CEO: Chris Schmidt
Headquarters: Seattle, Washington
Website: www.mossadams.com

MOSS ADAMS LEADERSHIP SERIES STRENGTHENING PIPELINE OF WOMEN PARTNERS

There’s a sense of pride in the air at Moss Adams LLP.

As one of the largest accounting and business consulting firms in the United States, Moss Adams is strengthening its pipeline of qualified women professionals through a leadership development series. The innovative program is increasing the representation of women in leadership roles and at the partner level.

Through its innovative GroWth series, the firm targets high potential senior managers and helps them establish building blocks for success. This includes defining a personal brand, developing high performing teams and building out business networks.

The GroWth Series kicked off in January 2016 with 16 participants and a spirit of valuing diversity, paying it forward, and changing the industry from the inside out. It is an extension of the firm’s successful Forum W program that launched eight years ago, to attract, develop, retain, and advance talented women at the firm.

Women represent 26 percent of the firms’ partners, and it is aiming for 30 percent by 2022. The GroWth series is designed to strengthen the pipeline of experienced women professionals by targeting high-potential, two to four year, senior managers.

The program encourages people to become “famous” in their areas of expertise. This involves focusing on specific areas of practice and identifying strength and development areas in order to become a true expert in one’s area of business. It further focuses on building high-performing teams for serving clients. “To grow one’s career, senior managers benefit from increasing their attention on being strategic rather than being tactical,” Moss Adams Executive Director of HR Jen Wyne said. “Delegating appropriately, coaching, providing feedback, and demonstrating mutual respect helps you build an engaged and successful team,” she added.

Building your business portfolio, entails knowing compliance and consulting services, networking, seeking outside speaking engagements, presenting impactful proposals, and generally becoming known as an expert in a specialized area of work.

Each participant is paired with a woman partner who serves as their coach throughout the program. The coaching assignments are intended to expand the participant’s network by pairing them with a partner with whom they typically have little interaction.

The program supports the firms Forum W’s mission. It focuses on four key areas helping women succeed at the firm: engaging in meaningful dialogue, building internal and external networks, fostering relationships through mentoring, and providing ample growth and leadership opportunities.