I recently went one-on-one with Marna Ricker, EY Global Vice Chair – Tax. As the leader of EY’s global tax practice, Marna oversees all aspects of EY’s Global Tax strategy, including operations, people development, client relations, quality control, risk management, thought leadership, knowledge, and learning, and a team of more than 76,000 employees.
Adam: What compelled you to pursue a career in accounting?
Marna: I was blessed with the path I took. I went to both The Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati for law school, and it was a great journey. I’ve always loved math, and I’ve always loved rules and analytics and rule-based problem solving. You think about engineering, you think about science, and for me, I didn’t quite know exactly where I would land. I majored in accounting and finance as an undergrad at Fisher and then went on to law school. I went down a corporate path, but I had this amazing tax professor. He’s really the one who said, “I can see that you love numbers, and I can see that you love rule-based thinking. Tax is an extraordinary career and profession.” Frankly, I was lucky enough to follow what I really enjoyed, but also to have a great mentor, a teacher, a law school professor, guide me in matching those two things in a single place. I probably explored that the most right when I came out of law school. Did I want to go down a legal department path, a law firm path, an accounting or tax path, a corporate path, or a government path? I did some work in government as well when I was younger.
So I explored all of those options. My advice there would be to really dig into each of those paths and see which one feels the most attractive to you, based on your ambitions and your business interests. Ultimately, I chose public accounting. I had worked in a law firm during law school, and I felt that public accounting offered the breadth, the width, and the depth of experience that would serve me well. Thirty years later, it absolutely has. Starting out high in that funnel and then finding your way down to the place that fits is really important.
Adam: How has your legal background served you in your career?
Marna: It really has. Tax is such a natural fit because it’s deeply analytical. It’s math and law together, tax law applied to numbers. The rigor of research, rules, writing, and critical thinking that you develop in law school has served me incredibly well. I apply that same rigor when working with tax law and applying it to mathematical equations and data. What does the data tell you? What outcomes come from that? It’s been a beautiful mix, and it’s been really fun to take that journey over many years.
When I came out of school, it was very traditional. CPAs and lawyers. Those were the two primary profiles. Over the almost 30-year journey I’ve had, it’s become much more diverse. We’re hiring engineers for their critical thinking skills. We’re hiring data scientists and technologists, especially with AI expertise. We’re hiring economists, particularly for valuation and transfer pricing work. The majority are still accountants and lawyers, but if I had to break it down, I’d say roughly 50 percent CPAs, about 25 percent technology-focused roles, and about 25 percent legal backgrounds. Those are the three major skill sets you see across the firm.
Adam: What were the key skills that you developed that allowed you to rise within your career? And what do you believe are the most important skills for anyone in the field of accounting to develop in order to rise in their career?
Marna: It’s a great question. I think the key skills in this profession really start with critical thinking and judgment. That ability to think critically and ethically is something you have to continually hone. You can solve almost any problem if you have strong critical thinking and ethical judgment. The other big one is work ethic. This is a profession where you’re learning through multiple methodologies. You’re learning very traditionally by studying, learning the law, and learning how to apply the law. You’re learning skills-based work, especially the softer skills you need to work with clients. And then you’re learning through an apprenticeship model. You’re watching others, learning from them, asking questions, and observing how things are done. That apprenticeship model is a huge part of how people learn and grow in this profession. If I had to distill it down, I would say critical thinking is incredibly important. The IQ and EQ side of things, especially around communication and relationships, matters a lot. And if you take advantage of the apprenticeship model, you can really accelerate your development.
Adam: How can anyone develop strong critical thinking skills?
Marna: I think a lot of it comes down to problem-solving. If you look at the type of learning you get, especially in undergrad and even more so in law school, you’re constantly working through scenarios. You’re given a set of facts. You’re given the law. And then you’re asked to move those facts through the law to arrive at what you believe is the right recommendation. Often, there are alternative outcomes, and you have to evaluate which one is the best path based on the situation. You’re weighing options, considering tradeoffs, and ultimately making a recommendation. That process is very repetitive. It involves working through complex, meaty fact patterns over and over again, and that’s how critical thinking gets developed.
Adam: It’s an important point, because some people may be born with a greater ability to process information than others, or a higher IQ, but what really matters is how you apply what you have and how you develop it. No matter how smart you are, you have to learn how to apply your intellect in the real world, and that process is essential to success.
Marna: Well said. There’s a lot in the mix that isn’t always obvious when you’re younger and just starting out. But it becomes much clearer as you move along your journey.
Adam: Is there a moment in your career that you look back on as a defining moment, something that helped you move from entry or mid-level roles onto a path toward senior leadership?
Marna: Probably not one single moment, but there were definitely multiple moments that were defining. They often came from a similar theme. That theme was someone within the organization believing in me more than I believed in myself. Whether it was a mentor, a friend, a boss, or a peer, there was usually someone encouraging me to take a leap, to go for something, and reassuring me that I was ready, even when I didn’t feel like I was. I’m generally a risk-taker. I wouldn’t say I’m risk-averse, but I do take risks with guardrails. If I look back at those defining moments, whether it was stepping into a complex assignment, moving into my first leadership role, making partner, or moving to a global role, there was always someone saying, “You can do this. I’ve got you. Go for it.”
Adam: What were some of those moments?
Marna: When you’re early in your career, a lot of it revolves around the complexity of the work you get to do. It’s about jumping into big, complex projects, sometimes projects the firm may not have done before. Those are courageous moments, and they matter. Another major moment was making partner. That’s a pinnacle accomplishment in a public accounting career. Then there was stepping into my first leadership role. I think I was about twenty-eight at the time. That was when I took on responsibility for a PnL. I was responsible for growth, staffing, capital decisions, and strategy. That first PnL experience is something I still remember very clearly.
Adam: You mentioned the importance of finding mentors and surrounding yourself with people who can help propel you to the next level. How can someone cultivate an effective mentor relationship? And on the flip side, how can you be a great mentor?
Marna: This is actually one of the best parts of having the opportunity to lead. There’s a real pay-it-forward element to it. It’s about holding space for people who may not see themselves the way you see them, or may not fully recognize their own skills, talents, and opportunities. I do believe there’s a place for formal mentorship programs. I really do. But the mentorships that have been most meaningful for me came together more organically. They weren’t forced or assigned. They came from working alongside someone on a project, whether that person was a peer, someone from another service line, or even a partner I hadn’t worked with before. It doesn’t have to be your assigned counselor. I’ve had great counselors and not-so-great counselors. You can absolutely find mentorship there, but I think the most powerful relationships are the ones built on authenticity, where there’s trust, and you can be honest and direct with each other.
I’ll share a story. When I first moved to Minnesota, I was right on the verge of making partner. At the same time, there were two other senior managers who were also close to making partner, and they weren’t exactly thrilled that I had arrived. At first, it felt uncomfortable. But I realized these people were likely going to be my partners for life. So we decided to approach it differently. We became mentors to one another. We decided this wasn’t a competition. We were all going to get there, even if the timing looked different. We called ourselves the “no BS buddies,” if I can say that. We were incredibly honest with each other. We shared what people were saying about us, where our gaps were, and what we were doing really well. It was one of the most valuable mentorship experiences I’ve ever had. We still have lunch together every holiday season. It was powerful because it was peer-based, and we were all striving toward the same ambition.
Adam: There’s a lot of great stuff there. Your mentor doesn’t need to be someone assigned to you. In fact, often they’re not. They don’t need to be exponentially older or more senior. A mentor can be a peer. A mentor can even be someone you’re mentoring. The best mentorships are reciprocal, where both people are learning and gaining value.
Marna: Exactly. The best mentorships I’ve had came together organically, not formally. That said, I also had an extraordinary formal mentor through a structured program. I was paired with the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in Minneapolis. I never would have had access to that perspective without a formal program. That relationship worked incredibly well.
Adam: In that case, the mentor was assigned to you, and even though that doesn’t always work, it really did for you.
Marna: It did. He was very honest and very direct, but he delivered feedback with a lot of care. There was a trusted foundation that allowed me to ask for real feedback. I even asked him to speak with my bosses so he could give me broader observations. He was willing to do that. He also brought an outside-in perspective. He was a client, not my personal client, but someone who could articulate what a CEO expects from professional services. We committed fully to the relationship. It was an eight-week program, and we never missed a session. We met for breakfast once a week, every Friday, at the same place. That commitment mattered.
Adam: I actually think that’s the silver bullet. You were both committed. You both wanted to be there and made the time count.
Marna: Exactly. We both traveled, but we still committed to those eight Friday mornings.
Adam: How can anyone differentiate themselves in their careers?
Marna: I think you have to be willing to take risks. We all have self-doubt. We all experience imposter syndrome. Having someone who nudges you helps, but you also have to nudge yourself. My husband is my biggest cheerleader. He believes in me more than I believe in myself sometimes, especially professionally. That support matters. You also have to be open to trying new things and taking on new challenges. That’s how growth happens. I used to say that if I had done something three times and truly mastered it, then it was time to teach it to someone else and move on to learning something new. Teaching others creates capacity and opens space to grow. That mindset, paired with work ethic, is critical. You have to grind sometimes. You have to challenge yourself, fail, learn, and keep going.
Adam: There’s no substitute for hard work, dedication, and determination. They may sound like buzzwords, but they matter because they’re real.
Marna: And I think a little luck matters too. There’s right place, right time involved. There are so many talented people out there.
Adam: Timing matters, but so does making your own luck. Being prepared when opportunity shows up and saying yes when it does.
Marna: I agree. That’s a good formula.
Adam: What are the best lessons you learned from your transition from individual contributor to leader?
Marna: It’s a really good question. When I was a partner delivering work in the market, serving clients, doing the technical work, and managing a team, that was very much a doing role. It was an individual contribution model. When I moved into my first P and L role, that changed completely. You can no longer put everything in your own backpack and carry it up the mountain. You have to create vision and clarity so that your partners are carrying the same things in their backpacks and climbing together. That shift was hard for me. What I wanted to do was close my door and do my technical work, because that’s what I was comfortable with and good at. But leadership required something different. I had to start leaving space in my schedule. I had to walk the halls more. I had to intentionally go to lunch with the partners I was responsible for. Productivity shifted from individual output to collective output.
You have to leave space and time for everyone to climb the mountain together. That transition was hard because you’re stepping away from work you love and excel at, and moving into a coaching role. You become a player-coach. You have to decide when to play and when to coach. You’re responsible for setting standards, ambition, and vision, and keeping everyone aligned. Finding that balance is challenging.
I remember talking to a fellow partner who had just moved into a leadership role herself. I was explaining how I was leaving all this space in my schedule, and she laughed and said, “That’s the job, Marna.” We both laughed, but she was right. Leadership productivity is different. Leaving space is the work. I also had a great mentor who was our tax managing partner. He told me that most of his work happened early in the morning, before partners started their day and after they finished their client work. He said I needed to arrange my schedule so I could be available when partners were available, which is often outside the client day. That usually means mornings and evenings.
That advice was incredibly practical. Partners want to spend their day with clients and teams, not on internal matters. As a leader, you have to be available when they are not serving clients. At the same time, I had to learn how to structure my day so I wasn’t working endlessly. I had to intentionally find time to rest during the day.
Adam: How have you balanced a successful career with life outside of work?
Marna: Not easily, but very intentionally. I take a lot of pride and joy in pursuing multiple ambitions. I think my husband would say I’m a good wife. I’d say I’m a great mother. I’m also a daughter. My mom recently passed, and I was deeply involved in supporting her through a long cancer journey. Finding balance isn’t easy. Everyone’s priorities are different. But I chose an extraordinary organization that understands life happens over a long career. They believe in people having lifelong careers, and they recognize there will be ebbs and flows. You’ll go up and down hills in life, and you need flexibility during those times.
No one will do it for you. That’s my number one piece of advice. I remember when I was younger, thinking, doesn’t my employer see how hard I’m working? But ultimately, it’s my responsibility. You have to advocate for yourself. In my thirty-year career, I’ve never had someone say no when I asked for what I needed. Whether it was working remotely to support my mom, taking time off to care for my husband when he faced challenges, or adjusting my workload, those conversations were always met with support. That communication is critical. The same is true with clients. They’re often very supportive when you’re honest and clear.
Adam: What can anyone do to become a more effective communicator?
Marna: There are a lot of simple but powerful ideas. One is the concept of “yes, and.” Yes, I’d love to do that, and let’s talk about what might need to come off my plate to make it work. It’s about brainstorming together to create capacity. Another approach is asking for time, like saying, give me three months, and I’ll develop the people who could step into this role. There are practical, common-sense ways to communicate clearly and set expectations that we don’t always use enough.
Adam: What are the keys to great client service?
Marna: It absolutely is at the heart of the business. I learned this very quickly in a service organization. I had a fellow partner who used to say that clients ultimately buy from people they like, people they trust, and people they have confidence in when it comes to what they’re buying. Those are principles to live by. You have to be user-friendly as a human being. You have to build trust by doing what you say you’re going to do. And you have to be good at what you’re selling, whether that’s a service or a product, at the right price point. Those things really sit at the core of great client service.
Adam: If the person you’re trying to do business with doesn’t like you, it’s over. If they don’t trust you, it’s over. And if they like you and trust you but don’t think you’re good at what you do, they might want to be friends with you, but they’re not going to do business with you.
Marna: Exactly. Well said. It really is that simple, even though it doesn’t always feel simple.
Adam: How do you inspire confidence, and how do you cultivate trust?
Marna: I think confidence starts with knowing your craft. If you’re talking about something, you need to know your material and be at the top of your game, whatever your expertise is. The second part is being comfortable in the gray. You have to be open to considering other perspectives and brainstorming through uncertainty rather than pretending everything is black and white. The third part is being honest about what you don’t know. Saying, “I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” or “I’ll bring in someone who does,” goes a long way.
Trust is earned over time. It comes from integrity. Doing what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it. Being someone people can count on. There are times you’ll give more in a relationship and times you’ll take more, but over time, that balance matters. I remember my mom saying to me that the only one-sided relationship you’ll ever have is parent and child. Every other relationship requires both people to put something into the jar. You’ll put more in at some points, take more out at others, but if you’re committed to the relationship, it has to stay balanced over time.
Adam: How do you utilize AI, and what should others understand about AI?
Marna: Never before has there been a more important window for reskilling and upskilling. Expectations, roles, and personas are changing quickly, and continuous learning is going to be essential. I have two kids, so learning from them has been really fun, but also guiding them along the way. From an organizational standpoint, we look at a lot of external data. We run an annual tax and finance survey called the TFO survey. We survey nearly two thousand C-suite, finance, and tax leaders, including CFOs, controllers, and tax executives. One statistic that really stood out to me was that ninety percent of tax leaders are actively upskilling and reskilling their workforce to thrive in this environment. We’re moving from a purely technical workforce, focused on rules and law applied to math, toward a more technology-enabled workforce. The question becomes, what are the things we no longer need to do manually so that we can use our brains for higher-level thinking? That shift is extraordinary. Another data point that stood out is that more than eighty percent of leaders are hiring beyond traditional tax technical expertise. They’re redefining roles and responsibilities to create space for critical thinking, AI skills, technology skills, and data science. All of that reinforces how important a curious, learning mindset is in this decade.
I think you have to break it into component parts. Two years ago, most of the focus was on personal productivity. That meant using generative AI tools for prompting, copilots, and day-to-day efficiency. That was about individual capacity, both at home and at work. I started every day with the same prompt. Organize my calendar. Prioritize my key stakeholders. Draft initial responses. Help me plan my day. I still do that today. It does everything. It helps with speech writing. It supports analytics. It summarizes years of financial plans. It projects financial outcomes. That personal productivity layer is incredibly powerful. From there, we moved into AI at scale. How do we apply AI vertically and horizontally across the organization? One example is tax return review. We produce billions of tax returns. Having an agent that can review those returns by combining technical rules and judgment is transformative. Now we’re moving into what I’m most excited about, agentic AI. That’s multiple agents working together, orchestrated across end-to-end processes. That applies to both advisory work and compliance and reporting. The evolution has been personal productivity, then single agents at scale, and now multi-agent orchestration across the enterprise.
Adam: How can anyone in the field of accounting best adapt to technological changes?
Marna: It’s going to be a journey for all of us, personally and professionally. My first advice is that you have to be in it. There’s no substitute for using these tools yourself. I don’t think you can truly understand their power unless you’re actively engaging with them. Second, you have to be clear about where your value lies. Organizations expect people to contribute at the highest levels of IQ and EQ. Judgment, experience, and navigating complexity are things AI cannot do. Anything that involves pulling data, reconciling information, or documentation should be done with AI support, even though you’re still responsible for the output. You also have to build the habit of being AI-first. That took me about twelve weeks. Instead of writing emails from scratch, I prompt them. Instead of starting my day by clearing my inbox, I have my agent organize my day. It’s a habit, and it takes time to build.
Adam: What can anyone do to become a better leader?
Marna: Leadership is human at its core. People have to want to follow you. The first thing is never forgetting the humanity of the people you lead. Especially in a service business, that matters deeply. The second thing is clarity. A mentor once told me that people are going to follow you, so you better be sure you know where you’re going. Clarity of vision and strategy is your responsibility as a leader. People will follow. That comes with real responsibility and stewardship. You have to be clear, communicative, and collaborative about where you’re heading.
Adam: Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Marna: I just want to thank you. These conversations really ground you in what matters, both personally and professionally. Without someone creating space for them, it’s easy to get busy and miss the bigger picture. Thank you for creating that space.
