Erica O’Malley feels like she never left Andersen.
Now at Chicago-based accounting firm Grant Thornton LLP, O’Malley is working with the same corporate clients, auditing their 401(k), pension and other employee-benefit plans. Most of her Andersen audit team is intact. The 37-year-old mother of five children ages 1 through 9 continues to work about three days a week in a flexible schedule.
It gets even better. Grant Thornton brought her in as a partner and gave her a raise. At Andersen, O’Malley was a senior manager, one notch below partner.
“You really can’t complain,” she said. “We don’t have much downside.”
Despite the seamless transition, Andersen’s meltdown was the most stressful period of her 15-year career at the public accounting firm. O’Malley came back to work after maternity leave two weeks before the firm was indicted.
Her staff of 13 was in the midst of its busy audit season, so there was little time to grieve over the dismantling of the firm that ensued. As they worked, the offices at Andersen’s headquarters at 33 W. Monroe St. slowly emptied, as groups of employees were sold to other firms or were laid off.
“I think we were the only ones making money for the firm,” O’Malley recalled.
While overseeing the audit work, O’Malley and a second senior manager began talking to other firms to see if any were interested in acquiring their specialty practice. O’Malley had two key requirements in a new firm: The acquirer must take her entire team and allow the women to continue working flexible hours. If those conditions could not be met, the group considered starting its own firm.
O’Malley found a match in Grant Thornton after talking to four other firms, including Deloitte & Touche and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Of the 13 in the group, 10 moved to Grant Thornton. One decided to go to Deloitte; one relocated to another city and a third became a stay-at-home mom. O’Malley’s group now works out of Grant Thornton’s Oak Brook office, another plus for the employees who live in the suburbs.
When the group moved over July 1, they brought 60 clients with them, stressing Grant’s systems and causing some short-term headaches. Now, “I think they like us,” O’Malley says.
