Kristen Bauer Proschold.

• Position: Intuitive Surgical Director and Managing Tax Counsel - Interview

Kristen Bauer Proschold calls herself an "accidental tax practitioner." Here's what she means. "1 may not have joined the tax profession were it not for a law firm recruiter telling me to 'keep an open mind,"' she says. "When I was interviewing for summer associate positions, one of the open positions was joining a tax practice. I hesitated, because I had been focusing on general litigation in law school at the time and (like many outside the industry) thought it was limited to preparing tax returns. I interviewed with two tax controversy specialists who spoke with such enthusiasm for what they did that I was swept in. By the end of the summer, I thought maybe there could be a place for me in tax. I hurried to take all of the tax classes I could during my third year of law school."

Always seeking to expand her tax and accounting knowledge, and after six years of legal practice, she completed the coursework needed to earn her CPA license. Proschold is now the director and managing tax counsel at Intuitive Surgical, the maker of da Vinci robotic surgery systems based in Sunnyvale, California. She says that one of the most interesting aspects of corporate tax practice is harmonizing technical tax provisions from different countries with the realities of doing business in a global, and increasingly transparent, environment. "We have to think not only steps ahead," she explains, "but also across many different city, state, and international borders."

Proschold lists several lessons learned from her employment prior to going in-house:

* how to bring technical tax expertise to generate business-focused solutions;

* how to manage multidisciplinary teams with diverse interests toward a common goal;

* how to see, hear, and reconcile alternative points of view and policy considerations to recommend solutions; and

* how to balance thinking critically against responding quickly and pragmatically.

Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

All that experience and learning has enabled Proschold to deal with the impact of the most important legislation affecting tax professionals in more than three decades--the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). "The TCJA is a significant step toward making the United States more competitive globally for investment and business growth," she says. "While it seeks to level that playing field for multinationals, complexity for all facets of a company's tax function remains a significant resource and analytical challenge. Engagement by...