BETH BROOKE-MARCINIAK: Striving to make a difference

Beth Brooke-Marciniak has earned a lot of recognition in her life. She was among the first class of women to receive basketball scholarships to play for Purdue University and was the first female partner in Ernst & Young’s Indianapolis office. She’s been named to the Forbes list of the World’s 100 Most Powerful Women nine times and was inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015. This year, the NCAA presented her with the Theodore Roosevelt Award, the highest honor that organization confers on an individual.

And, of course, she was in Forty Under 40.

“I don’t think I appreciated that at the time,” she said, “but any external validation like that is enormously helpful at a young age.”

At the time, Brooke-Marciniak (then Millard Brooke; she married former WNBA player Michelle Marciniak in 2014) was in the midst of two years working on health care reform and Superfund reform for the Clinton administration. Other than that, she has spent her career with Ernst & Young and its global organization, EY.

“I feel like I’ve had 36 careers in 36 years,” she said. “We really believe in our purpose, which is to lead a better working world, and we get to live that every day. I’m very entrepreneurial—love to innovate, love to solve problems. The great thing about EY is, it embraces that.”

Among the achievements she points to proudly is creating the Women Athletes Business Network, which helps female athletes transition from sports to business leadership.

Brooke-Marciniak, who is based in New York, describes herself as someone “who tries to make a difference every day.” She credits a portion of her success to her time in Indiana.

“The first 10 years of my career in Indiana were magical,” she said. “They laid a foundation for everything that followed.”•

—Marc D. Allan