West Virginia Managing Partner
Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP
By Samantha Cart
Allison Ballard can’t remember a time when she wasn’t participating in some type of sport. Now the West Virginia managing partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP (DHG), she recognizes that athletics helped shape the competitiveness, ambition, teamwork skills and commitment to equality she uses as an accountant and company leader.
Growing up, Ballard played basketball, volleyball and softball. She went on to serve as captain of Washington and Lee University’s first intercollegiate basketball team. Today, she is an avid trail runner who hopes to one day qualify for the Boston Marathon.
“Having played competitive sports, the drive to focus on identifying and achieving a team goal and the willingness to do what is best for the team to achieve that goal have influenced my success,” she says. “My competitiveness helps me with the confidence to achieve whatever the goal is, my drive to succeed means that I’m willing to do what is necessary to make it happen, and team-oriented thinking means I know how to work together with others and organize to get things done.”
This drive for success and inclusion has influenced every area of Ballard’s life, from her work at DHG to her volunteer commitments. An ambitious leader, she has a passion for mentoring young women both in her office and in the community.
“As an assurance partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman, I provide accounting, auditing and consulting services to clients in a variety of industries, and I love the camaraderie that comes from working with a team focused on helping clients achieve their business goals,” she says. “As a mentor, I try to provide perspective to help others find the confidence to take risks and seize their career goals. When someone sees you as a mentor, it is because they have developed a trust in you and your judgment.”
Ballard credits her own professional mentor, Sandy Thomas, a recently retired partner at DHG, for inspiring her to mentor and encourage others.
“Sandy has shown me how to be a successful woman in public accounting,” she says. “She is always someone I can talk to about the challenges of being a successful professional, mother, wife and community volunteer. She has supported me for many years, and I wouldn’t be where I am today without her.”
In the community, Ballard currently exercises her mentorship skills as a volunteer, board member and finance committee member for the Girl Scouts of Black Diamond Council and Daymark, Inc. In the past, she has served as president of the Junior League of Charleston, volunteer for the Gabriel Project of West Virginia, softball coach for Mountaineer Little League and assistant basketball coach for First Presbyterian Church Charleston. She has also given her time to the YMCA Sojourner’s Shelter for Homeless Women & Families, March of Dimes, Habitat for Humanity, American Heart Association, Manna Meal, Mountaineer Food Bank, the Charleston Area Alliance Elevations Professional Women’s Network and the West Virginia Society of Certified Public Accountants.
“I like to work with causes that speak to me personally and professionally, and I have a passion for helping young women grow into future leaders,” she says. “I feel it is incumbent on those of us who have achieved success to give time to help those not as fortunate, as well as to volunteer our skills to charitable organizations to help both the organizations and the individuals they serve to achieve their goals. I did not make it to this point in my life without the help of many people, so giving of myself to others is the way I can pay that forward.”
Ballard considers her greatest professional achievement her promotion to partner at DHG in 2008, and she continues to pay forward that good fortune in the Charleston community she loves.
“When I was voted in as a partner, it was a formal acknowledgment of the trust and confidence the other partners have in me as a professional to serve and represent the firm and its clients,” she says. “I love doing that here in West Virginia. The people are welcoming and friendly and always willing to help out anyone in need. It is a wonderful place to live, work and raise a family.”
1995 Named captain of Washington and Lee University women’s basketball team
1996 Graduated from Washington and Lee University
1996 Joined Arthur Andersen LLP as an audit associate
2000 Licensed as a certified public accountant
2002 Joined Simpson & Osborne as an audit department supervisor
2008 Promoted to partner at Dixon Hughes Goodman
2012 Named to the Young Guns Class of 2013 by WVE
2017 Named the office managing partner for Dixon
Hughes Goodman
