Raising – and sharing – his voice for disability inclusion

In 2014, after four years with PwC US in Charlotte, North Carolina, Rob decided to get involved in the firm’s internal inclusion networks. It was a smart move. Rob had always found PwC an inclusive and supportive place to work. Now that he was tapping into the shared power of the inclusion networks, it was about to get even better.

“Looking back, what stands out most for me isn’t just that I started going along to the inclusion events,” he recalls. “The really compelling thing was that once I started to get involved in the networks, I found there were people on a national level saying, ‘Rob, we care about your story. We want to share it more broadly. And this is how we'd like to do it.’”

Rob continues: “Having that level of buy-in, with senior people in the firm [PwC US] leaning into my experience, wanting to know what it meant to be an individual with a severe disability, really made me realise: ‘Hey, wait a minute, I do have a unique perspective. What I have to share is very unique and very rare. And being able to share that can have a really powerful impact on PwC as a whole’.”

No question, Rob’s experience and perspective are extremely rare – as is his condition. He has spinal muscular atrophy, a severe neuromuscular disability that means he uses a wheelchair, can't walk, and can't dress or bathe himself. As a result he needs round-the-clock care. “I'm very fortunate that my full-time personal care assistant is my wife, who very kindly takes care of me,” he says.

However, Rob’s own focus is less on himself and more on how he can share his voice and experience to make things better for others. “I’m very passionate about inclusivity for individuals with disabilities, and specifically about leadership development,” he explains. “When people talk about disability, even the word itself is essentially saying ‘without ability’. So there tends to be a lot of stigma, hierarchy and assumptions around what someone with a disability can or cannot do.”

He continues: “I've now been at PwC US for 13 years. Every day I help clients find innovative solutions to complex tax structuring and compliance issues. I think I've definitely proved to myself and others that I'm capable of accomplishing quite a lot. And I really want to help provide that experience for others with disabilities as well. Because in any workplace, there are so many assumptions that people often make – and it’s really important to counter those assumptions.”

That’s precisely what PwC US is helping Rob to do. Asked why he’s decided to stay and build his career at PwC, he says a major reason is the platform that the firm provides for him to mentor and share insights with others. And he’s been instrumental in helping to build that platform, by initiating actions such as combining the various inclusion networks in the PwC office in Charlotte to create a larger Multicultural Inclusion Network with greater critical mass. The result? More opportunities for people to share and grow.

A couple of moments stand out in Rob’s mind as exemplifying PwC’s commitment to disability inclusion. One was when the firm sent a film crew to interview him about his experiences for a video that went viral on YouTube. Another was when one of the partners in New York encouraged him to take the firm’s Digital Accelerator Programme.  

“That was a huge point of acceleration in my career,” he recalls. “It gave me an opportunity to develop technologies that ended up getting used across the entire tax practice, and enabled me to contribute in ways that I hadn't really anticipated I'd be able to. Having a leader at the firm lean in to me and say, ‘I see a lot of potential in you in this space, this is really something you should do,’ was really, really powerful.”

Rob also sits on PwC US’s National Leadership Team for Abilities and Allies – in addition to being heavily involved with external groups working to improve disability inclusion across society. For the past five years he’s volunteered for the US Business Leadership Network, promoting civil rights and social action. And he’s vice-chair of DisabilityIN North Carolina, helping to connect individuals with disabilities with mentorship and upskilling opportunities in the Charlotte area – and building awareness among businesses about how to go about employing people with disabilities.

Away from his work and social inclusion activities, Rob describes himself as a “bit of a nerd” – he loves comic books, and he and his wife like nothing better than playing video games together. At high school he played wheelchair hockey, but he’s now hung up his stick. “In retrospect it was maybe a little dangerous, having ten power chairs charging around at 7 miles per hour on a basketball court, running into each other. That said, it was good fun!”

But not as much fun as improving disability inclusion. For Rob, that’s now the best game in town.