Professional Women Power: To Autonomously Create Balance & Compatibility with Collegial Openness

“For me, female Empowerment means, among other things, to experience female role models in your own workplace.”

Dr. DANIELA ENDRES-REICH

Daniela, in your eyes, what defines the work as a tax consultant?

I have been working as a tax consultant in the field VAT Services in Munich since 2015 and for me the profes­sion of a tax consultant is especially characterised by its diversity; both in terms of the professional expertise as well as the possible deployment and workingtopics.

Thus, the profession “tax consultant” in general offers various options for development, whether you work ­in-house in a corporation, self-employed in your own tax office or in a big, internationally operating con­­sulting firm like Rödl & Partner. Moreover, different career paths and developments are possible at Rödl & Part­ner. The pro­fessional options, along with good pay in this sector, according to the standards, make the job – especially al­so for women – very attractive in my opinion. In addition, and for me close to being more important, one must deal with new questions almost daily. I find it simply exciting that there are still so many new things to learn after 12 years in VAT law, because the world (and thus the business world) constantly keeps develop­ing further; currently, for example, in the area of NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens) and crypto assets.

Presently, I am working as a manager in a more project and result oriented consulting environment at Rödl & Part­ner. The changing client problems, the international context of my work as well as the possibility to parti­cipate in a big organization like Rödl & Partner over and above my daily work in the way of talks, articles and education is something that I find positively challenging and therefore extremely appealing to me.

Meanwhile, I personally very much appreciate, as a mother of a toddler, that I am able to do my work at the moment as part-time. In my team and with the support of my manager Dr. Heidi Friedrich-Vache, this is well possible.

Nevertheless, there are challenges too: in particular in tax consulting projects, there are sometimes situations where it is hard to handle expectations from clients, colleagues, managers as well as your own expectations regarding the results in the given weekly work hours (no matter a full-time or part-time job). Hence, I try to use good time management to prioritise and communicate clearly, internally with my team and manager and also externally with clients and colleagues.

Is the profession of consultancy a typical “job for women”?

For me, professions are not per se related to gender. The job tax consultant itself is highly divers and flexible. Moreover, due to the Corona pandemic the job profile – here at Rödl & Partner too – has been, what feels like from one day to the next, catapulted into the modern workplace. Remote work, virtual conferences and a paper­less office lead to a better compatibility of the professional and private life. This flex­ible design of work natur­ally increases the attractiveness of the occupation for parents, for whom this com­pati­bility is important. I, too, do not want to miss this way of working in the future.

However, a female manager in tax consulting is (sadly) still not a completely matter of course. Therefore, I per­son­ally find it very inspiring that in the service line Tax consulting at Rödl & Partner some of my female col­leagues who are working at the managing level Associate Partner or Partner have children, work successfully, and additionally advance their careers. At Rödl & Partner it is even possible being promoted as Managing Part­ner as a woman with children. That is a very strong example, and it is terrific and crucial as a working mother to experience role models here in our firm.

What advice would you give young professionals in the field of tax consultancy services?   

I would advise particularly female young professionals to be a bit more self-confident in job interviews or em­ployee reviews and to communicate their own expectations and wishes clearly. Here one could say simplified: he who does not ask, cannot win. When I started at Rödl & Partner after my job as a research assistant at a university, for ex­ample, it was very important for me to keep making public appearances in the context of lec­tures and publications in addition to my work as tax consultant and to promote the scientific discourse regar­ding VAT law further on. With the full sup­port of my manager, I was able to realise this and still am –partially even together with her. Thus, I used the oppor­tunity to continue shaping in particular the topic of the “VAT group”, on which I did my PhD (Dr. jur.), with publications in scientific journals and being visible in this topic alongside my daily work as tax consultant in VAT.  

In our team, for example, it is also possible to study for your master's degree while working part-time in tax consulting. Because of my experience, I can confirm that the service line Tax consulting offers working time models which can be harmonised with the individual conditions. So far, everyone around me has found, in the context of the broad job profile “tax consultant”, the suitable occupation and (part-time) position that was com­patible with the current life situation.