Aylin Losavio.

• Position: EMERGING LEADER

Aylin Losavio, director of taxes and shared services at RTI International, started her career in banking as a commercial loan underwriter, but quickly gravitated toward the tax thicket, which involved ... wait for it ... receipts in a shoebox.

After completing a management rotation through the Banking Centers, she was presented with an opportunity to expand a regional CPA firms financial planning and business valuations practice. "My first exposure to tax was during the firms tax season where everyone was putting in grueling hours. Rolling up my sleeves to help out with preparing a few tax returns was the least I could do. My first tax return belonged to a general contractor who delivered his business expense receipts in a shoebox," she says. "Mining through the data, knowing what to do with it, and then delivering a completed tax return to a client who said they received exceptional client service was a rewarding feeling, especially the gratitude-towards-the-client service part of it."

Working for a Nonprofit

What part of nonprofit tax law does she find the most interesting? RTI International issued bonds to finance the construction of several buildings on its campus, she notes. "Maybe because of the connection to Treasury and Banking, I find that tax-exempt private activity bonds are a unique method of financing. Post-issuance compliance and private activity use monitoring is another important layer of unrelated business income," she says.

As in the for-profit world, problematic tax law problems arise occasionally. RTI International recently closed on two acquisitions, one that was structured as an asset deal and another as a stock acquisition, Losavio notes. "Working intensely on tax aspects of two deals simultaneously, from due diligence to integration, would be a big task for anyone in the tax industry. However, I had the added pressure of onboarding newly acquired staff through our payroll, travel, and expense functions in the same month as my payroll team underwent a massive systems conversion from PeopleSoft to Oracle," she says.

Rewards of Responsibility

While having ownership of functions beyond tax meant more responsibility, it came with a clear-cut upside, according to Losavio. "It is rewarding to have a big-picture view of the operational functions of your organization. I am able to find more and more ways to add value in my everyday job to someone else's department and am able to gain a different perspective on how the...