This month, the OneHaas podcast is highlighting first-generation alumni like Carolina Alvarez Picazo. She’s the Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Compliance Officer at Spectrum Equity – a private equity firm focused on growth capital for internet-enabled software and information services companies.

Before Spectrum Equity, Carolina spent 15 years at Deloitte working in tax services. Even as a child growing up in a Mexican immigrant family in San Francisco, she always had an affinity for numbers. That passion only grew in her accounting classes at Haas.

Carolina and host Sean Li discuss her parents’ immigration story from Mexico, why she initially hid her college applications from her father, and how she went from taxes to now holding a top executive job at Spectrum Equity.

OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM. Click here to listen to the full episode.

Episode Quotes:

On why she was drawn to a career in accounting:

Math was a strong suit of mine. You know English was harder for people like me whose parents don’t speak fluent English or speak conversational fluent, but not super fluent, not a large vocabulary. So it’s a lot harder. So, you know, you tend to go towards what you feel you’re good at, right?

Her first impression of classes at Haas

My high school was crazy. It’s even crazy now. It’s a pressure cooker place. The whole time you feel like you’re not good enough. When I went to Berkeley and I took classes, I felt like I belonged. I felt like I was prepared, and it wasn’t a crazy pressure cooker situation.

How her mom views her career

What makes her happy is the fact that I am an independent, self-reliant woman who is financially successful. I think that to her as a woman that grew up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, having a daughter who isn’t dependent on someone else is really important to her. The other thing she says she’s very proud of is the fact that I have three children who are successful. My youngest daughter is 19. But she’s successful. I mean, my mom views her as successful. And she’s like the continuation. She’s like, ‘You did your career and you did all that, but you were able to balance raising three daughters who in and of themselves can be independent and strong and successful women.’ She said, ‘That’s not easy. And that’s all you.’

The advice she gives her daughters

It’s a very long life after you graduate, and you need to feel like you have the tools to do something that satisfies you. Reality is you can’t live without earning a paycheck, so find a way to earn a paycheck. And find a way to do it with something that makes you happy and makes you feel like you are intellectually satisfied.