Her Story
About Rachel
Rachel Landau serves as Senior Manager in the audit practice at RSM, specializing in real estate clients. She leads teams of varying sizes, reviews their work on complex areas, communicates with client CFOs and CAOs regarding audit progress, and reports to firm partners. Landau brings 12 years of experience to the role, having begun her career in audit at PwC working with real estate companies for four years, followed by a position in private equity real estate accounting. She earned a BA in Finance and Accounting from NYU Stern Business School with a double major and completed additional coursework to obtain her CPA license. Landau maintains active memberships in the AICPA, New York State CPA Society, Commercial Real Estate Women (CRU), and Junior League, through which she engages in volunteering. She attributes her success to consistent hard work and values caring for people, demonstrated through mentoring at her firm and participation in the women's group STAR. Landau advises staying curious and remaining open to learning from experienced professionals.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rachel
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think hard work. I've always been one to work hard. Even when I was a waitress, I was the shift leader. I always worked hard to try to move up and just to try to do a good job. That's really important to me, and I still take that into my career today. It's just, you know, no matter what level I'm at, I always try to do my best.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Just to stay curious is one of the best things that I've ever learned. It's also one of the things that my firm tells us about. We have something called the 5 C's, and curiosity is one of them. Just staying curious, staying learning. It's something that I've learned is just really helpful.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Just be hungry to learn and to work hard and to just learn from people that have come before you because that's when you really get to see what you're most interested in and make the most of your career, is when you kind of don't close yourself off. Just really kind of learn and be open.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is just the competition. With AI and all the technology that's come about, there's just a lot of competition of how people can do things more efficiently for less cost. It's an opportunity for myself and for my firm to just try to become more efficient and more effective in our work, and to make sure that we're adding value to our clients.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Caring about people. In my personal life, I like to volunteer. I also have animals, and I love to help people. In my career, helping the next person up is so important, whether through the women's group STAR or mentoring groups at work. I've had a lot of mentors that have cared about me and have helped me, so I really want to give back and do the same.
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