Her Story
About Kalanie
Kalanie Petersen owns a boutique high-end accounting firm that she has run for over a decade. She let go of a tax law firm in California last year after experiencing burnout from managing multiple practices. This year she expanded her work to provide advisory services focused on financial architecture for Select Founders. In this role she bridges the gap between clients' CPA services, estate planning, and investment planning to help founders and high-net-worth individuals gain clarity on their long-term financial and work-life goals. Petersen is a founder and CEO who attributes her drive to an original purpose rooted in supporting mothers who want to build businesses, stemming from a personal experience that reinforced her commitment to entrepreneurship.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Kalanie
01What do you attribute your success to?
What pushes me is because I had the original purpose, and how I got the original purpose, again, routed back to my daughter, is because it was traumatic. She had to have an emergency. She had turned a year. She had no business on this Minnie Mouse something something. Landed wrong, anyways. But the arm wasn't like a regular broken, it was the bone like popped out dislocated situation, and I remember asking the firm that I worked for if I could just have the day off. I was like, I, you know, it's an emergency. I need to go. You know they told me no. And from that day forward, are not only wanted to help mothers. I wanted to help mothers that wanted to have a business, because this was my final push. I always knew I was going to be an entrepreneur. I was that kid in school selling CDs, because, you know. And it was CDs and burns it, when you see. Like, I was doing all those things. So I knew. So that that's something, you know, but that propelled me.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
If you're already thinking about being a founder and CEO, you're already ahead of the bunch, so you don't need me to give you advice, you just need me to guide you. And so what I mean by that is. If it was placed upon your desire, to help the next person. Consumer, client, customer. Whatever your service and or product you are wanting to leave in this world. My thing is, why? Why are you doing this? What is the story behind it? And when the time is tough, if you know solidly why you started that, was it something you went through? Was it traumatic? Was it happy? What was that emotion? Hold on to that emotion, because that's what's going to fuel you. My biggest thing is not the advice that I can give you, but the advice that you can give yourself in terms of, why did you even start this? What makes you a visionary? What makes you want to leave a purpose? Is it for your child? Is it for yourself? Is it a need that you saw? Because if you can answer that, you're long-lasting. And believe it or not. It's like one of those things, like Nike, the three words, just do it. If you start, you're either going to have a purpose or you're not.
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