One CPA’s Journey from Spain to New Jersey

BY KATHLEEN HOFFELDER, NJCPA SENIOR CONTENT EDITOR

Growing up as the daughter of parents who emigrated from Cuba, Isabel Del Corral, CPA, saw the importance of working hard and starting out on her own. Her parents left Cuba initially for Madrid, Spain, where Isabel was born and lived until she was about 18 months old with her older sister, Lucia, and then they moved to Hudson County, New Jersey, to be close to other relatives already in the Garden State.

Entrepreneurial Spirit

Isabel learned firsthand what it means to run a business from her father, who started and sold three businesses in his lifetime. He successfully ran a grocery store, a liquor store and eventually a meat distribution operation until he retired. That entrepreneurial spirit stuck with Isabel and can be partly credited with the reason she initially became a sole practitioner; then an audit manager with her partners, Darren J. Fusaro, CPA, and David McIntee, CPA, now retired; and eventually a partner of McIntee Fusaro Del Corral, LLC in 2013. Previously, she worked as an audit supervisor at Wiss and a senior accountant at Withum.

“Obviously the businesses my father had were labor intensive and he worked a lot of hours, but he was always saying, ‘I don’t have a boss. I can do what I need to do and get to make my own decisions.’ That stuck with me,” she says. “Always in the back of my mind, I thought I would love to become a partner, where I would have control or a say in what was going on,” she explained.

Her father’s influence also shaped her interest in math and eventually accounting. “My dad was a numbers guy, which is where I got my love of accounting,” she adds, which started with her first introduction to balancing debits and credits in high school. “That’s what made me love accounting.

The debits and credits must balance,” she remarks. Isabel went to Pace University, where she received her B.S. in accounting. “What I liked about Pace was that they had a public accounting major. They prepared you so students could pass the CPA Exam once you graduated.”

Today, she likes many other things about accounting, including the variety. “I like the fact that my day is never the same. Sometimes I’m in the office; sometimes I’m at clients’ offices; other times I’m working from home,” she adds. “I’ve had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of clients, for example, working with construction companies and doing inventory observations. I was up on a crane looking at the observation tower at Newark Airport. Obviously, there’s the numbers in this profession but there’s also a lot of interaction with people and the opportunity to work together with clients to help them reach their goals.”

Nonprofit Niche

After working at Withum and Wiss for about 10 years, she started out on her own and provided consulting services for another 10 years. During her time working as a consultant, she developed an interest in audits of nonprofit organizations. One of the main reasons she joined her current firm, which now consists of a staff of five, was because they specialized in audits of nonprofit organizations. Her firm also provides accounting and tax services, and she leads her firm’s employee benefit plan audit services. Isabel is also an active member of the NJCPA, having previously served as a Trustee and as president of the Hudson Chapter. She is currently vice chair of the Volunteer Relations Committee and a member of the Nonprofit and Accounting & Auditing Standards interest groups.

Sticking to her Cuban roots, Isabel, who is bilingual, has provided services to clients located in Latin America. Enjoying the ability to wear many accounting hats, she acknowledges, “Accounting is one of those professions where you can do so much.”