Looking back, what advice would I give my younger self?

After thirty years of working in numerous roles at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), I look forward to embracing a new title: retired partner.

With my son Quinton preparing to begin his freshman year at Yale College and my daughter Shae soon to start her high school years, I have been reflecting on the path I’ve taken — and on what it takes to succeed today in business and in life.?

When I joined PwC in 1994, I wasn’t sure whether I’d fit. You never know for certain whether somewhere is a good fit until you’ve been there a while. As a first-generation Mexican American, the first in my family to attend college, what I knew about the corporate world was limited, and I certainly didn’t know how to blaze a rewarding career path. ?

If given the opportunity, I would reassure my younger self that sticking to her principles would serve her well in the long run, that she could build both a family and a professional community, that patience would eventually pay off.?

For any young person launching a career, it’s important to identify and understand one’s core values, those on which you will never compromise. I knew my values early on: my integrity — always striving to do the right thing — and being present for my family.??

Indeed, balancing my professional ambitions with my commitment to my family — both the people who raised me and those I hoped to bring into the world and share the coming decades — was the first real issue I faced as I agonized over job assignments that took me farther from my El Paso, Texas, home. And finding that balance has required some tough decisions over the years.??

I wanted to take on ever larger client responsibilities; I wanted to take on a leadership role at PwC. For every move, including when the firm offered the opportunity to move to the New York area to join the national office for the audit practice and then become US head of diversity, I needed to ask what the change would mean for my family and my support network. I had to initiate conversations with everyone around me, describing my aspirations and the challenges, and being open to input. My younger self might have leaned back rather than leaning in, not knowing how generous people can be in helping solve problems and removing barriers.

That openness and generosity has been key to my entire career, something it took years to recognize. Early on, I didn’t recognize the centrality of relationships to success in the business world and in life. Technical competencies are important, but maintaining and fostering relationships is something that people should work on cultivating every day.??

That means seeking out mentors and sponsors — having the courage to ask for help — and continuing to do so long after becoming a mentor and sponsor yourself, learning what people need and why they need it. And it means being coachable, seeing feedback as a gift rather than criticism.?

I’ve been able to build a real community spanning home and work, with friends, family and colleagues who have taken this journey alongside me, growing with me. You should see my holiday card list! PwC, with its expansive workforce and supportive culture, has helped cultivate my personal network, as it grows others’ communities daily.?

I have also tried to give back, drawing on my heritage and working to boost younger people from nontraditional backgrounds by serving five years on the PwC US leadership team, responsible for furthering diversity, equity and inclusion across the PwC workforce. Helping to lay the groundwork for the next generation to succeed – including helping to expand their personal networks – has been a lifelong priority.?

Those communities, even networks that are still being formed, can be invaluable in offering fresh perspectives and counsel. At multiple points in my career, trusted people close to me offered advice that proved tremendously valuable: to be patient. Patience was not one of my strengths early on . . . and it still isn’t! But I have learned just how important it can be.?

As a manager, early on, I was recruited by a direct competitor whose pitch was that they had more women partners and would have more future opportunities for women in leadership. And then, a few years later, I was told there would be a delay in making me a partner, and I got another offer, to be at a Fortune 500 company. Both times, mentors and advisers both at PwC and outside the firm counseled me to stay that I should be patient and that it would pay off; both times, it did.?

Other people saw what my impatient younger self hadn’t yet realized: that I truly belonged at PwC. Now I know to keep my core values front and center and let them help guide me. You can’t plan every step of a career, much less a life.

That’s what I would tell my younger self above all: to stay open to possibilities and, if possible, work for people and organizations that will support not only your career aspirations but what you want to do in life, allowing you space to fill roles in a way that best suits your style and objectives.?

For me, committing to PwC has delivered long-term fulfilment, in both a career of learning and development and advancements that have offered opportunities to make a real difference in both clients’ work and people’s lives. I have been able to move from putting clients’ needs first as a young auditor to driving workforce change as leader of the firm’s diversity and inclusion efforts to breaking ground as the firm’s first female US assurance leader to helping large multinational clients as senior relationship partner to strengthening corporate governance as head of the Governance Insights Center.??

It has been a wonderful run, one whose scope I could hardly have envisioned when working toward my CPA certification years ago. Achieving and maintaining balance among all of my passions and commitments has always been challenging, but discovering that I was capable of rising to that challenge – of finding that balance – has been hugely rewarding on its own.?

And it all began with family. My mother loves telenovelas, in which characters often overcome steep odds to achieve success, and she would tell me:

“Mi hija, nada nos cuesta so?ar, así que hay que so?ar grande” — “Daughter, it doesn’t cost us anything to dream, so let’s dream big.”

I have always dreamed big and embraced possibility, and many of those dreams and possibilities have come true. I hope my children will, too, find their center and embrace their values as they head into adulthood — advice I am happy to offer any young person embarking on a career.?