I recently went one-on-one with Myles Corson, EY Global Strategy and Markets Leader for Financial Accounting Advisory Services.
Adam: What attracted you to accounting and finance?
Myles: I’ve been with EY for over 30 years, which isn’t something I expected when I started my career. Back in the mid 90s, when I graduated from university in the UK, I was focused on building a professional foundation. I wanted something that would give me structure and credibility early on, and accounting felt like a strong platform to do that. I started in audit, and to be honest, it wasn’t where I had the most fun. In fact, after my first year, I remember being told that I might need to think about doing something else because I might not end up being a successful accountant. That experience stuck with me, and I often share it because I think it’s important for people early in their careers to understand that struggling at the beginning doesn’t mean there isn’t a future.
What really changed for me was getting through the qualification process and starting to see how I could apply what I had learned. Once I had that foundation, I began to understand how accounting knowledge could translate into business insight and advice. That shift, from doing technical work to thinking about how to drive change and support decision making, was when things really started to click.
I spent some time on secondment working inside a commercial business, which helped me realize that management accounting wasn’t where I wanted to focus. Around that time, I also had the opportunity to work on a dot-com IPO in the late 90s, which was an incredibly exciting environment to be part of. There was a lot of energy and momentum, and it opened my eyes to a different side of the profession. I also spent time in Russia and Indonesia working on debt restructuring projects for government entities. Those experiences were formative because they exposed me to different markets, different cultures, and different ways of thinking about business. That’s really where my passion for international work started to take shape. That eventually led me to San Francisco during the IPO boom, where I worked with the British Foreign Office supporting companies that were looking to expand into Europe and the UK. That experience helped me build a business development skill set and broaden my perspective even further.
After that, I returned to London for a period, but I had developed a strong interest in the US. I ultimately came back in 2009, and since then, I’ve been focused on building a business, advising senior finance leaders on how they develop themselves, how they evolve their functions, and how they contribute to enterprise strategy and value creation. In those first couple of years, a big part of the challenge for me was that I couldn’t see the bigger picture. I tend to think in terms of concepts and broader ideas, and early in my career, I was being asked to complete specific tasks without really understanding how they connected to the overall business. That made the experience frustrating because I couldn’t see how my work contributed to something larger.
That realization has influenced how I lead today. I place a lot of emphasis on making sure people understand the vision, the objectives, and how their individual contributions tie into the bigger outcome. When people can see that connection, they’re much more engaged and effective. Looking back, even though those early years were difficult, they were incredibly valuable. I learned a lot, built strong relationships, and developed a foundation that I still rely on. The turning point came when I started to connect the dots and understand how the different pieces fit together.
One of the most valuable aspects of my early experience in audit was the exposure to the full business lifecycle. I worked with a large consumer products company in the UK, and over time, I was able to see how everything worked together. I spent time in factories understanding how products were made, how raw materials were sourced, how production processes operated, and how goods moved through distribution.
I also saw how the corporate functions operated, including marketing and sales, and how all of that activity ultimately translated into financial reporting and board-level decision-making. That end-to-end perspective helped me understand how value is created within a business. Being able to connect those dots and understand the value chain was incredibly formative. It’s something I emphasize to people entering the profession today. If you understand how a business makes money and where value is generated, you’re in a much stronger position to provide meaningful advice. That’s what allows you to become a trusted advisor and really differentiate yourself.
Adam: How can anyone successfully pivot?
Myles: Over the course of my career, I’ve pivoted multiple times across different roles, functions, and geographies. I think one of the most important things, particularly early in your career, is to be open to opportunities and willing to take advice. It’s easy to feel like you need to have everything mapped out, but I’ve never approached my career with a rigid long-term plan. Instead, I focused on building experiences and developing skills, with the belief that opportunities would emerge from that. There were several points where I took on roles that didn’t immediately make sense to me, but I had mentors and coaches who encouraged me to pursue them because they saw how those experiences would broaden my capabilities.
That willingness to trust others, combined with the humility to acknowledge that I didn’t have all the answers, was really important. The move to San Francisco is a good example. I had never been to the US before, and suddenly I was in a completely new environment, navigating a different culture and way of working. I’ve always tried to approach those situations with openness and curiosity. Even if there’s uncertainty, I’ve generally felt that there’s more to gain than to lose by taking on new experiences.
Interestingly, one of the most challenging transitions I faced was actually returning to London after my time in San Francisco. When you move somewhere new, you expect change, and you prepare yourself for it. But when you return, there’s often an assumption that you’re the same person you were before you left. In reality, you’ve had different experiences and developed in new ways. Reintegrating into your previous environment can be more difficult than starting fresh somewhere new. That period also coincided with important career decisions for me, including whether I wanted to pursue partnership, which added another layer of complexity.
One of the most important things, especially in large organizations, is to be explicit about what you want to do. If you have an interest or an idea, you need to talk about it. Opportunities often come from conversations, and those conversations don’t happen if you keep your ambitions to yourself. I’ve seen many people hesitate to share what they want because they’re unsure how it will be perceived. But in my experience, when you start talking to people, those conversations lead to other conversations, and that’s how things begin to materialize. A good example is my move to San Francisco. After working on a dot-com IPO, I was thinking about what I wanted to do next. That idea was sparked by a conversation with my father, who encouraged me to gain experience in the US. I then spoke to people within the organization, and within a relatively short period of time, the opportunity came together. That experience reinforced for me how important it is to put your ideas out there and give others the chance to support you.
Adam: Some people worry that sharing their ambitions might make them seem less committed. What would you advise?
Myles: That concern is understandable, and I think it highlights the importance of choosing the right people to have those conversations with. In my case, I was very deliberate about working with leaders I respected and trusted. Those individuals became my mentors and were genuinely invested in my long-term success. It’s also important to frame your ambitions in a way that aligns with the organization’s goals. It can’t just be about what you want personally. You need to be able to articulate how your development and the opportunities you’re pursuing will also create value for the business. At the end of the day, organizations are focused on performance and value creation. If you can connect your aspirations to those outcomes, it becomes a much more constructive conversation.
Adam: How can anyone find the right mentors and champions?
Myles: It really starts with building a network, and that requires you to be proactive. You have to be willing to engage with different people, take on new experiences, and expand your circle. For me, I paid close attention to the leaders around me and identified individuals whose leadership style and approach I admired. I then made a conscious effort to work with them, which allowed me to learn directly from their experiences.
As you progress in your career, particularly if you’re aiming for partnership, it becomes important to develop your own identity. You can learn from others, but you need to adapt those lessons into a style that is authentic to you. I went through a phase where I thought I needed to fit a certain mold to be successful as a partner. Over time, I realized that what actually made me effective was leaning into my own style. I tend to be more informal, and once I embraced that, I was able to connect more effectively with people and lead in a way that felt natural.
Adam: What did you learn from becoming a partner?
Myles: One of the biggest shifts I experienced is that the skills that make you successful in the first 10 to 15 years of your career are not the same skills that make you successful as a partner. Early on, the focus is very much on building technical expertise and progressing through a structured path. That’s how you establish credibility and demonstrate your ability to deliver. I made partner after about 12 years, and up to that point, the path is relatively clear. But once you reach that level, the structure changes. You’re now looking at a much longer period of your career that is far less defined, and success depends on a different set of capabilities. That’s why it’s so important to think early about what kind of partner you want to be. What does success look like in that role, and what do you need to develop to get there? Having clarity on that before you reach that point allows you to be much more intentional about your development and the opportunities you pursue.
One of the challenges today is that it’s very easy to become highly specialized and operate within a narrow vertical. While that can make you an excellent technical expert, it’s not sufficient if you want to succeed as a partner. You need to broaden your perspective, develop relationship skills, and build the ability to operate across a wider set of issues. We spend a lot of time now working with people earlier in their careers to help them build those capabilities. That includes communication, networking, and relationship development, so they’re not trying to develop those skills later under pressure. It’s not that the skills are completely different, because the technical foundation still matters. You need that depth. But what changes is the breadth. I often think of it as a T-shaped skill set. You need to have deep expertise in a particular area, but you also need to broaden out and develop the ability to connect across different domains. That’s where the differentiators come in. Emotional intelligence, relationship building, communication, and the ability to lead large and diverse teams become increasingly important. Those are the skills that allow you to operate effectively at a senior level.
Another critical element is understanding how value is created. You need to be able to step back and see the bigger picture, not just your area of expertise. That includes understanding how to help clients accelerate value creation, not just from a technical standpoint, but from a strategic perspective. At the end of the day, even in a business-to-business environment, it comes down to personal relationships. You need to understand the individual you’re working with, what they’re trying to achieve, how that aligns with their function, and how it connects to the broader enterprise agenda. When those elements are aligned, that’s where you can really create impact.
Adam: What are the keys to becoming a trusted advisor?
Myles: One of the most important things to recognize is that your client will always know their business better than you do. They’re operating within it every day. So your value doesn’t come from trying to outdo them on their own domain. What you bring is an outside-in perspective. You have the benefit of working across different organizations, industries, and situations, and that gives you a broader set of insights. The question is how you use that perspective to add value in a way that is relevant and actionable.
Another important aspect is providing unfiltered feedback. Senior leaders often receive information that has been shaped or filtered as it moves through the organization. As an advisor, you can offer a more objective view of what you’re seeing, whether that’s cultural dynamics, operational challenges, or areas of opportunity that may not be fully visible internally. That combination of perspective and candor is what helps build trust over time.
Adam: What do you believe are the keys to effective leadership, and what can anyone do to become a better leader?
Myles: For me, clarity of vision is fundamental. People need to understand what you’re trying to achieve and why it matters. Just as importantly, they need to understand how their work contributes to that outcome. That sense of connection to a larger purpose is a key driver of engagement and performance.
The other area I would highlight is culture. At one point, as we were growing a business within EY, we reached a stage where there was a lot of focus on results. We took a step back and reflected on that, and one of the key insights was that you can’t manage results directly. What you can do as a leader is define and shape the culture. Culture drives behaviors, and behaviors ultimately produce results. If you focus only on outcomes without addressing the underlying culture, you’re missing the lever that actually drives performance. We invested a lot of time in defining what our culture should be. We engaged our people to understand what had made us successful and what we wanted to preserve as we scaled.
That process was very deliberate, and it helped us maintain a strong sense of identity as the organization grew. We also emphasized accountability at the individual level. One of the ideas we reinforced was that while you can’t control every event that happens, you can control how you respond. Focusing on what you can control, rather than blaming external factors, was a key part of the mindset we tried to instill.
Communication is one of the most important and often underestimated aspects of leadership. It’s not just about having a clear message; it’s about delivering that message consistently and repeatedly. We operate in a very complex environment, so the ability to simplify that complexity into a few clear ideas is critical. Those ideas then need to be reinforced over time. It’s not enough to say something once and assume it will stick. In fact, as a leader, you often need to repeat key messages to the point where you feel like you’re saying the same thing over and over again. That’s usually when it’s just starting to resonate with your audience. With the number of communication channels available today, it’s actually more difficult to cut through. That makes consistency and repetition even more important.
Adam: With shorter attention spans today, that challenge is greater than ever.
Myles: It is. You can see it everywhere, including with younger generations who are consuming a lot of short-form content. Maintaining focus over longer periods is becoming more difficult. In a professional context, I think that creates both a challenge and an opportunity. The ability to engage in deep work, to focus on complex problems, and to think critically is becoming more valuable.
There’s a risk, especially with the rise of AI, that people fall into patterns of constant activity without meaningful progress. You can generate outputs quickly, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into insight or impact. The individuals who can step back, think more deeply, and apply judgment will differentiate themselves. Maintaining that ability to focus and reflect is going to be increasingly important.
It’s very easy to stay busy, especially in today’s environment where there are constant demands on your time. But being busy is not the same as being effective. I often think about this in the context of time as a finite resource. There’s a concept from Oliver Burkeman’s book 4000 Weeks, which highlights how limited our time actually is. When you start to think in those terms, it forces you to be more intentional about how you spend it.
The key question becomes whether you’re focusing on the activities that truly make a difference. That could be for your own development, for your team, or for the broader organization. It’s about prioritizing impact over activity. At the same time, there are always going to be necessary tasks that don’t fall into that category. The challenge is managing those without allowing them to consume the majority of your time and attention.
Adam: What are the keys to effectively utilizing AI in today’s landscape?
Myles: Having seen multiple waves of technological change, I think it’s important to keep some perspective. There’s often a tendency to overestimate the short-term impact of new technologies and underestimate their long-term significance. AI is clearly going to be transformative, but the path to realizing that value may not be as immediate or straightforward as some expect. That’s why it’s important to stay grounded in what you’re trying to achieve.
Rather than starting with the technology, start with the outcome. What problem are you trying to solve? What are you trying to improve? Once you have that clarity, you can think about how technology, including AI, can help you get there. One of the risks right now is the fear of missing out, where people adopt tools without a clear understanding of how they fit into their objectives. That can lead to a lot of activity without meaningful progress.
What we’re beginning to see is a shift from narrow use cases toward a broader rethinking of how work gets done. That includes reimagining workflows and even organizational structures in a more AI native way. The real opportunity is not just doing existing tasks faster, but fundamentally changing how those tasks are approached. That’s where the long-term value will be created.
