Her Story
About Zeinab
I've been passionate about accounting since I was 14 years old, when I decided I wanted to be an accountant rather than follow my siblings into medicine like my mother wanted. I saw that the accountant is the secret of any place - every hospital, bank, supermarket, and company needs an accountant, not just hospitals need doctors. After earning my bachelor's degree in accounting in 1996 from Egypt, I came to the United States in 1999 and obtained my bachelor certificate from California University. I worked in the UK for about 4 years as a financial analyst for a charity association for over 2 years before establishing my tax accounting practice in Texas 8 years ago. My uncle, who was a dean of a university in agriculture in my home country and earned two PhDs, has been my greatest source of encouragement throughout my career - watching him do his research inspired me to always strive for excellence. Today, I focus primarily on taxes, meeting clients across multiple office locations in our community and handling everything from documentation verification to tax filing and IRS submissions for personal, commercial, and corporation clients. The last two years have brought new challenges as we face increasing attempts at document fraud, so I'm extremely careful to ensure all papers are legitimate and compliant with IRS regulations before filing. I'm currently pursuing my CPA license and expect to complete the exam and receive my license in 2027. Throughout my career of over 25 years since graduation, I've continuously taken courses to stay updated on new regulations, GAAP standards, and IRS requirements, because I believe that building a strong background of knowledge is essential to solving difficult client situations. As a mother of 5 boys, I work hard to balance my personal and professional life, and I want to be a good example to my sons, showing them that their mother is successful and works hard so they can learn from me.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Zeinab
01What do you attribute your success to?
I've loved being an accountant since I graduated in 1996, and I've always wanted to be on the top of this position, to know everything about what's new in the field. Life has taken me in many ways away from my position because I have 5 boys, 5 kids, but I'm trying to be a good sample to them, you understand? I want them to see their mommy is successful, is working hard, so they can learn that from me. That's what drives me - being a good example for my sons and showing them that hard work and dedication matter.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
You have to build your background information about everything that you use, because without this background information, you will never solve any problem. I've seen this even in my own work - sometimes I'm struggling to solve a situation with a client. For example, there might be someone whose dad has died and he didn't file his taxes last year, but he has two companies and a lot of stuff, so we have to solve this situation depending on if you know the laws and the regulations that you have to follow. If you don't know these regulations, how can you solve this problem? You always have to know all the new and even the best laws and procedures you have to follow. If you don't know this information, if you don't have any good background information, you will never be fit for this position. This is what I always say to the newcomers who work with us.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Try to take a balance between her personal life and the work life, her job, her future. Because if you go through your family life only, you will lose your career. And if you focus on the career only, you will lose your family life. So you have to take this balance between both of them. This is what I always advise the young woman.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenge is to face the bad people, especially the expert bad people. You have to be very, very conscious about the documents and to go through the rules to make sure everything is right, not fake, no fraud. This is a very big responsibility on your shoulder, because a lot of people come to my office and introduce to me a lot of documents, and in between, they put a lot of fraud papers. You have to be very, very conscious about that. If you do it too fast, or if you close your eyes about some stuff, you will be in a very bad situation and you will lose everything. This is the very big challenge - to be very conscious about that. We've been facing this especially over the last two years, with many people trying to go around the papers and documents, to change them or make them fake to take a lot of money. The IRS is now very accurate about documentation because of this.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
To do everything accurate and on time, to never be late, to prepare myself for anything before I start it. These are the values I hold most important in both my work and personal life.
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