If the shoe fits ...

Use these three lessons to create your brand, develop your unique professional identity and navigate your career journey.

My career journey has been a wonderfully long and winding road through incredible roles in a wide range of industries. I’ve audited, investigated and led large global teams of people whose services kept businesses running, including IT, finance, human resources, marketing, procurement and more. I’ve been lucky enough to work with leaders and teams that have inspired me to learn crucial career lessons along the way. As I think about those lessons, I’ve distilled them down to my top three.

But before I share those lessons, I’ll give you a sense of where my journey started. I got my degree in accounting and landed a plum position in one of the big public accounting firms. It was a dream job. As vice president of my school’s accounting society, a staff auditor in a big firm was the quintessential position that I’d been working towards throughout my academic career. However, I was a bit of a rebel growing up, and I have a deep-rooted curiosity about everything. So, the one thing that I didn’t bargain for was a requirement to conform.