Preface

IN 2013, I RECEIVED the recognition of being one of Oklahoma's 40 under 40, sponsored by Oklahoma Magazine. As part of this honor, I was asked to attend a photo shoot to publish with my bio for the magazine. To my surprise, when I arrived, there was also a video interview component for which I had not prepared. The interviewer asked, "Where do you see your business in five years?" For a moment I thought, Hopefully I'm still in business. I was a little over two years into the entrepreneurship thing and felt as though every day was only about survival. Fortunately, what I heard myself say instead was, "To make forensic accounting accessible to more people."

But let's start at the beginning. When I was 12 years old, I was obsessed with a radio drama, Adventures in Odyssey, specifically the episode titled, "A Name, Not a Number." In this episode, the character Tasha Forbes was introduced as a special agent for the National Security Agency. To this point in my life, I had not thought much about careers. If you had asked me then what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have said I was going to be a teacher. I do think I consciously realized that women could be something other than a mom or a teacher. This episode about Tasha's career as an agent, however, made me realize that I, as a female, could be an investigator. As an avid reader of mystery novels, I determined that I would become an investigator.

I continued with this dream of a career through high school and learned as much as possible about every federal law enforcement agency. Eventually, I decided that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was the agency for me and began to invest in and focus on areas that would increase my chances of becoming an FBI agent. In 2006, I was given the internship of a lifetime as one of the students selected to participate in the FBI's Honors Internship Program in Washington, DC.

My first day in Washington, DC, was a 12-year-old girl's dream coming to life at age 20. Dressed in a black pantsuit and turquoise button-up shirt, I felt smart, strong, and ready to learn all that I could over the 10-week internship. Standing in line with my new internship friends and at least 100 other college-aged students from around the United States, I was ready to go through security to enter the doors of the headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"What's your name?" the security guard asked. "Leah Workman." He asked a second time, this time asking for my driver's license. This is not a good sign, I thought. My mind started racing through all the paperwork, background check interviews, polygraph testing and wondered if maybe I had missed completing one of the many federal forms. All the students chatting outside of the J. Edgar Hoover Building in nervous excitement about their first day sounded like a loud, constant buzz, but as soon as the security guard said, "You're not on the list. Please step aside," everything went silent. Blood drained from my face.

The security processing of the interns slowed to a complete stop, and the security guard pulled me out of line. Heads began to turn in my direction as the line stopped moving, and thankfully, before it became even more embarrassing, the internship coordinator for my group stepped forward to save the day. My name had in fact been omitted from the list, and to this day, I still do not know why. After a short discussion with the internship coordinator, the security personnel verified that I was indeed an intern. I was admitted, received my access badge, and was sworn in.

After orientation and exploring DC, my internship group returned to West Virginia for our work assignments. The internship coordinator let us know we would be taking group photos, meeting with management, and receiving our assignments. We made sure to look as professional as possible by wearing suits again that day. As soon as we walked outside to carpool to the office, I realized that I once again was going to be singled out. Everyone was wearing a black suit, and I was wearing a cream suit.

What began as embarrassment and very unwanted attention those first few days of the internship resulted in an incredible pattern that forced me to learn quickly that being the only one or singled out or different did not have to be detrimental. In fact, these uncomfortable moments laid a foundation for a career advantage.

The 10-week internship was just the beginning of my career with the FBI. When I returned to school the following semester, I was not only about to graduate with my accounting degree, but because of a new program, I was able to continue the internship as an actual FBI employee under the direction of an experienced forensic accountant for the following two years. At the end of the two-year assignment, with only one career option in mind, I took the phase 1 assessment to become an FBI special agent. A few weeks later, based on my assessment results, I was not accepted. Devastated, I relived the exam over and over as I felt lost trying to find my next step. The test questions were like that of a personality test coupled with an assessment of my decision-making abilities. Although this is not the intention of the test, I felt as if the FBI was telling me once again, that I, including my personality and decision-making choices, did not fit in.

My lifelong dream career had been denied me, but as it was not the first time, after a brief period of mourning, I decided to do what I heard all "good" accountants do. I applied to work in public accounting. I chose to work in the tax department because I could then at least prepare my own tax returns.

While working for the accounting firm in Tulsa, forensic accounting was becoming a more requested service, and the firm invited me to work on forensic accounting engagements and fraud investigations. While there, I was able to work on several cases including a $3 million embezzlement from a bank, a divorce, and an engagement involving the tracing of millions of dollars of funds. It was really exciting to take what I learned working for law enforcement and under the direction of the FBI forensic accountant and apply it to the private sector. One major problem with this setup remained. In working for a public accounting firm, I still had to prepare tax returns during the busy seasons leading up to the tax deadline. After a couple of years, I started looking for another job. When I found none that interested me, an accounting headhunter suggested, "What would happen if you started your own investigation and forensic accounting business?" In November 2010, I opened Workman Forensics.

Workman Forensics was established to provided forensic accounting and fraud investigation services, and we have continued to provide only these services for over 11 years. I have managed a team as big as 11 employees, and as small as 1- which included only me. In 2014, I realized that the number of hours I was working per week managing deadlines, business development, human resources, and casework was not sustainable. I am grateful to the many team members who have worked with me over the last six years. It is because of their hard work and specialized talents that we were able to begin developing what is now known as the Data Sleuth Process.

Being an entrepreneur and business owner for over 10 years now, I have read so many books and listened to so many podcasts by great leadership and business minds that talk about vision. If I am being honest, after hearing the term "vision" repeatedly, I began to tune it out because my interpretation of the way they defined vision felt materialistic. The goal of a business vision seemed to focus on doing big things to make more money, which is not a bad thing when someone is in business. I just did not want that to be my vision for my business.

In January 2021, I realized that I needed to embrace vision as more than financial goals beginning with the sharing of seemingly enormous ideas and goals I had been cultivating over the last few years. To take it a step further, I chose a word for the year to break down this vision into an action item; the word chosen was "invest." That one-word vision for the year has since resulted in one team member earning her Certified Fraud Examiner's credential. I passed the Certified Public Accountant exam. Another team member is working to earn the Certified in Financial Forensics credential. We are even now in the process of building an escape room experience. As we continue to move forward, I am amazed by the power of the word I once avoided, vision.

It was actually during the strangeness of 2020 that the concepts presented in this book truly emerged with great promise. When all of our referral sources temporarily stopped referring because the courthouse was closed and clients were asking to pause our casework, our team made continuous improvements to the process and continued to ask ourselves, "When we open again, what are the things we will want to use in a better way?" We focused our working hours to improving the Data Sleuth Process to the point where it can be shared with the readers of this book. Through the improvement of this process, we were able to begin the creation of the subset process Find Money in Divorce - a modular course with training videos and workbooks to help spouses find hidden assets and understated income in divorce cases. It was during this time that we created new game-based virtual case studies qualifying for continuing education for The Investigation Game product line.

Even...