As an Assistant Director in our Financial Management Associate organization within EY, I’m responsible for the direct supervision of 19 finance professionals, located in 4 offices spread across California and Utah. My responsibilities include; recruiting and hiring, mentoring, performance development, project management, solution orientated problem solving, risk management and change management. My team works directly with our engagement partners and teams to manage the financials of our external engagements. This includes due diligence around client and engagement set up, reviewing and advising on budgets, establishing effective billing practices, performing dunning’s and collection activities and monitoring engagement financials, including; billed/unbilled inventory, margin and revenue days outstanding. An important part of my role revolves around problem solving – understanding a situation, determining what has happened, what needs to happen, making recommendations for next steps and then confirming the outcome. This is the part of my job I enjoy the most as there is always something new to learn. My team, being uniquely aligned directly with our client serving teams, allows for us to be change- agents when new tools, systems or processes are rolled out by the firm. Our FMAs need to be comfortable having difficult conversations related to these changes, being solution orientated and helping our teams understand why the change is happening and how they can best navigate through the change. My job is to help my team understands the why behind the change, how the change is being implemented so they’re able to have well informed discussions with their client teams. Prior to my promotion to Assistant Director in 2011, I was a financial management associate for 5 years, progressing through the Associate, Senior Associate and Supervising Associate ranks, taking on an increasingly large and complex book of business through each promotion.