Erica Crouch

I kind of see it as just understanding to be a good person in the world and making sure the work I'm doing will have many years later of influence, whether that's within an organization or within myself. I'm constantly leaving a legacy behind that people will latch onto and understand the reasoning behind it, and making sure that it's something that can be carried on well past my time.

The best career advice I've ever received in my accounting career is to double-check the numbers and to understand how what you're doing in your current role and the things you're processing in the current day actually function from front to back. Sometimes people think they're making the right entries or the right mathematical equations or calculations, but until you see the other side of how it's used or implemented, it may not have been the right thing. I learned that from a boss in my very first 13-year career with her, and it has always stuck with me. I have taught it to many other people, and it has helped keep a lot of organizations balanced and properly accounted for.

I would say be graceful with yourself and try to envision your path of where you see yourself. Always look at your vision board or what your 5 or 10-year plan is for your life and what you see your legacy being. Once you kind of know the path you somewhat want to take, you'll never end up at that same path - you'll recreate that path probably several times - but you will learn that you are resilient and can really become bigger than what you thought you could become. You can really open your mind up to meeting new people and allowing yourself to be in different working groups. Really just listen to those around you, what's going on around you, and then realize what your path can be, and that it can be whatever you want it to be.

I would say maybe the only challenge I can think of is that there's a lot of computer systems being utilized, and some challenges are how to take certain systems and automate them and make them a little bit better. I think that just comes from learning those systems and, if your organization's using those systems, trying to stay ready to transition away from maybe some traditional uses into some more fast-paced and analytical uses of some computer systems.

Integrity and transparency are most important to me. If you are honest with where things are and integritous in your direction of where you're going to take things, and you're open about it and say, 'This doesn't look right, but let's take a look at this, and then let's fix that, and then next we're gonna do this,' I just believe in a transparent, collaborative workflow, and I stick to that in all aspects of who I am and what I do.