Page 49 - BusinessWest October 28, 2024

“I knew
no one was going to outwork me, and I was just going to do it.”
Firm Resolve
Reale was a student at Assumption College in Worcester, working toward a degree in accounting, when she decided that real world-world experience would be a good complement to what she was learning in the classroom.
Her advisor agreed, suggesting that she pursue an internship. So she did, with a vigor that would reflect her career to come.
“I opened the phone book, and I called every single accounting firm within driving distance of Assumption,” she said, adding that she scored some interviews, including one at a large regional firm in Worcester.
“When I went to interview with this person, he said, ‘how did you find us?’” she recalled, adding that she told him about opening that phone book and calling every accounting
firm in Worcester and asking if they had an
internship program. “He called me up and
said, ‘Kristi, I’m a Bentley guy, and I had a
Bentley student pinned for this internship, but I’m going to give it to you.”
She completed that internship in the spring and started with the firm in the fall, she went on, noting that times were different in the broad world of public accounting then; jobs were much harder to come by, and the competition for them was fierce.
“You went to work, you did your job, you did the best you could every day because, if you didn’t, there was a line of people outside waiting to get your job. It was a tough market,” she said, adding that this environment was fine with her because, from a young age, good working habits were instilled in her by her parents and, later, several mentors.
And she is essentially trying to impress that same message on young people today.
Tracing Reale’s career, she stayed with the firm in Worcester for a
Kristi Reale, right, and Chelsea Russell, manager/CPA at Meyers Brothers Kalicka, display some of the many items collected during a supply drive to benefit the residents of Ruth’s House in Longmeadow.
few years before tiring of the commute from and a perceived lack of opportunities to advance. So she went to work at a smaller firm but was again stymied by a lack of opportunities, feeling “disposable,” as she put it. Frustrated, she decided in early 2001 that she was done with public accounting.
But she still needed to work, so she called her sister-in-law, an
Reale >> CemployeeatMeyersE
Continued on page W35
ARP
As women of impact, your influence has been felt in business, government, education and nonprofit organizations. You are respected leaders, advisors and mentors who empower others through your actions, and, in doing so, blaze a trail for others.
Congratulations
LATONIA MONROE NAYLOR G’13 Chief Business Educator, Monroe Naylor Consulting, LLC; President and CEO, Parent Villages DIEM
ALISON BERMAN Council Director, Girls on the Run Western Massachusetts
DIANNE FULLER DOHERTY Co-founder, Women’s Fund of Western Mass.; Former Director, MSBDC | Western Regional Office
JOANNE FINCK Chair, Friends of Cooley Dickinson
KIMBERLEY LEE Chief of Creative Strategy and Development, MiraVista Behavioral Health Center
MEGAN McDONOUGH Executive Director, Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity
KRISTI REALE Partner, Meyers Brothers Kalicka, P.C.
DR. SHIRLEY JACKSON WHITAKER Nephrologist, Artist, and Filmmaker
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