Career Path Of A Controller At Clear Sky Capital
Max's career journey began with "an externship with Ernst and Young," followed by a full-time role there, but a shift to DriveTime allowed exploration of cost and revenue accounting. Subsequent roles at Urban Communities and Clear Sky Capital provided experience in property and fund accounting, showcasing a diverse career path built on progressively challenging experiences.
Accounting, Big Four Firms, Private Equity, Career Progression, Cost Accounting
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Max Kazimierek
Controller
Clear Sky Capital
University of Arizona 2013
N/A
Accounting
Real Estate
Finance
Scholarship Recipient, Took Out Loans
Video Highlights
1. He started his career path by actively participating in the Accounting Student Association (ASA), which exposed him to various firms and helped him secure an externship and eventually an internship with Ernst & Young (EY).
2. After his time at EY, he transitioned to DriveTime, where he gained valuable experience in cost and revenue accounting within a large used auto dealership.
3. His career progression showcases a willingness to explore diverse accounting roles, including his experience at Urban Communities, a real estate startup, and his current position at Clear Sky Capital, where he's working in property and fund accounting within private equity.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college? Did you have any internships or jobs before your current role?
Yeah, absolutely. So going back to college, a couple of things that I did to get into accounting and into the industry a little bit were through the Accounting Student Association, or ASA. Different firms came and talked to us, helping us get the lay of the land of what was out there.
That kind of pointed me in the direction of the Big Four. I also did an externship with Ernst & Young in college. I met them through ASA and then also at Meet the Firms, where many different firms came to Community College of the University of Arizona. I had the opportunity to talk to different firms and hear what they did on a day-to-day basis.
One of the things pushed on us was that the Big Four is a good route to go. So, that externship between my junior and senior year was almost like a two-day extended office visit. It helped show me a little bit about where I'd be working, what I'd be working on, and things like that.
That was kind of in college and segued into right after college. The first thing I did was an internship with EY, following up on an externship I did in college. I did that in San Francisco and then transferred over to the Phoenix office to start my full-time career. I did two years at EY, went through a couple of busy seasons, and realized there's a ton of value in it, but long-term, it wasn't the route I wanted to go.
I ended up transitioning out from EY after two years to a company called DriveTime. DriveTime was one of the largest used auto dealers in the country, behind CarMax. There, I specifically focused on cost accounting and revenue accounting, really all the accounting from the time we would buy a car to the time we would sell it.
They did financing in-house, and another team focused on that. It was really interesting doing cost accounting and revenue accounting. After about four years there, I wanted to take everything I learned at DriveTime and apply it on my own.
I ended up going to a company called Urban Communities, which was a real estate startup. They started buying properties in 2019, and I joined in 2020. That was an opportunity for me to build out an accounting team and department, using what I learned at EY and DriveTime.
Urban Communities was a vertically integrated private equity group. We would raise capital, buy properties, and then operate them. We also did a lot of value-adds, doing construction in-house as well.
Most recently, I transitioned to another private equity group about five months ago. I'm more focused on manufactured housing. At both Urban Communities and my current group, Clear Sky Capital, I got to see two new types of accounting I hadn't seen before: property accounting and fund accounting.
I've gotten to see quite a bit of different roles over the past few years. I think it's helped develop all the different areas of accounting that I've had interest in.