In talking to Michelle Gall (BBA11) about her career in accounting, risk assurance, privacy, and responsible AI, she dropped no less than 38 acronyms.

You see, there’s a need to abbreviate. She navigates a complicated financial and legal world with an ease and speed of mind reminiscent of the Concord. But to an outsider, all the acronyms start to sound a bit like airport codes. SOC-ERP, LAX-JFK.

It certainly fits in with her global career and personal globe-trotting.

As a child Gall lived in Vancouver, Melbourne, and Chicago. For her second date with her future husband, he invited her to London. They later took their baby to the Maldives and their toddlers hiking in Costa Rica. She was just in Bucharest on business.

LEGIT: Her husband, Patrick, is a points/perks/miles buff and managed to plan them such a fantastic, discounted honeymoon that “The Points Guy” featured an article about it.

It was even a study abroad experience in Swansea, Wales that converted her from a chemistry major to accounting and management at the University of Iowa.

“I had some really good business classes in that exchange program that got me on the accounting track,” she said. “I came back and changed my major, became a Business Student Ambassador, participated in Tippie
Build, and was the president of Beta Alpha Psi by my junior year.”

FATHERLY ADVICE: “When I was going to change majors, my dad said, ‘If you're going to do business, choose accounting. Because if you can explain financial impact, you can do anything in business.’”

With a Tippie degree in hand, Gall started her career with PwC in Seattle and Los Angeles, working in the digital assurance space with clients like SpaceX and IPO readiness for Snapchat.

“I wouldn't be where I am today without my accounting degree,” she said. “Accounting was my door into the Big Four and helped me understand how businesses work.”

Despite starting in a Big Four firm, Gall went off the beaten path, forgoing the traditional CPA route to create her own five-year bespoke career journey within PwC, tying digital transactions and risk assurance to financial outcomes.

After a stint with EY and CBIZ in Boston, her husband got a job offer in Amsterdam. She searched for and landed a job with Booking.com on its risk and controls team abroad, bringing the travel expert angle of her life full circle.

It’s a perfect place for her, where she can draw from both her professional and personal experiences. Growing up, her dad worked for Motorola, so technology was always present. In college she worked the front desk at the Sheraton on the Ped Mall. Tech and travel might as well be her middle names.

Booking Holdings owns Kayak, OpenTable, Agoda, Priceline.com, and its flagship—$22 billion global revenue generator Booking.com. She is now Booking Holdings’ Global Privacy Program Director in Austin, Texas.

“Today, I work on the legal team, looking broadly at risk management, not just financial accounting risk management,” she said. “One of the things I've done is architect and build the global privacy program for Booking Holdings.”

There’s no lack of work. Trust, transparency, and reputational risk is increasingly important to companies and, of course, AI is the current emerging risk—all of which fall within her purview.

“When ChatGPT was first released, there was a letter from 40 executives from top technology firms saying, ‘Let's stop all AI until we have governance.’ I don't think it was because we're afraid of AI,” she said. “I think everyone recognized that this was the new frontier, but you can't rush into these things. At Booking Holdings, we’re all about responsible AI."

Part of this is vetting the latest artificial intelligence technologies for Booking Holdings to adopt (or not). Right after our interview, she had a risk assessment meeting about Zoom’s new AI tools.

Her role also veers into applying the theoretical and determining the company’s level of risk tolerance.

“How do you determine what is a risk, measure how much risk is okay, and what that means financially? It’s one thing to have a GPS app that leads you off a road into a pond and into harm’s way, and it’s another if a chatbot answers your question unhelpfully,” she explained. “It requires a lot of professional patience and guidance to navigate through.”

DYK? Cybersecurity is now a cross-posted elective for accounting majors at the Tippie College of Business.

While Gall is working risk behind the scenes, travelers have had to manage their own risk tolerance during and after the COVID-19 peak. She had a front row seat to the “revenge travel” phenomenon, when people started vacationing again after COVID. (Let’s just say Booking’s stock is strong.)

“We’re still trying to figure out if this is the ‘new normal’ or if travel will return to pre-pandemic levels,” she said.

Two more recent trends she’s seen have been the slowing of Airbnb in the market share and a move towards luxury.

“Maybe people can’t swing it every day, but they seem to want a taste of luxury on vacation,” she said. “Generally speaking, even with inflation, people will still spend money on experiences.”

With a husband with countless perks and rewards up his sleeve, you can find her in first class. 
 

Travel Tips from Michelle

Insider Intel
While Booking.com isn’t always the clear online travel agent winner in the U.S. due to the prevalence of mega hotel chains like Marriott and Hyatt, if you are traveling abroad, Booking.com is second to none for accommodation inventory (really the basis to its success). IYKYK

Use Google Flights for the “discovery phase” of vacation planning
It helps you to search what’s possible for different legs of the trip. (For when you want first class for the long-haul flight, but economy is okay for the short domestic flights to hub airports).

Maximize credit card points and perks! 
Earn points with your credit card and then convert them to miles with airlines! Each dollar goes a little bit farther this way.

Little known, but beloved experiences in Australia
She recommends visiting the fairy penguins on Phillip Island outside of Melbourne (“They're just the cutest little things, the size of a chocolate bunny you would get on Easter.”) and the mountainside town of Cairns in the northeast where you can enter the rain forest, see colorful parrots, and take the “Puffing Billy” train.

This article appeared in the 2024 issue of Iowa Ledger. 

Photos by Jeff Wilson.