Professional Women Power: Why being an auditor is one of the most beautiful professions!

published on 7. March 2023

In the context of our career blog “professional women power”, female colleagues introduce themselves,
talk about their career paths and day to day work at Rödl & Partner.
In this way, we would like to raise awareness of women as well as motivate female applicants and colleagues
to bravely pursue their individual career paths at Rödl & Partner.

„Through dealing with other people, you develop yourself bit by bit”

Heike Simon-Kleinort

Heike Simon-Kleinort is a partner and, as an auditor and tax consultant, looks after international medium-sized company groups at the Nuremberg location. Despite the sometimes stressful daily work routine and the necessary compatibility with her 2 children (12 and 7 years old), she would definitely take up the profession as an auditor again.

Heike, why would you take up the profession as an auditor again?

Modern auditing today has nothing to do with the reputation from times past of comparing dusty figures and ticking boxes all day. Auditing in today's world means being confronted with the most diverse business models of clients, understanding business processes and auditing the client's systems accordingly. A deep understanding of processes is the basis for the use of modern data analysis tools, through which one gains an amazingly deep insight into the client's systems. This makes the job exciting every day and even after 20 years of professional experience I am still impressed by how great and professional the German SME sector is and how many hidden champions there are in Germany. The job as an auditor has never been boring for me on any day so far.

What do you particularly enjoy about your day-to-day work as an auditor?

In my day-to-day work as an auditor, the focus is absolutely on people. You get to know all kinds of different personalities, both on the client side and on the colleague side. Through dealing with other people, you develop yourself bit by bit. You are confronted with a wide variety of clients and also shareholder structures and can therefore develop a broad view beyond your own nose. Auditing also only works with teamwork. Without a team that stands behind you even in stressful times, you can't manage an audit. My work as an auditor has led to long-term relationships with other people that I don't want to miss and that have been of decisive importance for my personal development.

Auditing is still a male-dominated field of business. What do you think are the reasons and how could the situation be improved?

Yes, that is unfortunately still the situation in reality. The supposedly lengthy training period causes many women to rule out this career path from the outset, as there is still the prejudice that the profession of auditor is not compatible with a family. Yet this profession in particular is very well suited to reconciling family and career. Different "time contingents" can also be served, as the volume of work can be wonderfully adapted to the personal situation by choosing appropriate mandate sizes. The problem lies more on the social side and in wrong political incentives, which still assign childcare to women, so that even today it is often not common practice to divide childcare equally between men and women. Nowadays, it is usually no longer the fault of employers. Rödl & Partner gave me the opportunity to work flexibly 12 years ago. That was long before the Corona crisis called for flexibility in work arrangements and put it in the media spotlight. For me, Rödl & Partner has always played a pioneering role and I am therefore the best proof that "New Work" has also been lived in reality at Rödl & Partner for a long time. And the best thing about it for me is that I show my daughter, who is 7 years old, every day that it should not make a difference in professional life whether you are a man or a woman.

Thank you Heike for the nice interview. Your enthusiasm for the profession as an auditor is definitely contagious!