By Meredith Carroll

The first thing that Julia Ariel-Rohr (BUS ’12) wants the Driehaus community to know is how thrilled she is to be back at DePaul.

“I wake up every day feeling so grateful to be here,” she said.

Ariel-Rohr doesn’t just bring extensive experience with financial reporting and auditing to her new role at Driehaus. She also brings her perspective as a DePaul graduate.

Her path began in the accountancy program at Driehaus, where Ariel-Rohr encountered two young, female accountancy professors: Kelly Richmond Pope and Wendy Heltzer.

“They opened my eyes to the fact that someone like me could be a professor,” Ariel-Rohr said. “I felt that sense of belonging at DePaul. When you’re at that age, that’s a hard thing to find.”

After graduation, she secured her first two jobs in the field with the help of DePaul connections. When she decided to apply to PhD programs, it was a DePaul alumnus — her audit partner, Scott Steffens (BUS ’89) — who advocated for her to have flexibility to fly out for interviews during industry’s busy season.

Returning to teach at Driehaus was meaningful for Ariel-Rohr because of her personal connection to DePaul. But the job was also attractive because of how the research being done at Driehaus aligns with her own.

“In the accounting world, I would say probably about 20% of us are behavioral researchers,” said Ariel-Rohr. “One of the things that attracted me to DePaul was that we have such a strong behavioral group.”

When it comes to behavioral auditing research, DePaul consistently places in the top 15 schools nationwide, according to rankings kept by BYU.

As the field faces an impending shortage of Certified Public Accountants, figuring out how to attract and retain talent will be more important than ever, said Ariel-Rohr.

“When you think about preventing fraud, and financial statement misconduct in public companies, it affects all of us who have retirement plans,” she said. “That is going to be a huge issue in the next 10 to 20 years.”

That’s where Ariel-Rohr’s research comes in. Her latest research examines how insights from behavioral research can increase retention and belonging in workplaces.

“The prior literature shows that a sense of belonging [at work] comes from small acts, from day-to-day experiences,” she said. Her research takes these insights a step further by looking at how factors such as a sense of belonging, a culture that encourages authenticity, and values-based mentorship can increase employee retention.

The impacts of such work can be significant, she said — not just for employee retention but also for audit quality.

“In audit, we’re really concerned about low-level staff speaking out if they have a concern about something,” she said. “That sense of belonging and that sense of psychological safety can also influence their ability to speak out, which can have downstream impacts on audit quality.”

“This [research] can improve our students’ lives as they are trying to work in this really intense field,” she concluded. “And it could potentially improve audit quality as well.”

Joining Practicality with Purpose at DePaul

For Ariel-Rohr, her research and teaching are deeply connected.

“It’s one of my goals to recruit people into a major that they might not have otherwise considered a fit for them,” she said. “One thing I love about teaching accounting is that I view this degree as a really good tool for social mobility. If you don’t have a safety net to fall back on, an accounting degree will give that to you.”

The ability to be financially independent was a big part of what drew her to accounting as a student at Driehaus. So, too, was the flexibility offered by a stable, in-demand profession.

“I often tell my students that if they have dreams of traveling and seeing the world, an accounting degree is a great way to do that,” she said. “I left my first job after a few years and went to travel around the world for a few months. Because I knew that as soon as I got back, I’d be able to find a job.”

Before she enrolled at DePaul as an undergraduate, Ariel-Rohr spent a year living outside of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Now that she’s back at Driehaus, she’s eager to start getting involved with study abroad opportunities.

When Ariel-Rohr reflects on her career, her research, and her teaching, one theme rises above the rest: purpose.

“I know for myself and for a lot of my students, we’re looking for purpose in our jobs,” she said. “Accounting isn’t automatically the first career path students think of when they think about finding purpose in their jobs. But there is definitely a place for it. Every single organization needs an accountant. So if students are into nonprofits, which is what I was passionate about, you can be a nonprofit auditor. If they really like sports: the Cubs has auditors, a CFO, controllers. There’s a place no matter what your interests are.”

As for Ariel-Rohr, she’s found a place, and a purpose, for herself at DePaul.

“Everybody thinks their student population is special,” she reflected. “But I truly believe that being in the city of Chicago with such a diverse group of hardworking students coming from all different backgrounds makes DePaul different.”

“It’s a dream,” she said, “to be back.”