GREAT TEAMS START WITH GREAT PEOPLE.

Meet Amira Swenson.

What is your motto or personal mantra?

With humility, consider others more important than yourself.

As a former Texan resident, what do you miss most about Texas living here in Washington D.C.?

Besides tacos? I do miss the people in Texas. My sister and her family are still there, and I left some good friends and co-workers, but I have loved my time in D.C. so far. I love being so close to great hiking spots and there’s always something to do; from the museums and regular touristy things to attending lectures or various events around town.

What is your role at MorganFranklin, and what do you do?

I work in the accounting and transaction services group where I focus on risk advisory services.

Please tell us about your professional background and what led you to pursue a career at MorganFranklin.

I’ve always loved solving puzzles and creating order out of chaos. I wanted to work somewhere where I could use my experience in both internal audit and corporate accounting to help firms develop solutions for their problems. MorganFranklin was exactly what I was looking for. In risk advisory, we get to work alongside our clients and help them first identify their risk areas, then assist with creating a plan for mitigating them.

You are a tutor in your free time at your local church in Virginia. Can you share with us what drew you to that kind of volunteer work, and what it means to you?

Teaching ESL is a great way to meet and talk to people from different countries and cultures. I’ve learned a lot from my students – many of whom have fled terrible things in their home countries. I want to be a welcoming face and help them with their transition to the States.

How have you taken ownership of your career growth at MorganFranklin? What does “surpassing expectations” mean to you and in the work you do?

To me, “surpassing expectations” means seeing the current and future needs of our clients, and helping them develop a plan to avoid future pitfalls. In the case of one client, whom we serve as internal audit, we try to take the burden of providing supporting documentation off the process owners by tracking down files ourselves. For that same client, we were recently able to finish a six-week project a week and a half early.

What has been the most interesting client you have worked with at MorganFranklin, and why?

I’m currently working on a client who is refreshing their Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) Program. Their internal controls have not yet been updated, so it’s a fun challenge to identify their risks and design the controls necessary to build a strong control environment.

If you had to recruit someone to join the MorganFranklin team, what are three traits you would want to see in this recruit?

Dedication, openness, and collaboration: I would like to see this recruit committed to finding solutions for our clients and getting the job done, be open to various ideas and listening to the different perspectives others bring to the table, and be a team player.

If you could have dinner with anyone, living or dead, real or fictional, who would you choose and why?

C.S. Lewis. He was so insightful on so many things, so I’d love to ask him all my questions and try to glean some of his wisdom.