From Traditional Accounting to High-Fashion Strategy
Alexandra (Allie) Guccione, CPA, had one of the more typical beginnings in the field of accounting, but the Fairfield, New Jersey, native’s career certainly didn’t stay that way.
Looking for Strategy
After interning in PwC’s assurance practice, she was then hired into the practice after obtaining her B.S. in accounting and
completing her CPA. While there, Allie spent most of her time working on pharmaceutical giant Merck. She explains,
“Associates were given one area of the business to review/audit in the assurance practice. I was personally responsible for revenue, and thus conducted all required revenue testing.”
Allie enjoyed the work but soon realized PwC’s transaction services practice, which consisted of financial due diligence and mergers and acquisitions work, seemed more interesting and challenging to her. Never one to back down from new experiences, Allie jumped feet first into the transactions group and loved every minute of it. There, she advised clients on how much they should buy or sell a company for. “I would normalize earnings in order to produce an earnings number that our clients could either 1) bid off of in order to acquire a target company or 2) use as a proxy selling price if they chose to sell their own company,” she says. “What I liked about the work was the constant new challenges and projects. I would work on a deal for a month or so and then, shortly after, be placed on a new deal; my work was constantly changing.”
In the transactions group, Allie worked mainly with private equity firms on deals in health care and pharma. “Being in New York and New Jersey, pharmaceutical deals were very hot at the time,” she explains. She also particularly liked working on a deal for the e-commerce giant Chewy.com, where the company was sold to a private equity firm. “Being e-commerce, that was a lot more fun,” she admits.
Eventually, after several years at PwC, an opportunity came up at Tapestry, Inc. As the global retail apparel and fashion holding company for Coach, Kate Spade New York and Stuart Weitzman, Tapestry offered Allie an opportunity to focus her career on corporate strategy. Now, after more than four years at Tapestry, Allie is pleased with her decision. “I wanted to make a career move to go in-house where I could see the full lifecycle of my work play out,” she explains. “At the time I joined, Tapestry had just rebranded from Coach to Tapestry. They wanted someone who had accounting, controls and an M&A background to help integrate Kate Spade into the organization.”
That experience also proved to be exactly what the NJCPA could use in its chapter leadership positions. Allie became the president of the NJCPA Essex Chapter in June, after serving on the chapter board since 2019.
The Early Years
So, what inspired such a determined professional to go into accounting in the first place? Her alma mater, Lehigh University. “They have a very good accounting program,” she explains. “At Lehigh, the university sets students up to graduate with nearly 150 credits and the skills to pass the CPA Exam.” She feels that its course structure helps encourage students to take the CPA Exam right after college.
Her family also influenced her decision to go into accounting. “I originally thought I wanted to be a sports agent,” she explains, but her father convinced her that accounting was a good business major with great job opportunities. Allie’s mother is also a CPA. A lot of students, she says, don’t love accounting while attending their university but having an extra push from family in the field definitely helps.
Allie also learned a lot at her latest educational institution, Columbia University, where she completed her MBA. “I went to get my MBA to study corporate strategy and corporate development,” she says, noting that her current department is very research heavy.