Tanya Crawford W'92
Email: Feel free to contact Tanya at tcrawford@deloitte.com.
What did you study at Penn and when did you graduate?
I graduated from Wharton in 1992 with a double concentration in Accounting and Finance.
What were you involved in at Penn?
I was a Wharton Peer Advisor, a member of Beta Alpha Psi, and a member of Wharton Women.
What was your favorite part of your Penn experience?
I’ve interviewed freshman applicants to Penn for many years and they always ask me this question. I really enjoyed the diversity available at Penn; it helped shape my worldview and my passion for diversity and inclusion. Coming from a small town in Ohio, attending Penn was a true eye-opener.
Do you have any advice you would give to your younger self as an undergraduate?
I learned several lessons as a woman in business that I would share. You can’t keep your head down and only do client service work. To be promoted, you need to self-promote. And as a woman, that is hard because from a young age you are taught not to brag or toot your own horn. In business it is imperative to share your accomplishments and make sure that leadership understands your career goals and objectives.
What do you do now and where are you based?
Since graduation I have been with Deloitte and am coming up on 30 years with the firm. I am a managing director in the tax function and serve as the inbound tax leader in the Columbus, Ohio office. My client expertise is serving the US subsidiaries of global corporations headquartered outside of the US, primarily in the manufacturing industry. I am also the Inclusion leader and the Women & Allies Community leader for the Columbus office of Deloitte.
What has been the biggest challenge of your career?
When I was a senior manager, I received a tough message from my coach who told me that while he understood all the great things I was doing for my clients and the leadership roles I had both in and outside Deloitte, there weren’t a lot of other partners and managing directors that knew these things. I didn’t understand at the time that doing great things doesn’t mean a lot if the right people don’t know what you’re doing. So I had to figure out how to authentically self-promote. While this didn’t come naturally at first, I did find ways to share my accomplishments which then helped in my promotion to managing director.
How do you balance your work and personal life?
I’m married and have 2 sons. My husband has been a stay-at-home dad since my oldest son was born as this is what we decided would work best for our family since public accounting does require a lot of my time and focus. However, I’ve always made sure to schedule personal things on my calendar and consider these times just as important as business-related meetings. When the boys were smaller, I would work long hours during the week and the weekends were reserved for family time.
What is your favorite part of your job?
Helping develop our people and in particular women is one of the most rewarding parts of my role at Deloitte. Public accounting is an apprenticeship model and part of my role every day is to make sure that the people coming up behind me are strong technically and they also have very sound soft skills. I have mentored many women over the years. As the first woman to be promoted to Tax Managing Director in the Columbus office, this has been my way to “pay it forward” and ensure that the women coming up through the pipeline at Deloitte have a strong leadership support system and understand the nuances to be successful and be promoted.