Deborah Moore

I definitely attribute my success to my mother. She's a pioneer in her own right. I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, a little small town, and she forged the way of entrepreneurship in our family. She started a legal tax business 20 years ago, and she has grown and learned so much. Just seeing her work ethic and the things that she does to reach people and help people within the business has been very inspirational for me. Her example showed me what's possible and gave me the foundation to pursue my own path in finance and business.

The best career advice I received from my mentor was to challenge myself for knowledge. If you get placed in a role and you're not learning, that means you're not growing. I always look for a challenge and look for the next step. Like with AI right now, you want to learn as much as you can because it'll change in a month or two. It's about continuously building up your techniques and knowledge and continuing to grow. If you're comfortable where you are and not being challenged, you're stagnating rather than advancing in your career.

My main advice is that no one holds you back but yourself. We mentally put ourselves in a box, and we can always break that mold. So whatever you dream of, you can do it. It took me 15 years to get back to school, and I never thought that I would be moving forward in my career at this stage. I would have never thought that I'd be going into this year now at any age, at any moment. Do what you want, don't let anyone hold you back, and don't mentally hold yourself back. We as women in corporate and different spaces hold back a lot because we don't want to step on anyone's toes, or we may feel like that may not be the space we should be in. But you need to be honest with yourself and others, be transparent in what you want, and not hold back who you are.

I would say the biggest challenge is AI automation. In the finance space, a lot of things are moving to the area of process improvement and process streamlining, and they're using AI for that. I think it's critical to position yourself within the industry to learn those techniques of how to work with AI and not just do the job, because you can be replaced in that space. The opportunity here is that if you do your job really well, you should think about starting your own business or consulting firm, because someone's going to need your expertise. If you happen to lose your space in the corporate space, then think about doing something on your own. The key is staying ahead of the technology curve while building your own value proposition.

I would say being honest with myself and others is most important, because I believe honesty is going to get you to the next level. Transparency in what you want is crucial. And not holding back who you are matters deeply to me. Being a woman in corporate and different spaces, I think we hold back a lot because we don't want to step on anyone's toes, or we may feel like that may not be the space we should be in. But authenticity and transparency are what really drive success and fulfillment in both work and life.