. Through social media, the farm gained incredible traction, and now Luke Bryan is hosting his farm tour concert at our venue on September 17th, bringing 20,000 people to our small town. We're clearing and excavating 26 acres to prepare for this, and we're also turning the barn into a wedding venue and community space. Before hours I'm doing social media for the farm, after hours I'm doing PR - I've been on Channel 4 and Channel 2 local news and doing radio interviews. I also model part-time, having worked with High Noon at the PGA Championship and at Morgan Wallen's Still the Problem Tour, and I compete in pageants - I was first runner-up at Miss Pennsylvania USA last year. This year I was nominated for Pittsburgh 50 Finest, raising money and awareness for cystic fibrosis, and I'm currently the leader in fundraising. It takes incredible time management to balance it all, especially with hard deadlines like tax day on September 15th and the concert on September 17th, but I think anything worth doing takes more work than you expect, and it's incredibly rewarding.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Aleisha
01What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say to not be afraid to take a risk. For me, I started out at a lower-tier Big Four accounting firm, and I knew I wanted to progress higher, so I took a risk and came to Deloitte. There's also risk with what I'm doing with the farm and wedding venue, and I think anything you do, it's always going to take more work than you expect, but it can be incredibly rewarding. I think not being afraid is the biggest thing I would tell women, because I think oftentimes women, whether we acknowledge it or not, sometimes we hold ourselves back because of fear, the unknown.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Mostly not having enough hours in the day to make it all work. Working at a big four, it's long hours, especially during tax compliance seasons, and oftentimes we're constantly waiting on client data, which holds us back. So that's really challenging, and then having to turn things around and work with a team, but it's incredibly rewarding once it's all done. And then also managing being an entrepreneur, because that can't wait either. We have a hard deadline of September 17th, and tax day is September 15th, so both of my hard deadlines are pretty close together. So it's definitely challenging.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think being authentic is most important to me. What I'm doing on a day-to-day is not typical, but I think when you tell your story to others, they see value in it, and they appreciate it. And people support because of that. So I think just being authentically yourself is really important.
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