Tracy Marshall is currently the only female country managing partner of a Big Four firm in Barbados. She also serves as the president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB), is an active member of the Accounting and Auditing Standards Committee of ICAB and is a board member of the Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA).
When not otherwise busy at work or fulfilling her extra-curricular volunteer activities in the accounting field, you can find her watching a good Real Madrid game at home after her morning yoga. ‘I love all sports,’ she says, ‘and on any given weekend I’ll be attending a game with family and friends’.
‘Maybe being female is actually a superpower when climbing the company ladder’
Top tips for being a successful auditor
- Maintain a high level of integrity.
- Be resilient.
- Be agile, as you will often be working towards tight deadlines.
- Be willing to put in the extra time and be dedicated to the task.
- Be able to work with teams.
- Stay on top of your standards and the changes that are coming constantly.
- Be communicative and develop strong interpersonal skills.
- Be analytical – numbers tell a story, so you have to be able to decipher what the data is telling you.
Whether it’s catching a soccer game in Spain or hearing the roar of the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Montreal, travelling to major league events is one of her favorite things to do. Being there in person is a combination of thrill and culture, she comments. ‘While I live in the most beautiful place, there’s nothing like experiencing different cultures and food, and being in the stands at a La Liga game in Madrid is so exciting.’
Perhaps her love of competition is one of the reasons how, in a traditionally male-dominated field, she’s managed to reach the top job in a Big Four firm in her country. Winning at this game is all about staying the course, working hard and keeping your competencies sharp, she says. ‘Maybe being female is actually a superpower when climbing the company ladder,’ she adds. ‘Women have a uniquely empathetic trait and that’s one of the keys things that makes for good leadership, mentorship and working in teams.’
Do what you love
However, at the end of the day, it all boils down to choosing a career path best suited to your personality, she concludes. ‘Back at secondary school I had a passion for maths. I also had a teacher who encouraged us to take up accounting courses and told us about the opportunities that could come out of it.
‘So I decided to start there and found I had a love for it. Originally my plan was to spend five years in audit. I’m still here 21 years later. Not unlike doing the ACCA exams, entering the audit profession opened so many doors.’
Today, she says, attracting young people to the profession isn’t that easy, pointing to the general shortage of new graduates entering the field. ‘I keep telling my junior staff when I hire them that in audit the structure works, you get mentorship, there’s networking opportunities and you can spread your wings… and that this is the best base you can have for building a career. However, generally speaking, we need to do a better job of selling the profession.’
‘When our teams put in extra hours, we recognise that and give time back’
CV
2024
Country managing partner, EY Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean
2024
Director (Barbados), Institute of Chartered Accountants of the Caribbean
2023 – present
President, Institute of Chartered Accountants of Barbados (ICAB)
2023 – present
Director (ICAB Representative), Barbados Private Sector Association (BPSA)
2020
Assurance partner, EY Barbados
2012
Becomes FCCA
2012
Becomes ACCA
Marshall believes it’s important to make sure new graduates understand that they can branch into many areas within the firm, or eventually enter a specific industry as part of a finance team, or even as CEO or CFO, she says.
It’s also critical that the firm maintains the level of technology that new graduates have come to expect and to let them know that they’re not going to be required to do the mundane tasks that may have been part of their jobs 20 or 30 years ago.
‘For example, over the last three years, in my experience, nobody’s expecting that they have to sit and write those long reports without some use of AI or business intelligence technology,’ she says.
Changing culture
It’s also important to remember that work culture has changed over the past 20 years. For new graduates, work-life balance has become an important part of the conversation, she says. ‘I’ve seen a conscious effort being made by professional firms to offer that work life balance, even though in the world of audit, given our timelines, that isn’t always possible. So when our teams put in extra hours, we recognise that and give time back.’
Ultimately, being a leader in this field requires that you understand that those coming up have new things to offer, she adds. ‘You need to be receptive to not only how auditing has changed, but to the different perspective people entering the field can bring. There’s so much you can learn from them. I like to call it reverse mentoring.’
She sums this up with her favourite Maya Angelou quote: ‘Nothing will work unless you do.’
