Rob Skinner
Hello and welcome to the Vertex Exchange Europe podcast. Your go-to for all things indirect tax. I'm Rob Skinner and in this series, we'll dive into the various challenges businesses face in the indirect tax world. I'll be chatting with global thought leaders and indirect tax expert sharing ideas, experiences and advice to help you navigate the ever changing regulatory and digital landscape. Today we're talking about women in tax technology. We'll explore barriers to gender equality in the tax industry, as well as the under representation of women in leadership positions, before moving on to discuss how tax can be an enabler for helping bring women together to overcome these challenges.
We will dig deeper into what needs to be done to shape the future of women in tax and technology, and conversely, how women will shape the future of tax themselves. So, I'm excited to welcome our guests for today, Mindy Cunningham, Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Services at Vertex, based in Florida, USA and Sophia Weber, tax technology partner at PwC based out of Germany. Mindy, Sophia. Welcome. It's great to have you on the podcast. To get started, can you each tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into tax technology?
Sophia Weber
My name is Sophia Weber. I'm based out of Germany and I'm partner at PwC, focusing on tax technology. We implement ERP solutions from a tax perspective. I don't think that when I was a kid, I even knew what a tax advisor is but then but then I ended becoming one just because I studied at a university which had a very strong major in taxation. I picked that up and I was really impressed. I started as a tax advisor but over time I got a bit bored with tax advice only. This is when I discovered technology, so I combined both. I feel at home now.
Mindy Cunningham
My story is a little different in that I do come from three generations of accounting professionals. My grandfather was a tax accountant, and he had his own firm. My father had his own firm and my sister actually started going into that business as well, as she was studying accounting also.
Accounting came pretty naturally to me and probably at the age of maybe 10, my dad had me doing a lot of work with him! Meeting his clients and helping him and just, you know, kind of learning a little bit of what I now understand is customer relationships and actually, back in that time we had, you know, we had 14 call on paper and Big Green Paper and, you know, just kind of managing the numbers and doing all some things. And he would give me some busy work to do. But it really it really gave me an interest in accounting and in that field. So, I studied accounting and I really kind of started my career in New York with EY, the early part of my career was really in the Big Four and I think Sophia and I have that in common. And I was with EY and KPMG and then I jumped out and really went into tech. And that was kind of the second stage of my career and tech. It was infrastructure with Citrix, and then education tech and legal tech.
Another area Sophia and I, you know, have in common, we kind of again spent a little bit of time in the industry together and now tax tech. So, it's kind of coming home. I always studied accounting from the perspective that I always wanted it as a foundation for any business I go into. And then tax became a, you know, sort of a coincidence, but also, you know, true passion around what I'm doing, and the technology paired with customer success and services. So I have responsibility for Vertex, for customer success and services and the remit that I have is: I'm in the tax industry but I'm also doing professional services implementations, onboarding, adoption, education and really wholeheartedly around the customer experience and helping our customers maximize the value of their solution. The tax tech is purely coincidental, I think we have that in common, Sophia!
Rob
However, it came about, it's great that you've kind of both, I suppose, segued from pure tax into technology. And I mean that's a lot of what we're probably going to be talking about today as to how that career path can evolve for anybody. But you know, for women in particular, let's dive right into the questions today. Yeah. Really, what we're looking at is, is an opportunity to break barriers here, create opportunities and shape the future of indirect tax from a tech perspective, why do you guys think it's such an important conversation to be having right now? Mindy, if I can put that to you first?
Mindy
I think that so much is changing and has changed from the time, you know, Sophia and I started our careers. and I think that this has always been an ongoing, I would say challenge being in male dominated. We've both always pushed, and I personally have always been a voice of gender equality and making sure that women females in really diverse thinking and diversity in all areas, I think of gender, race, geography, all different affiliations and experiences. and just diversity of thought makes for a better business. The performance as a result of that thrives. And so, I think it's really important to have the conversation wherever we are in that journey because there's still, you know, still, you know, 30 years later, there's still so much work to be done.
So much has changed from the beginning and those challenges are different today. But I think it's really important that we pave the way for other female leaders and women, you know, starting their careers and throughout their careers. I have four daughters, and I want to make sure that they have the opportunities that are easier than how I had it as I journeyed throughout my career.
Rob
Yeah, I think from what we've said so far, we can say that female representation in the tax technology world has grown but there are still some challenges that remain, so I'm interested to know what you think. What does the gender gap look like today in tax tech?
Sophia
I think we need to differentiate here because women are not under-represented when it comes to the workforce itself in tax technology, especially the younger colleagues, there is a lot of gender quality there. But when it comes to leadership then the game changes, and indeed, when we're talking about the leadership levels in tax technology, in tax it might be different in tax, probably there is a bit of more. But for tax technology, there is this field is still very male dominated. And why is that?
Some things I recognize from the beginning of my career, technology as such, not only for the area of tax, but technology as such, is perceived as being a male, a male field which is indeed changing, but not changing fast enough.
Rob
So yeah, so you've got those kinds of pockets where, you know, there's greater inequality in the tech sphere, you know, in the leadership space. But, you know, do you think, I suppose there's a sub-question, do you think more women coming into tax professions maybe at the entry level will automatically mean that those gaps dissipate over time. Or do you think there will always be those divisions unless there is a purposeful effort to overcome them?
Sophia
I can see this changing not only because technology, artificial intelligence and everything is much more dominant and present nowadays. So also, women have access to it, and this is helping for them to develop the appetite for such jobs. But there is also a mindset shift, and this mindset shift is the way how I would explain it. Also, women are waking up, and even if they don't fulfil like 150% of the job profile and the tax technology job profile is a difficult one because you have to cover so many different and conflicting skill sets. Sometimes technology and tax can be very pragmatic about all things because it's very often an IT project that you are working on, back in the day, more women were skeptical or probably a little bit more reserved on applying for such jobs because they didn't take every check box on this profile, not 150%.
While men probably felt a little bit more comfortable, even if they didn't fulfil all the requirements for such a profile and these are then the candidates that ended up filling the leadership positions at the end, I think that women are starting to develop more confidence and a more positive mindset in this regard.
Mindy
Yes, Sophia is bringing up so many important points. I think we see this as a technology industry challenge and not necessarily a tax technology challenge and part of that is the confidence piece that Sophia's talking about. I also think it's exposure in early childhood years and the encouragement of young girls to participate in STEM and participate even in sports. Competitive sports and team sports really does have an impact I believe on the ability to become competitive in the workplace, but competitive not with each other, but with other teams. And I think that is something that is changing as well. Both of those things I think really do help women develop confidence, Trust in each other and supportive and encouraging leadership. All of those things are I do think they play a role as women are kind of maturing and coming up even through their career.
The other big one that's changed is women supporting women. You know, Sheryl Sandberg wrote her book, Leaning In, that really changed the mindset of women. Historically, a lot of women were pretty competitive because there were only a couple of slots, if you will, in leadership positions for female leaders. And we weren't as supportive of each other as I think we are today. And I think that's a, you know, I think that's real and that's one of the big things that I think we're leaving for the next generation and that is such a positive step. And women supporting women and men supporting women, and they're finding their voices to be able to support their wives, partners, children, nieces, daughters, et cetera and I think that it's I think that that allyship, that support, is so important. Women are gaining that confidence to lean in. So, if you and say, “I don't check all those boxes, but I have confidence that I can that I can do that work” and I think that makes a difference.
Rob
It's really valid point that it's, you know, and it's also we'll probably get onto this, but about women being women in those roles and not trying to be men in the roles that they're trying to push into and not being the exception to the rule but being the norm in that environment, yeah.
Sophia
Yeah, on that on that point, probably leadership for us to become better leaders, all of us, both men and women, we not only need the male features, but we need a little bit more female features to have also a little bit more female leadership and I think this is something that nowadays also like the workforce is recognizing and appreciating.
Mindy
Yeah, I think the nurturing capabilities that we have and we're building that, and it's become very powerful to be authentic, to be vulnerable to, you know, lead with passion and lead with heart and inspire and create trusting followership. And I think that it's a really big step forward.
Rob
I mean, we've kind of talked about the future, but I want to just look back a bit as well. So, Mindy, how have you seen the industry change in terms of gender equality from where it was when you started out in it?
Mindy
Yeah, I mean, the challenges are different. I was always very diligent, very serious about my work and performance. From the start of my career, I always felt pressure to conform and I didn't have the freedom to express myself, whether it was through my voice, through my creative energy, my diversity and thinking, and even fashion, like those are big things. You know, initially, even just walking into a room and I was in a male dominated field and often customers misunderstood my leadership role.
If I would walk into a meeting with a junior male colleague, even my clients would look at the male colleague to start the meeting or, you know, they made some assumptions. Or at least that's the way it felt.
And, you know, certain things like, I was pregnant as a young professional and I was very serious about being a partner in the Big Four and I hid my pregnancy. You know? I hid it until I couldn't hide it anymore. And I did that because I felt this need and pressure to remind everyone that I was really serious about what I was doing, and I had planned on coming back to the workplace. I took a pretty short maternity leave, and I think that's something that, again, that is such a huge step forward where we're doing things you know, internationally. A lot of European countries give women a year to, you know, take off of work and come back. And we're doing more things with extended maternity leave here in the US.
And paternity leave, right? So, it's family leave and you've got a lot more flexibility. And without questioning whether you're serious about the work. So, I think there's more opportunity for women to have, and men, to have that flex time and not feel that.
I think that the other big thing is my desire to voice out around the importance of diversity. It was pretty lonely at that time. It was usually the female voice at the table and that has changed tremendously. So, we have business resource groups. We have, you know, men advocating for women and allyship and that makes such a big difference. We talked about women leaning in to support each other. And, you know, we do have business resource groups. We've got organizations like Chief, which is a powerful, inspiring network of leaders that inspire women to thrive.
I think I have been very fortunate throughout my career, despite all of these things that I would say took on throughout my journey and pushed through, worked my way and navigated. I've always had a circle of trusted allies and mentors who pushed me to cross barriers, to crush the glass ceiling, to be courageous and to take risks. My husband is my biggest supporter and has always been. He believes in me and gives me the confidence, even on those days when I don't believe in myself and I don't have the confidence. So those things really are exciting and fulfilling and enrich - not only your professional ambitions - but also just enrich you personally.
Rob
Yeah. Gosh, I mean, you know, it really paints two contrasting pictures there in terms of some of those early memories you've got, you know, to show how much things have moved forward, but still, you know, still work to be done as we've talked about. Now, you're coming at the industry from slightly different perspectives. Mindy, you work for a tax technology business whereas Sophia, you're kind of working in practice. And do you think that presents any differences in terms of the, you know, the female role/female position in the industry at all? Sophia, maybe if you can kick off on that one.
Sophia
Mindy is currently in a tax technology company, and I had the pleasure also to be part of a tax technology company, so I know this kind of business. Now, I'm in professional services at the Big Four, which indeed is a different kind of business. This difference is relevant from a gender perspective. Why? Because when you're in technology company, you have all the functions that bring you to success and that bring client success.
They are very much segregated, so you have a department or a functional role around presales around sales, around product, ranked, project delivery, marketing and so on. While at Big Four, in professional services, we all need to do all these jobs and all these roles to deliver to our clients.
What happens is that some of these roles are very male dominated and they're more suitable to male and others are more suitable to women, which probably in the tax technology company would lead to some departments being very male dominated and others female dominated, while for professional services it's kind of a hybrid. And I think that also some professional services colleagues are struggling with the necessity to having to perform on all these different fronts, which are very different from each other indeed. Not all people and colleagues feel comfortable with executing on all these different fields.
Rob
OK. And Mindy, I suppose you've kind of you've worked on both sides yourself, haven't you? But kind of in reverse. So what? What are your thoughts?
Mindy
It's interesting because I think generally speaking, Sophia said this at the beginning, accounting and tax are pretty female, you know forward industries. And so, I'm sitting in user group meetings this week and more than 50% of the people, the audience in the room are female and those are tax professionals, those are tax technology professionals. And I find that very interesting. And I think it's where they are in the organization, you know, and you can see I think in the Big Four, there's a lot of female, you know, consultants and advisors. I think when you move into the tech, that's where it slows down and even upwards into the leadership roles. And I think that's the journey that that women seem to, you know, to be on. And there are times where they step away or they don't push themselves, or there's pressure, you know, for between - I don't like to say work life balance because I don't subscribe to the work life balance, I think it's work life peace! I'm not sure there's balance, but I think that when you are an industry, I think there's a couple things. On the consulting side of the Big Four, very male dominated particularly, I was, you know, in a state and local government space serving, you know, clients that was very traditionally male dominated professional services and consulting. Sophia, I am curious to see if you see the same thing where there's a demand for travel, a lot of travel and so that does become very hard on families. So typically, one of the parents, and usually it's the female, is off the road so that they can spend time with the kids and raise the family. And so, they're the ones that opt out, if you will, even if they have the career opportunities.
Traditionally, that’s how I think the data would support that. In industry, I think there are a lot of opportunities that allow for you to get into the tech industry but not necessarily have to be technical. We can, of course, there's opportunities through, you know as we were talking about, STEM and early career and internships where you can come into the organization. Whether it's product development, product management, there's more technical, but there's others, you know, opportunities, whether it's customer success, professional services. Education and enablement. The customer experience, marketing, finance. There are so many other areas of the business that you can be involved in that will help you also lean into your expertise while also being part of a thriving technology industry and business. So I think there's, you know, different opportunities depending on the, you know, whether it's PwC, which has wonderful programs, you know, to a Vertex that also has as you know, wonderful early career development programs, internships and career opportunities for all people.
Rob
You mean like any business, I guess a tech company has all of those operational divisions and functions that need to be done, which can attract, you know, myriad people from walks of life, et cetera. So, lots of opportunity in that regard to kind of have play a role in the industry?
Mindy
Can I give you one example? So, customer success is a, you know really the function of a customer success management team is to help our customers maximize the value of their solutions.
We find that people from diverse backgrounds and experiences make the best customer success managers. Nurses in particular make wonderful customer success managers because they are innately nurturing. They are innately serving people, and so we have, you know, we tend to, you know, bring people in from very diverse backgrounds and experiences that probably never even thought they would be in the tech industry, let alone helping customers maximize the value of their technology investments. You know, particularly in tax tech.
And then the second is, you know people, you know from education and enablement. I have a colleague of mine, she was a trainer at a pharma company, and you know, we ended up bringing her in as a training and development leader in the tech industry. And she has continued to grow and now, you know, leads a global team around education and enablement, very tech oriented, so different avenues of coming in and then of course professional services and consulting. Sophia and I are great examples of people who had no idea we were going to end up here in this space and navigated our careers as they were right, let's just take risks and open doors of opportunity as they as they approach us.
Sophia
You mentioned so many so many important points, but indeed, work life balance independent from whether we agree with the term or not, it's really a topic for females and the probably the only big thing that the pandemic a couple of years brought to us is really breaking this through, breaking this concept and enabling a lot of women probably to also dream of leadership positions, which was not that possible before that.
Rob
Yeah, I guess it did. And I think there's a few things there based on what you've talked about also the, I suppose you know, the move more towards virtual working going to the point you were saying earlier Mindy, about, you know, travel, business travel. You know, certainly in my walk of life, we've seen a massive reduction in the amount of business travel we need to do, but it's not gone completely. But maybe that's also been become an enabler for a better balance of work and life for women to enter roles that maybe they couldn't in the past.
How do we make that change and so that women can get into leadership positions in the in the tax technology space is that you know, beyond the things that we've talked about, is there anything else, Sophia that you think can happen?
Sophia
Yes, there are a lot of things because we are definitely talking all the time, not only in this format today, but we've been mentioning in the last year is a lot of mentorship program for women, I've never had a female mentor.
Mindy
I think you bring up a really good point, Sophia. I think like you, I always had male mentors starting from my dad, you know, and throughout my career. Later in my career is really where I started, you know, surrounding myself with some female mentors and I actually took a position once because I had an opportunity to work for a female CEO. I'd never had that experience before, and I wanted to have it. And I think part of, you know, leaning in is also leaning into your career and making some proactive decisions that are going to give you experiences that will shape you. And they don't necessarily all have to be exactly aligned with what you think. And I think opening yourself up to a variety of different experiences and a variety of different people and then network.
People that you trust, and you know, challenging yourself really helps shape and I think we can do that for each other. And mentorship is bidirectional. So, we get a ton from one another, whether it's passion, inspiration, examples of experience, and I think we need to do that more for each other. As peers and also for the next generation.
Sophia
Absolutely. And a couple more points on that. I think that we need more role models, more female role models. We and we need definitely more visibility.
Mindy
And have leaders that give their people oxygen because there are things that, you know, deplete you and there are other things that fill you. I think those are the things that are enriching, and these types of conversations are so fulfilling. And Sophia and I get together every once in a while, and those are very fulfilling.
Rob
That's great. I mean, do you, do you think those mentors need to come from within the same industry or do you think there's a benefit to kind of casting the net wider in that regard?
Mindy
I don't have a prescription for it. I think it's what works best for you. Sometimes it's great to have perspective, so having people that aren't within your organization, the other thing is it doesn't have to be one and done right. I have mentors and relationships that I have carried throughout my career. So, these are people, you know, it's not, it's not like you have a limit, you know it's an abundance is even better. Sophia, what do you think?
Sophia
Yeah, absolutely. Both is good. The more the better. It doesn't have to be only in the industry, but indeed it would help of course, because if it's within the same industry, then it saves time from explaining the details around the profession. On the other side there are not too many tax technology leaders, so if someone is looking for a female tax technology leader with the restrictions we're living nowadays, which is still better than it used to be, there are not too many.
Mindy
I also think it's interesting because with the technology moving so fast with, with the advancements in AI for example being one step removed from that actually helps open our own mindsets to how might we achieve something that we hadn't even thought of? And sometimes you can get I would say narrowly focused on what you know, but that's where the diversity of thinking and experiences comes in, because you can take something in an adjacent industry and you can say, oh, that's kind of cool. How can I, how can we, you know, use that to fuel what we're doing here. And so I do think it's pretty important to have that, you know diversity and again, having that you know perspective coming in through the tax technology space and industry and be able to talk to people that have that same experience, but also infuse it with some outside thinking.
Rob
Yeah, I think so. You know more variety and diversity, as you say, is going to kind of bring a broader range of thought and spectrum to, you know, to help you in in that journey. Definitely, your examples, Mindy, around sort of career change situations like the nurses’ example that you use. I was kind of thinking actually that that is actually a great opportunity for women. The fact that they are more likely to have had a career break and you know and have skills that they can then adapt and apply in a different walk of life. So, I think that was a great opportunity. But on the flip side do you think, assuming that women should take or will be strong in certain roles, especially if you think look at it from a sort of tax tech vendor perspective where you've got all of those things like customer service, HR, maybe some of the roles that women do tend to air towards more. Do you think that's helpful, or could it actually be a hindrance in terms of women being part of that, that tax community because they're sort of pigeonholed into where they would be expected to be?
Mindy
I mean, I don't see boundaries. So, you know from my personal perspective. I think the world's your oyster. And so, I don't see those boundaries. And so, I would encourage, you know, anyone that's in male dominated fields or traditional, you know traditional female role, to expand you know, the breadth of experience that you have and be reflective. And kind of manage your own career pathway and you know, envision where you want to be and all the experiences that you have, it can be very lateral. It's more like a web then it is like a straight up or you know. And I think you've got to collect those experiences along the way and the more diverse those experiences are, I think, that makes you a stronger leader and a stronger subject matter expert because you're taking all of that with you.
I just again, I don't think you should feel pigeonholed, and I would hope that you know, saying that someone is a great customer success manager is not necessarily because of their gender and because they would be great at professional services. There's not an assumption that you're going to be a male.
We have some super smart, unbelievable subject matter experts. I'm looking at Sophia, you know, as a leader in tax tech and what a wonderful role model she is to so many others. And I think that there's an opportunity for young people, young women today to look up, if you will, and look at the leadership that I know I personally didn't have. When I looked up at the leaders across the Big Four and across a lot of industries, they were mostly male and that's changed a lot. And so, I think those opportunities to see leaders and professional services leaders and customer success leaders, and you know CEO positions, which is not enough like there is not enough women in the C-Suite. That's the next glass ceiling that Sophia and I are ready to break!
Sophia
Totally, I totally agree. For example, I have now the luck, the happiness to work in organization which has a female leader, PwC Germany is led by a female leader. But what you're mentioning, while there might be professions or roles that might be more suitable to female features rather than male features. You actually succeed and grow as individual only when you go out of your comfort zone.
So ideally for both female and male, but probably even more important relevant for women is like to be willing and to be brave enough to go out of your comfort zone, to reinvent yourself multiple times in your career because this is the only way how you can grow and become the leader that would pave the way for the next generation. We at PwC Germany, especially in Dusseldorf, we have Girl Day events. So all PwC colleagues who have like daughters or nieces or whatever, like female girls, they're invited to bring them to work and they're ready for workshops so they can participate in and they can teach them on what our profession is and we have to hope that this kind of activity in this early age will be able to also showcase them what an exciting profession we actually have.
Mindy
I think it's a wonderful opportunity we have had that in the U.S. for quite some time is take your daughter to work day and I think they changed that over the years to take your child to work day.
And I remember when I had my two young daughters. Interestingly enough, I was at KPMG at the time, and I brought my daughters in. Sophia and I taught them how to be a consultant. And today one of my daughters is a consultant with KPMG. But I did actually set up a day of interviews for them. Created an interview guide and they went around, and they interviewed my colleagues, and I have them put together. They had a Polaroid camera. They took pictures, they had to write three bullets about what that they learned about that person and then they produced a report and then presented it in the conference room.
And so, I think those skills at a very young age really do help. Again, young women and men. But the girls in particular, to be able to see, wow, this is really exciting. And this is something I want to do. And then you know, have the reward for that both fulfilling, you know, their dreams and professional aspirations and even just to spark that, you know, so to do that in tax tech and to be able to invite them in, I think in Dusseldorf, it'll be just wonderful. What a great opportunity and Vertex does a lot of stuff, we have a wonderful internship program that I should mention, and I think that's something that really does allow students to come in and explore the different areas of the business and to learn about Vertex, and we give them a pretty broad perspective of what's happening across the organization and we brief them on all the different aspects of the business so that they can also assess where their interests lie, and we have a very structured program that helps them navigate from internship into employment.
Sophia
This is very important working with young ages because nowadays, like the tax profession as such, is not enjoying too much excitement among the youngest generations. So, we really risk not having enough people in, let's say 10-20 years, in tax. I'm not talking only about tax technology, but in tax.
It's not the sexiest profession and the most exciting one, so we really need to showcase that there are also parts of that profession that can really be very intriguing. Interesting. They help us being better challengers, better problem solvers and when we think if the future in 10 years, probably even in five years, there will be only tax technology. They might not be a tax profession as such, probably in five or ten years everyone would be a tax technologist. So, the more women we probably bring nowadays into this profession of tax technology. This would mean also more female talent for the tax profession.
Mindy
Yeah, and pairing that subject matter expertise in tax and accounting paired with technology, that coupling is going to be really important and dynamic, and I think the things that you're saying, Sophia, at a young age to provide that exposure to young women and then even through university like middle school, high school and universities at that stage in their lives. I think being able to also put the coupling and partnering with employers to create certifications in the universities and even curriculum so that we are, you know, gaining their attention and feeding and enriching their learning objectives and then helping them as they're coming out to again be a feeder, if you will, to the industry. I think that's going to be really important for us. So, at every stage we're nurturing them, these young women from early ages through to, you know, their first position and then even further on to leadership roles because that is another thing you can hire a lot of women into leadership roles. But the women that are in early career or middle management, they're the ones that we need to lean in and help support and provide that mentorship, so that they can be the leaders of the future.
Rob
Absolutely. OK, makes sense. I mean, we're kind of moving on to talk very much now about women shaping the future of tax and what that what that future journey looks like and we've talked quite a lot already about how we make it more of a career that women, young women, want to enter. But do you think there's anything that we've not talked about yet in terms of how we can better showcase tax. Sophia, you just touched on the fact it's not necessarily seen as the most exciting career, but there's I believe there's excitement in everything and you guys clearly do too, because you do it, you know, is there any way we can kind of appeal to women to show them what the benefits of tax as a career are, do you think?
Sophia
I think it is important not only to appeal to young women or to women to enter tax technology, but there is also quite a lot of female colleagues already in the tax technology space, we need to encourage them for leadership positions.
But it's not always on the women and like they not wanting to get there. Sometimes I feel like we need to influence the people making the leadership decisions on promoting these women.
Mindy
I think that there's also a tremendous opportunity for excitement around digital transformation, around all of the innovation that's happening in technology and to pair that with, you know, business acumen around tax. It's pretty exciting. You know, digital transformation has enterprise-wide implications. It has cultural transformation implications and changing in mindset and women in leadership doesn't have to be with a title. You can lead, you know, wherever you are in the organization, but be fine of that change and be curious and lean in. And I think you know being able to do the things that we're talking about, making it exciting. You’ve got to make your work exciting too, you know, and I think that's the piece I want to come back to the work life balance. But I feel like, it's not like Severance, you know, like it's severed, like, that's not life anymore, right? It's very integrated and at times you are doing, you know, you're paying attention to one thing, you're sacrificing something else. So, it's really about finding, I think, enriching and peaceful and harmony and integration of your life. You know as a leader. I mean, I love what I do. I love, you know, the people. And I, I love and I'm very passionate about tax technology. I love the space, and I love the people I work with, and I love the innovation, the digital transformation and being able to help others along that journey, that's what's exciting to me. I think young people have defined that, you know, passion in what they're doing, but also recognise like it's work and sometimes it's not going to be fun. But, you know, we have to get the results that we want and remind ourselves of our why and that's where we get and draw from our passion and excitement and you know, and you know opportunities to grow personally and professionally.
Rob
We’re down to the final question now, which is really to both of you. So, I'll ask if Sophia, if you could answer this one first. If you're happy to, what would be your one piece of advice for women aspiring to leadership roles in tax and tax technology? What would you say to them?
Sophia
My advice would be really to use the also the beginning of their career and to go out of outside of their comfort zone as much as possible. It's painful and a lot of people struggle with that, but this is really where growth starts, and this is what will enable you later.
Rob
Mindy, what are your thoughts?
Mindy
I would say plan your pathway. Don't be committed because life happens, but plan it and then that's where the lateral comes in. But plan it. Surround yourself with supportive leaders and role models in your corner. And you know, use them as a as a guide and trusted input and then just go for it.
Rob
Go for it. It's good. Good, good point to end on I think there. But yes, need for a bit of a clear vision as to where you want to go. What you want to do and taking the right people with you on the journey. So, there we have it the experts view on women in tax technology. Thanks so much to both of you for sharing such useful insights with us today. Hope to speak to you again soon.
Mindy
Thank you, Rob.
Sophia
Thank you also very much.
Rob
We hope you enjoyed the conversation and found it helpful, and if you're curious about how Vertex can support you, check us out at vertexinc.co.uk before we wrap up, let's stay connected. Follow Vertex on social media, share your thoughts, and keep the conversation going. If you like this episode, don't forget to hit like and subscribe and make sure to catch. We'd love to hear your feedback and any topics you'd like us to cover. And if you think a friend or a colleague could enjoy this podcast, please share it with them too. Together we can navigate the world of indirect tax and technology. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Bye.