Sarah Dewar, Associate at Cooper Grace Ward Lawyers, says she chose tax as a career, on a full-time basis, about three or four years ago.
“Prior to that, I'd been in commercial litigation, so I had a broad range of disputes that I worked with, and tax disputes were one of them,” she explains.
“As it just naturally happened, I really enjoyed the work that I was doing with tax disputes, and made it a full-time career choice.”
Great leadership – in a nutshell
“I think there are a few things that a key leader in the tax profession needs to implement, and the first one, I think, is consistency,” says Sarah.
She says that tax leaders need to be consistently excelling at their specialty that they've chosen and keeping up to date with changes in the tax laws.
“They also need to be keeping up regularly with the practical effect that those tax laws,” she adds.
“Apart from that, I think that we need to take a very serious role in developing young tax professionals coming through, or more junior tax professionals coming through.
“I think a lot of that can start with uni, and then, developing those people as they come out into the real world.”
Advice: love what you do
Sarah’s advice for young people starting their careers, whether that be in tax, or in any other form of career that they choose, is that they have to be passionate.
“You've got to be interested in what you do on a daily basis. And then, apart from that, be tenacious,” she says.
“Be outwardly interested in what you're doing… make that fact known to the people that you're working with.
“If you do all that, and apply a really good ethic, then you'll be fine.”
This post originally appeared on Women in Tax, our site created to support the career progression of women in the tax, accounting and legal professions.
