What Makes Me A Successful Business Advisor

I’ve never hung out a shingle as a consultant.

No advisory LLC, no 1099s. Everything I know about advising a business I learned from inside the building: sitting in the tax department, owning the outcome, living with the consequences of my own recommendations.

That’s not a disclaimer. It’s the pitch.

Long before any of that, I grew up in a small business household. My grandfather and dad ran Stemen Align & Brake in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a family-owned shop doing alignments and brakes since 1964. I worked there growing up, taking care of customers. That’s where I learned the lesson no corporate job ever taught me as well: when the customer is standing right in front of you, there’s nowhere to hide. Do the work right, explain it plain, and they come back. Or they don’t.

Outside advisors sell you a framework and leave before the implementation breaks. I spent thirteen years inside tax departments at EY, Danaher, Vitamix, Bendix, Timken, and Hyland before moving to the technology side at Thomson Reuters, where I now work as a Senior Account Executive advising tax and trade teams on systems and process. I’ve been the person in your chair. I know what the month-end close feels like at midnight, what a failed software rollout costs in credibility, and how hard it is to get a room of skeptics to change the way they work.

I learned advising by doing the work. At EY I saw how complex compliance breaks when the process behind it is held together by spreadsheets and heroics. At Danaher I absorbed an operating system built on continuous improvement: small, relentless fixes that compound. At Timken I watched engineers solve problems with a patience most advisors don’t have, because they had to live with the machines they designed. Each stop added a layer: technical depth, operational discipline, and the humility that comes from being accountable for results instead of recommendations.

I learned it again from the outside looking in. During my MBA program I volunteered with small businesses. Owners who didn’t have tax departments, just a shoebox of receipts and a knot in their stomach every quarter. No budget for Big Four fees. Just straight questions and a need for plain answers. That work taught me something corporate life never did: advice is only as good as the client’s ability to act on it. If they can’t implement it Monday morning, it’s theater.

And I learned it where nobody reports to you. I spent years on nonprofit boards as treasurer, secretary, and fundraising chair, where you lead entirely by influence. No title compels a volunteer board to follow your financial plan. You earn it by being right, being clear, and doing the unglamorous work yourself. That’s the purest form of advising there is.

So what does all of that mean if you’re running a business?

It means when I look at your tax department, I don’t see a process flow. I see the version of me from ten years ago, drowning in manual work and hoping the spreadsheet holds. When you tell me you’re buying technology, I hear the sales pitch the way your team will hear it, and I know which questions actually matter. When your team resists change, I don’t reach for a change-management framework. I remember what finally convinced me.

I’m not selling hours or a methodology. I’m offering the judgment that only comes from having sat in every seat around the table: the preparer, the manager, the board member, and now the technology advisor.

If your tax operation feels heavier than it should, or you’re making a systems decision you can’t afford to get wrong, let’s talk. I’ve probably stood where you’re standing.

Connect with me on LinkedIn and tell me what you’re up against.