In a League of Her Own: Mary Randall Shackleton

In honor of Women's History Month, this installment features an Audit professional that forever changed the accounting industry and the firm.

Before anyone could break the glass ceiling, someone had to bust through the front door. Throughout the decades, KPMG has always been an innovator and a trail blazer in the accounting industry, and perhaps our finest example leads us to Mary Randall Shackleton.

Mary is known as the first female auditor to join the firm and is believed to be the first female auditor to join any of the then Big 8 firms back in 1961. Coincidentally, she started her career with the firm right here in our Los Angeles office.

University of Rochester

Mary grew up in New Jersey, and in 1957 entered the University of Rochester as a freshman. In her second year, she declared business as her major and focused on the newly offered accounting program. In the fall/winter of 1960 as she was preparing for her last college semester, she was intrigued by the campus recruiters from the Big 8 firms. Six of the eight firms wouldn’t even interview her because she was a woman, even though she was going to graduate at the top of her class – it was a male dominated industry back then and having a female auditor was unheard of at the time. Another firm spoke to her – but that didn’t lead anywhere.

Only one firm interviewed and extended an offer to her, and that firm was Peat, Marwick, Mitchell and Co. However they didn’t have a role for her in any of the East Coast offices, but they thought a “liberal city” out West could add her to their Audit staff. Sure enough, when the corporate office contacted the Los Angeles office managing partner (OMP) about having a female auditor on staff, he replied, we would be happy to have her join our team.

First year associate and first female auditor at the firm

After spending the summer in the New York office for staff training, Mary flew out to Los Angeles in September of 1961 to join the Audit team.

When she arrived in Los Angeles, the LA OMP knew that she wasn’t from the area and was concerned about her living arrangements, so he had his secretary research available apartment rentals in the “safe parts” of Los Angeles … Mary eventually found a studio apartment in the Silverlake area – her rent was $85 a month.

When Mary started with the firm, the LA office had only 100 professionals, and as a “junior” accountant her annual salary was $4,000. 

Client engagements

Since Mary was with the Audit team, her role would require her to visit client sites. Back then, the firm had to obtain permission from the client to have a female auditor work at the client site. Virtually, every client allowed Mary to work on site, except for one.

Mary’s most notable client at the time was working on the lot at 20th Century Fox Studios. At that time, the Audit team was responsible for auditing the cinema classic, Cleopatra. Mary and her team members were assigned to perform a 100% audit of the costs of producing the movie. Mary was selected to join the team based on the two years of French that she took in high school. Invoices from France, Egypt, Italy, Spain and Portugal were all audited by the team back then.

In addition, in order for Mary to work overtime, the firm had to receive special dispensation from the State of California for her to do so.

Family

During her early years with the firm, Mary met her future husband (Bob Shackleton) who was also in Mary's first year auditor class. They were married in 1963, and in 1965, Mary left the firm to deliver her first child and to start a family.

Trail blazer

A year after Mary joined the firm, three other women joined the firm and as Mary noted it made her extremely proud to see women climb the corporate ladder at the firm and eventually earn the firm’s highest recognition – promotion to partner. As we recognize and applaud the countless number of talented women that have advanced in the accounting industry, it is equally important to recognize and applaud the first woman to do so at KPMG and what we believe to be the case within the Big 8 environment. I’ve known Mary for a number of years, and for anyone that has ever met her, she was the perfect person to trail blaze the way for other women interested in pursuing a career in accounting. Even after all these years, she continues to be one of the firm’s strongest supporters and advocates. 

I’m extremely lucky to call her a friend and proud she started her career with KPMG.

Today, Mary and Bob have retained their active professional CPA licenses, and enjoy the company of family and friends at their home in Southern California.