IN PLAY: Maria Tabrizi, CPA

Inside her path to EVP, chief risk officer, and chief technology officer at the only women-founded, women-owned, and women-led U.S. commercial bank formed to serve the women’s economy. By Hilary Collins | Spring 2022

Like many CPAs, Maria Tabrizi, CPA, chose her career with a practical outlook. “When I was considering a major, I was thinking of the value proposition. Since I was paying for it, I wanted to get the most I could out of my degree. An accounting degree at that time was a four-year bachelor’s degree—but if I could pass this test at the end, I’d have these three initials hanging off my name that could probably give me the ability to do a lot more,” she explains.

Tabrizi, a longtime Illinois CPA Society member who’ll deliver the keynote address at the Women’s Leadership Forum on May 13, 2022, spent five years in public accounting after college. There, a mentor gave her a lesson she has carried with her ever since. “She told me to trust my gut and use my common sense,” Tabrizi recalls. “Don’t think that because someone has many more years of experience or has worked in that field forever that they know more than you if they're telling you something that doesn’t make sense.”

That lesson has served Tabrizi well throughout her nearly 30-year career in audit, risk management, and other roles within the banking industry, and still carries weight in her current role as chief risk officer and chief technology officer at First Women’s Bank in Chicago. “What I learned in public accounting still really helps me have the confidence and curiosity to constantly solve new problems and ask tough questions,” she says. “It also provided me with so many of the soft skills I’ve needed as I’ve moved on in my career. And I have to tell you, coming out of college with an accounting degree, I never realized how much I’d be writing.”

First Women’s Bank was a different path for Tabrizi, coming from working at traditional established banks to help lead a mission-driven startup organization. First Women’s Bank is the only U.S. bank that was specifically founded to serve women-owned small businesses, whose owners have a significantly harder time accessing capital than their male counterparts. In fact, women receive 16 percent of all conventional business loans and just 4.4 percent of the total dollars lent; according to a 2019 study from Boston Consulting Group, the global economy could grow by $2.5 trillion if women and men around the world were able to participate equally.

“This was a big change for me, but the mission had my heart from the very beginning,” Tabrizi says. “It was a chance for me to start something really exciting and a little daunting. We’re here to grow the economy and advance the role of women within it.”

Looking to the future, Tabrizi says one of her greatest dreams is to see the bank actually move the needle on the gender lending gap in a concrete way. “In 10 years, I’d love to really see a change in women’s access to capital, but I also hope we inspire others,” she says. “We’re the first ones to do what we’re doing, and I want more people to ask themselves: Why not? Why can’t I be the first one to try something new?”