Finding my Place at McGladrey

Written by Jason Cannon

Des Moines, Iowa

Tax Associate

I started my career at McGladrey as a member of our Performance Improvement consulting group in September 2009.  Over the course of my first 18 months with the firm, I worked with individuals across all functions (audit, tax, and consulting), and began developing good relationships with some of the audit and tax leaders in my office (Des Moines, Iowa).  I was fortunate enough to get to know Jim Beal, one of our tax managing directors, and worked for him on several projects.  Over time, Jim became someone that I could go to for advice and guidance in my career, and this only further confirmed that McGladrey was the best for me.

This spring, I began really thinking about my long term career goals and realized that getting to know clients on a personal level was what made me most happy in my job.  I wanted to pursue a career where I could grow relationships with the same clients over many years in order to become more of a trusted business advisor.  My position as a performance improvement consultant was great - I felt that I was being successful in my job, I was working on interesting projects, and was being exposed to more variety of business situations than I had ever expected to – but I realized that to satisfy my long term goals, I needed to pursue more consistent types of work with a more consistent client base. 

I decided to take ownership of these goals and talked with Jim Beal and our office managing partner, Rod Foster, about my dilemma.  It would have been very easy for Jim and Rod to give me a packaged answer and move on, but they didn’t.  Instead, they coached me and suggested that I consider working toward my CPA and then I could join our tax department in Des Moines.  Soon after my conversations with Jim and Rod, I decided to take their advice and really pursue a transfer. 

The transfer itself was a fairly straight forward process.  I had a few conversations with the leaders that I worked with and got the necessary approvals, and I have now been with the tax department in Des Moines for about three months.  I felt welcomed to the team from day one and can’t say enough about the people I work with.  The quality of professionals we have at McGladrey is both humbling and inspiring and I’m learning so much in my new role. 

I now see a much more satisfying long term career path at McGladrey, and am grateful for the opportunities that have been provided to me.  I’m so glad I spoke up about my interests, because that’s really all it took.