AI Magazine Issue 7 2018

44 Acquisition International - Issue 7 2018 Ernst & Young is a global leader in Assurance, Tax, Transaction and Advisory services. We profiled the firm following their recent success in Acquisition Intl.’s 2018 Global Excellence Awards, where they received the accolade Most Influential Woman in Tax Services - Sao Paulo, as well as catching up with Tatiana da Ponte, who provided us with an insight into the award-winning company. t Ernst & Young, the insights and quality services which they deliver, helps them to build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. The firm develops outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of their stakeholders. In so doing, they play a critical role in building a better working world for their people, their clients and for their communities. In Brazil, Ernst & Young is one of the most comprehensive Assurance, Tax, Transaction and Advisory firm, with 5,000 professionals that support and provide services to more than 3,400 small, medium and large clients. The Tax practice in Brazil, led by Tatiana da Ponte has over a thousand professionals, divided into 11 offices and five sub-services lines. They serve 3,000 clients, assisting with their holistic Tax Agenda which comprises services of tax planning; tax accounting; tax compliance and tax controversy. Speaking of Brazil, the country is a unique location for taxation because of two main reasons: The first one being, Complexity. According to a recent study from BID Word Bank, Brazil is the most complex country for paying taxes. Tax payers have to comply with 63 different taxes; 67 ancillary obligations; 3.790 tax regulations which corresponds an average of 30 new tax rules per day; one new tax rule per hour. The second reason is Digital Pace. Currently, Brazil is moving into the 5th phase of Tax Digital Transformation. Ernst & Young Brazil have been leading this digital transformation by assisting the companies in Brazil to adapt to this rapid evolving scenario, and not only to be able to comply Company: Ernst & Young Brazil Name: Tatiana da Ponte Address: Av. Presidente Juscelino Kubitschek, 1909, 6th floor, Torre Norte, 04543- 011, São Paulo, Brazil Phone: + 55 11 2573-3288 Website: www.ey.com Building a Better WorkingWorld A 1806AI79 electronically with all mandatory e-compliance needed, but also to use the data generated to improve business efficiency by applying RPA (Robotics Process Automation) and analytic tools. The Next wave is already starting to take place, which is to build digital tools in SaaS (Software as a Service) for tax predictive analysis, and in a near future eventually pay taxes in crypto currency using block chain. One of the main challenges that Tatiana has faced in her Brazil Tax Managing Practice leadership role, was that at the same time that she had to help her clients to transform and adapt to the changes, she also had to transform Ernst & Young’s own tax business. This means not only developing an innovative technology to deliver electronically a tax service that historically has been delivered manually, but also build teams with digital capabilities. “As a professional services firm, our main asset is not a product, but our people. Therefore, it is key for our business attracting, hiring, developing and retaining the best professionals. In the past, we only hired lawyers, accountants, business or economists. With this new digital age, we had to also hire data scientist, mathematics; statistics, physicians, computer sciences professionals. One of the main challenges we faced was that, (i) candidates did not have enough knowledge about Ernst & Young as a possible employer of choice and (ii), we also had to learn how to manage this new talent once they were hired.” In order to address the first challenge, which was to make Ernst & Young more visible to the digital students, Tatiana had to get close to the universities. She gave lectures on “Digital Transformation of Tax Business” at the SEMEAD, main event at USP University in SP; started to mentor STEM (Sciences, technology, Engineering and Mathematics) women students, gave other lectures for organized student groups and encourage her executive teams to do the same. It paid off since the tax practice was able to hire in the past years around 90 professionals with digital background and keep growing this number. Digital background professionals already represents 9% of total EY Brazil Tax headcount. “This is a recognition beyond me, it is the result of a very dedicated team that are driven by the purpose of “Building a Better Working World”.