Maryella Gockel Flexibility Strategy Leader Ernst & Young LLP

Maryella Gockel is Ernst & Young’s Flexibility Strategy Leader. The flexibility team’s goal is to enhance the work environment at Ernst & Young and continue to build a culture that supports flexibility. Her team’s efforts help to further the firm’s People First culture, which reflects the commitment to providing EY people with the opportunities and tools they need to succeed both personally and professionally. Maryella is also a noted speaker on flexibility in the workplace and has been featured in media outlets such as USA Today, Working Mother, Good Morning America, and The Today Show.

Maryella’s role as Flexibility Strategy Leader includes working with Ernst & Young’s Americas People Team, the Gender Equity Strategy Team, the Office of Diversity Strategy and Development and other People Resource Networks (affinity groups) to create a flexible and inclusive workplace. The team has a two-pronged approach focusing on culture change and implementing programs that enable people to work more flexibly. They establish appropriate policies and support mechanisms to enable the changing needs of individuals, teams and the firm.

Maryella joined Ernst & Young in 1980 as a client service professional in the New York office after completing her M.B.A. in accounting from Rutgers Graduate School of Management. She also completed her CPA certificate during that time. After five years in New York, Maryella transferred to Ernst & Young’s New Jersey practice to work as both an audit manager and human resources professional. Maryella continued to serve clients until the early 1990s when she was named the Area Director of Human Resources for the New Jersey practice. In that capacity, Maryella was responsible for the Human Resources policies and practices affecting more than 400 people. Her early efforts in the area of flexible work arrangements (FWA) made the New Jersey Area a “best practice” in promoting and retaining women. The firm’s current FWA policies and processes were designed using the New Jersey Area as a model.

In October 1998, when Ernst & Young’s New Jersey and Connecticut practices combined with its New York practice to create the Metropolitan New York Area, Maryella was named the Area Director of Human Resources for the firm’s Assurance and Advisory Business Services (AABS) Service Line, which included 1,400 client-serving professionals. In that role, Maryella continued to be an advocate of women’s initiatives and worked to create a flexible work environment that was conducive to enabling all E&Y people to succeed personally and professionally.

Prior to earning her M.B.A. from Rutgers University, Maryella received a degree in elementary education from Wagner College in Staten Island, New York. She is married to Tom (also a CPA) and has two children, James 20 and Alexandra 17.