ACCOUNTING MILLENNIALS AND THE DIGITAL AGE
Young Alums Embrace Data Analytics to Meet Career Challenges Accelerating Toward the Future: Mac McManus and Candace Reeve Keeping pace with the speed of technology and the rapid change it brings to our lives isn’t easy, but two School of Accountancy alumni have joined the race, Candace Reeve using knowledge as their fuel. Those alumni, Candace (Lawrence) Reeve and Mac McManus, are on a rotation with Digital Accelerators, an innovative and Mac McManus forward-thinking pilot program offered by their employer, PwC. Digital Accelerators, which launched in 2018, is designed to “digitally upskill” all PwC employees—that’s some 55,000 in the U.S.—by starting with 1,000 employee volunteers willing to immerse themselves in two years of intensive technology training. These two tigers were eager volunteers. McManus is a 2015 BSBA graduate who works in the tax practice out of PwC’s Charlotte office. Reeve, who holds her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in accountancy from Auburn (2014 and 2015, respectively) is in PwC’s Nashville office on the audit side. Both joined the PwC team right out of college, and both quickly realized they still had a lot to learn, especially about technology, which was not a personal passion during their college days. 4 The SOA Connection Winter 2020
PwC Digital Accelerator employees (Reeve, far right) relax during their training program. According to Reeve, she took a few technology courses in college, but didn’t appreciate their correlation to accounting. “When I got to PwC and saw the impacts of technology, though, I realized I can’t turn a blind eye,” Reeve said.
“Technology is rapidly evolving, but PwC equips us with the skill sets needed to succeed in our careers.” McManus had a similar epiphany. He knew technology and analytics were disrupting the accounting field, but at PwC he began to see how they benefited the profession and how they were valuable to his career. “In the past, we spent too many hours manually moving data around, but
with the help of data-wrangling tools and robotics, we’ve begun to eliminate some of the legwork and have more capacity to focus on the bigger picture,” he said. Realizing they needed to improve their technology skills and savvy, both are deeply appreciative of PwC for providing the Digital Accelerators program. “Technology is rapidly evolving, but PwC acknowledges that and equips us with the skill sets needed to succeed in our careers,” said Reeve. The goal of Digital Accelerators is to “future-proof ” PwC and its employees by “upskilling” proficiencies in three main areas—data and analytics, with a focus on efficiently collecting and securely managing data; automation in the form of robotics, drones, and augmented reality; and artificial intelligence and machine learning. Though their responsibilities have temporarily shifted as they immerse themselves in the program, Reeve and
