Being an Accountant Means Balancing More than Just the Books

As traffic buzzes seven stories below her Raleigh office window one mid-January morning, Amy Baker’s demeanor isn’t what you would expect from a partner in an accounting firm during busy season.

Calm and collected, her casual tone and attentive eyes lead clients and co-workers to believe she has all the time in the world for them.

Even her office space doesn’t have the feel of stressed-out accountant. With pictures of her seventeen-month-old daughter lining the shelves behind her and audit files stacked beside her laptop, everything seems to be in balance—much like Amy’s life.

From the outside, no one would believe this is the first time in three weeks that the recently named partner has been at her office. Defying the outdated stereotype that all an accountant does is “sit behind a desk and crunch numbers,” Amy spends the majority of her time at clients’ offices, often working fourteen-hour days during out-of-town trips to Charlotte. 

Growing up in Johnston County, North Carolina, Amy never imagined she would be where she is today. In college at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she chose accounting because, “it was the way I could stay at Carolina for an extra year,” she says with a laugh. When she took her first job with Ernst & Young, she didn’t have long-term aspirations with the public accounting firm, but thirteen years and several promotions later, Amy is the only female in a field of ten male partners in the Raleigh office.

“I fell in love with what I was doing and the people I was working with,” she says. “I tried to build relationships with everyone.”

These relationships aren’t just with grown-ups, however. Amy prides herself in knowing every one her daughter’s daycare classmates. Like millions of women across the country, Amy faced a tough decision when Abby was born—whether or not to stay at home. Instead of giving up the job she loved, she found ways to balance her life.

“One of the greatest advantages in accounting is the flexibility it allows,” she says. “Obviously Abby is my No. 1 priority and work will always come second to that.”