Tax talent in transition: how to plan your next steps in the face of M&As, spinoffs, bankruptcies, outsourcing, and changing demographics.

• Author: Levin-Epstein, Michael
• Position: Mergers & acquisitions - Discussion

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The days when a young tax professional at a corporation worked his or her way up the ladder and stayed with the same company for an entire career are falling by the wayside. True, those days are not disappearing entirely, but most tax professionals move among several different opportunities at various firms in their careers--and not always out of choice. Mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcies, spinoffs, outsourcing, shared services, changing demographics, and cost-cutting restructurings are all part and parcel of life in the fast lane for tax professionals in the twenty-first century. We convened a roundtable to discuss these employment developments and invited these TEI members and experts: Susan Bauer, tax director at Fossil Inc., a large international company with a retail, distribution, and manufacturing focus; John Jung, a tax executive search professional at Govig, a recruiting firm specializing in placing tax professionals nationally and inter! nationally; Louis Mestier, vice president of tax for Hanger Inc., the largest orthotics and prosthetics provider in the United States; and Caleb Standafer, senior tax director and associate treasurer at Teledyne Technologies, a provider of advanced technology solutions. Roundtable No. 8 was moderated by Tax Executive Senior Editor Michael Levin-Epstein.

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Michael Levin-Epstein: Why don't tax professionals generally stay with the same company for an entire career any more?

Caleb Standafer: Sixteen years ago I had a surprise transition. I was fairly well networked, and it was relatively easy to find a new position. I thought it might take six months, but I found consulting projects in a few weeks, and that eventually led to a job within three months. I think that acquisitions can make a person change jobs. You can be acquired by a foreign company, and your job responsibilities can become substantially diminished. And while you may still have a job, it's not what you signed on for and not what you've worked so long for. That's one aspect--mergers and acquisitions--can bring uncertainty into a tax professional's life.

Susan Bauer: Another element is the strong focus on cost-cutting, reorganization, and outsourcing. We've seen outsourcing in the technology area--entire departments are outsourced outside of the country. But in the tax field, different areas might be outsourced. So, for example, if you're a tax legal professional in addition to being a tax professional, which many vice presidents are, that may be something that becomes outsourced, and as was just discussed, the role is then diminished, and then the question is, "Do we need this highly educated and highly experienced person in this role when the role no longer requires that?"

Louis Mestier: For a number of years now, there have been a lot of mergers in many different industries--both large and small--and two tax departments or even more sometimes come together. The parties will want to leverage all they can, and tax departments may be cut, and you may have two Number Ones in a tax department, and there is a need for only one Number One, so there are changes that take place.

Bauer: I had one more comment, with regard to the shared service center phenomenon that's occurring in many companies. What's happening there is they're taking transactions that are more routine and putting them into shared service centers, and some of these areas have traditionally been part of the tax function such as sales and use taxes and property taxes and other miscellaneous areas where, again, this is another factor that diminishes the role of the senior tax executive.

John Jung: All those aspects that have been mentioned--mergers, acquisitions, spinoffs, bankruptcies, the ups and downs of the cycles of business--all are overt aspects. Some of them have been around for the last twenty to thirty years, depending on where that cycle is. I think another aspect that is somewhat hidden or not as overt is the fact that there is realistically a lot more VPs, head-of-tax talent available now than ever before. This goes back to that baby boomer aspect--that third bubble of the baby boomers. That's the biggest bubble, and it is hitting now. So a lot of people that want to work longer or have to work longer are staying in the marketplace. It is causing a supply and demand issue--too much supply of great, very qualified VPs and Number Ones of tax, not enough roles to go around.

Levin-Epstein: If you were advising someone who has been at a particular firm for, say, ten years, and they were looking up...