Jacqueline Akerblom’s 23-year career with accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP includes a lot of firsts.
First woman to become a partner of the firm in Southern California … first woman to be sent on an overseas assignment … first woman named the Southern California office managing partner, which has brought her to Grant Thornton’s office in Irvine, where she oversees the firm’s Orange County, Los Angeles and San Diego markets.
Another first is coming: Akerblom will become the managing partner for the Chicago-based firm’s entire Western U.S. region next year. She will stay in Irvine and have oversight of offices in San Jose, Seattle, Salt Lake City and Phoenix, among other cities.
Akerblom has gotten some help from her employer’s special efforts to foster the development of female employees over the past eight years.
She helped make her own breaks, too, and counts her role in the development of the Women at Grant Thornton committee among her proudest achievements.
The committee oversees a firmwide set of initiatives intended to increase opportunities for female employees. It was formed in 2004 in a bid to establish a company culture that would help with recruitment and retention of women. It also aimed for a more tangible goal of increasing the number of women partners and leaders in the firm. So far, so good: The number of female partners increased nearly threefold between 2004 and 2011, from 31 to 89. Women now make up about 16% of the firm’s partners, up to a level that’s on par with the Big Four accounting firms.
Practical Benefits
The committee focuses on practical benefits for women, such as a flexible-work policy, mentoring networks and eight weeks of paid leave for new mothers. It also allows women who take additional time off for personal or family reasons to stay connected until they return, giving them the option of staying plugged in with colleagues and access to ongoing training.
“The issue (in the accounting industry) is, and has traditionally been, that it’s very male-dominated,” Akerblom said.
“I really did grow up where there were no women role models. I had to figure it out myself. The great thing now is that we’ve got women partners in all of our offices.”
Market conditions prompted the changes at Grant Thornton, driven by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. The law brought new demands for the accounting profession and heightened the importance on employee retention, according to Akerblom.
“We really couldn’t afford to lose anybody,” she said.
Grant Thornton had a relatively low rate of retention of women at the time. The firm’s all-male senior leadership team turned to a group of women partners, including Akerblom, for help.
“When the senior leadership approached us, we said, ‘Aha, they finally want to do something about it,’ ” Akerblom said. “That was the impetus. We created Women at Grant Thornton as a result. We started thinking about retention and advancement. If we could retain more women seniors, then we would ultimately have more women managers.”
Akerblom at the time was a partner in the San Jose office, head of transaction advisory services for the West Coast, the national managing partner for international client services, and one of two U.S. partners on the board of governors for Grant Thornton International Ltd.
She also was on an extended leave to be at home with her 2-year-old at the time—uncertain about the timing of her return to work.
“When I had my child in 2000 … I honestly thought that I was so experienced in my professional career, that adding being a mom and having a child was just going to be another thing to manage,” she said. “Little did I know, the baby was going to manage me.”
The firm’s commitment to focusing on development of female employees lured Akerblom back from leave.
“When I got the call to come back, there was a renewed sense of enthusiasm for my career, but also a real sense of purpose, in terms of the things I would do differently to be successful as a working mom,” she said.
Not that any of it has been easy.
Akerblom was recruited by Grant Thornton in Los Angeles in 1989 when she was working at one of the Big Four accounting firms, a job she landed right after graduating from the University of San Diego with an accounting degree.
The firm culture was “very masculine,” she said.
“At that time, in order to succeed, you sort of had to adapt to a masculine way of doing business, which I did. Maybe it wasn’t as comfortable, and I certainly don’t do that now, but it was certainly necessary at the time.”
Over There
She moved to London in 1995 to head the U.S. transaction services team. She was an adviser to U.S. and European companies and oversaw transactions in both Western Europe and the former Soviet bloc countries, which were stirring in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Akerblom oversaw initial public offerings, mergers and acquisitions, and capital-raising rounds involving U.S. and European firms.
Grant Thornton brought her back to San Jose in 1999.
Her current job and pending promotion mean that she’s “made a full circle back to Southern California,” she said. “I’m in Irvine for good.”
Akerblom will likely be on the road a lot when she takes charge of the West Region next year.
She will replace Joel Anik, the West Region managing partner who will retire next July.
Northern California and Seattle, along with Southern California, are home to Grant Thornton’s largest offices.
She’ll carry all of her firsts that reflect her hard work—and an appreciation for the Women at Grant Thornton committee—with her.
“The managing partner and regional managing partners [in the early years] were huge supporters for me. They were progressive in terms of their desire to see me succeed,” she said. “They were eager to bring a woman partner into the mix.”
The committee continues to refine its efforts.
A program launched two years ago aims to match female associates with partners as sponsors.
It’s been “a great catalyst for really developing those women and increasing women who are even nominated for partner,” according to Akerblom.
New Network
Now she’s thinking about forming a network for female chief financial officers in Orange County.
“I founded a women CFO network up in Silicon Valley focused on women in tech companies,” Akerblom said. “It’s still ongoing. It’s a group of about 80 women. They’re a huge support network for each other, and it’s created for me great friendships and business relationships. I’m looking forward to creating something like that in OC.” n
