How Data and Analytics Helped One CPA Find Her Niche

Sasha Pailet Koff, PMP, CPA, CGMA, knew data and analytics would be the wave of the future in accounting. From helping to to build out the digital strategy for the U.S. Postal Service's first web page to becoming senior director of global supply chain digital operations at Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. in Bridgewater, Sasha has always been about data and analytics.

In this role, on a daily basis, Sasha incorporates data science and predictive modeling and analytics for the supply chain organization to seek out opportunities to improve the patient, consumer and customer experiences, as well as drive revenue and cost improvement opportunities. "I work with everybody...from people on a plant floor, to data engineers and developers, to sales and marketing staff, to our finance departments all over the world....dealing with currency, tax and system models to be sure our customers have the products they want and need, while simultaneously driving profitability for our company," she explains.

Data analytics and predictive modeling is huge for the accounting profession, she adds. "When we think about forensic accounting, in particular, there's a whole world of capabilities." A CPA's job is not just about the mechanics of running the books, she notes, it's about understanding the financial performance and making sure the public has confidence in the financials that were compiled. "I see a huge need for those skillsets, and potentially more need because of the digital age in which we live."

Never Far From Accounting

While Sasha saw value in an accounting background owing to her father running his own CPA practice in the greater New Orleans area, she was more fascinated by engineering while at The George Washington University. She never entirely gave up on accounting, however, as she took the majority of her non-engineering elective courses in accounting. "If I look back on my college years, I think I actually built the futuristic CPA pathway. When I think about accounting or business acumen of the future, I fundamentally believe folks who will succeed will have to balance the problem-solving acumen of an engineer and the sound fundamentals of the accounting background," she explains.

Her career path is testament to those beliefs. After consulting at Andersen Consulting and having the U.S. government as a client for three years, she ended up going back to graduate school full time and getting even more accounting courses under her belt. She eventually achieved her MBA from Columbia University, where she had her first introduction to working in a corporate environment. Earning a summer internship at Rohm and Haas, which is now Dow Chemical, was a great opportunity as was landing a job after graduating at Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems, LLC, working for who else? A CPA. "My first job at Johnson & Johnson was in the strategic pricing gorup for North America. My role included the oversight of rebates and warranty payments to custmoers in the U.S. and was akin to an internal audit function," she explains.

From there, Sasha moved into a new business developmemt role at Johnson & Johnson, looking at acquisitions and divestitures and understanding profit and loss. She subsequently ran commercial operations for Cordis, a Johnson & Johnson Company, and was responsible for everything from sales force compensation to new product launches, cash flow and supply chain operations.

Lessons Learned

Choosing the corporate environment over public accounting and consulting was never an easy decision. Her first consulting opportunities with Andersen Consulting taught her many lessons, as well as how much she valued seeing projects through from the planning stages to fruition. As a consultant, she gave tremendous recommendations, she said, but she never knew whether they were put into practice and in what timeframe they would be implemented. Being on the corporate side, she has much more skin in the game. "I also have the accountability of it working and seeing it through. That really intrigues me," she says.