Candyce Houston
Virtual Resume
Candyce Houston
A Bit About Me
Everybody has a story, and I'm still in the middle of writing mine. I started out in accounting and finance, took a detour through data analytics, and somehow ended up building AI agents and leading business intelligence and analytics programs for some of the world's largest companies. Six years in, I've learned that the best problems to solve sit exactly at the intersection of messy data and high-stakes decisions. Outside of work you'll find me with a book, planning my next trip, or convincing myself I'll finish decorating my living room this weekend. Check out the rest of this page to find out more on my career path so far and check out my travel recommendations page and Impossible List for information about where I have been and where I hope to go in the future.
The Basics
Name: Candyce Houston
Current Location: Charlotte, North Carolina
Preferred Location: Anywhere...the sky is the limit
Education: Bachelors of Accounting from Oral Roberts University
Experiences
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Career
Grant Thornton
January 2022 - Present
Manager, Risk & Data Analytics
In January 2022 I joined Grant Thornton's Risk & Data Analytics practice, and honestly it turned out to be one of the best decisions I've made. What I thought would be a data analyst role quickly evolved into something much bigger -- managing teams, leading complex engagements, and building tools and programs I'm genuinely proud of. Six years in, I've worked across financial services, insurance, healthcare, and manufacturing, helping organizations untangle messy data environments and turn them into something their leadership can actually act on.
Day to day that looks like a lot of different things: building BI dashboards and automation pipelines, managing cross-functional US and India-based teams, presenting findings to C-suite and board-level stakeholders, and lately, designing AI agents in Copilot Studio that help clients work smarter. I like that no two engagements look exactly alike and that the work is always a little bit technical, a little bit strategic, and a little bit "wait, why does this data look like this."
In 2025 I was promoted to Manager, which felt like a full-circle moment from the wide-eyed analyst who walked in three years earlier. Still learning every day, but now I get to help my team do the same.
📍 Charlotte, North Carolina
The Williams Company
June 2020 - January 2022
Business Analyst
After graduating and amid the Covid-19 pandemic, I rejoined The Williams Company (see previous internship here) as a Business Analyst in their rotational program. My first rotation was in the company's Risk Control and Compliance group. In this role, I learned a lot about gas marketing, trading, and the compliance rules and regulations a Fortune 500 Natural Gas company must follow to be successful. I also worked with an ETL system called Alteryx. During my year in this role, I used Alteryx to transition many of the group's mundane and redundant excel processes into an automated or semiautomated system. Through my work with Alteryx, I helped eliminate over 150 hours of annual data preparation and analysis throughout the group. I also found a new interest in coding that I have continued to develop using an online training program called Codecademy. I am currently using the program to advance my SQL, Python, and HTML coding skills.
In my second full-time position with Williams, I aided the company's Corporate Strategic Development group by creating advanced financial models and presentations. These models analyze the economics of potential asset acquisition/divestiture, strategic project investments, and contract negotiations within the company that were later presented as business cases to company executives. These projects often called for capital investments greater than $10 million and required me to research asset and background financial information, build complex financial forecasting models, learn various business and complex topics quickly and communicate effectively across vertical and horizontal channels. While in this role I also learned how to ask strategic questions and think critically about investment decisions, assumptions, and other factors that affect capital spending.
📍 Tulsa, Oklahoma
PricewaterhouseCoopers
January 202 0 - March 2020
Assurance Intern
During my time at PricewaterhouseCoopers, I assisted with assurance audits on several engagement teams. I also gained experience in financial statement analysis, comfort letter construction, interim audit review analysis, and agreed-upon procedure preparation. This opportunity paired with my previous corporate accounting experience help to perfectly mesh the information I learned in the classroom with the lessons I learned on the job.
📍 Tulsa, Oklahoma
The Williams Company
May 2019 - December 2019
Accounting and Process Transition Intern
While at Williams, I worked in the General Accounting group to identify approximately $5.2 million in variances between contracted management fees and allocated corporation costs throughout various company projects. I then presented a detailed analysis, trends, and future recommendations to executive leadership. This position was also my first opportunity to prepare accounting deliverables in a professional setting independently. While at first slightly intimidating, I was able to push aside my nerves and rise to the challenge. By the end of my internship, I had successfully prepared and analyzed six months' worth of internal and external financial reporting deliverables to summarize and interpret the current and projected financial positions of one of the company’s joint ventures. One of the biggest lessons I learned...I hate writing footnotes!
During the second part of my internship, I took on a more tech adjacent role as I aided in creating and implementing change management strategies. While my role in the group was to clean up the account coding sequences used by the company's accounting and finance teams to process and monitor financial transactions, this effort helped maximize the employee adoption and usage of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system later implemented company-wide in 2021. This opportunity showed how vital technology is becoming in accounting, finance, and the world in general. I was exposed to many facets of project management, process change management, ERP implementation, and information technology systems.
📍 Tulsa, Oklahoma
Milam and Associates CPAs
February 2019 - April 2019
Tax Intern
Once upon a time, I wanted to be a tax accountant. Up until this point I had taken almost every tax class my university had to offer and was looking forward to making my mark as a new accountant in the tax arena. When I was offered an internship at Milam and Associates CPAs, during tax season no less, the position was everything I could have dreamed of. Throughout my internship, I prepared federal and state tax returns and extensions for individuals, businesses, and living trusts and researched tax laws, rules, and regulations to analyze their application to specific tax and economic situations. I learned a lot in this role, not only about taxes, their application, and importance but also about myself. Specifically, that tax was no longer a long-term career goal of mine.
📍 Tulsa, Oklahoma
Oral Roberts University Athletic Department
August 2016 - May 2019
Development Intern
I love sports. I grew up in a big football family (Go Panthers!) and have learned, over time, to appreciate a good game no matter the sport. So when the opportunity arose for me to join the amazing development team in my school's athletic department my freshman year of college, my answer was an automatic yes. What started out as a regular 10 hr/week work-study quickly turned into a part-time and depending on the week, full-time internship. Over the course of 3 years, I not only worked alongside the Assistant Athletic Director to develop, promote and execute donor stewardship activities and maintain donor database input and oversight (what I was hired to do) but I was also pushed outside of my comfort zone and challenged to take on bigger projects and exercise skills I hadn't used before. Outside of donor engagement, I also managed and grew the school's student-run athletic support club, as the Athletic Department Student Engagement Coordinator, from 25 members to well over 250 members. In this role, I managed roughly 20 student events with attendance statistics ranging from 50-1200 people. These events help to increase student attendance and participation at sporting events and provide great opportunities for the student population to engage with each other and the athletic department throughout the year. One of the most notable events I planned during my time with the department was the Inaugural Mabee Madness, an event that started out as an idea my freshman year and eventually turned into a campus-wide tradition that still exists today.
📍 Tulsa, Oklahoma
Indivior PLC
May 2018 - August 2018
Global Finance Intern
During my time at Indivior PLC, I assisted the Global Controller with developing and implementing a cross-functional month-end financial close process to ensure compliance with U.S. GAAP and IFRS financial statement reporting. I also assisted Internal Audit in creating detailed internal control process narratives in compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley §404. This internship was my first exposure to corporate America, finance and accounting, internal audit, and interning In general. Prior to this, I had many jobs, however, none of those jobs gave me the chance to put the things I learned in the classroom to the test.
📍 Richmond, Virginia
Skills and Tools
“Success in management requires learning as fast as the world is changing.” – Warren Bennis
Microsoft Office
Leadership Skills
Presentation Skills
Coding Languages
Diasperate Datasets and Systems
Alteryx
PowerBI
Tableau
Languages
"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."
Ludwig Wittgenstein
English (mother tongue)
Spanish (survivable)
French (un petit peu)
Portuguese
(don't quote me...yet 😉)
Hobbies and Community Involvement
“In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.” – Marianne Williamson
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Record Collector
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Podcasts
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Reading (Audiobooks have become a new must-have)
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Charlotte Regional Business Alliance - Young Professional Group
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Linguistics
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Avid Football Fan
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Photography
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College and Career Mentor at Local High School
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World Explorer