Growing up in New Jersey, I learned the value of hard work early. I was one of six kids. Neither of my parents went to college. My father started his own business in his mid-forties while working a full-time job, usually on nights and weekends. My mother worked any job she could to bring in extra money. I watched them work the way they worked, without complaint, without shortcuts, and without ever quite catching their breath. They never lectured me about effort. They never talked much about work. They simply showed me what it looked like to keep showing up. That became my standard.

That foundation eventually led me to accounting—not because I dreamed of becoming an accountant, but because I was drawn to solving difficult problems, earning trust, and helping people make better decisions.

I joined PwC in 2004 expecting to stay a few years before moving on. Instead, I stayed for more than two decades. The work was intellectually demanding, but it was never just about accounting. It was about helping leaders make consequential decisions in moments of uncertainty. The technical work was the medium. Judgment was the craft.

Some of that work asked more of me than the work itself. In 2011, I was assigned to Tokyo to lead services across Asia-Pacific for a global Fortune 100 client. Not long after I arrived, the Fukushima earthquake and nuclear meltdown happened. I led the crisis-management response over the months that followed and learned something that most leadership books only theorize about: the version of you who can hold a room when nothing is certain is built somewhere quieter than the boardroom. Japan permanently changed how I think about leadership. It taught me that calm is a discipline, that consensus is not the same as agreement, and that the most important work happens before anyone enters the room.