Lakewood resident brings her experience to Texas Women’s Foundation Board of Directors

Vanessa Salinas Beckstrom. Photo courtesy of Texas Women’s Foundation.

Lakewood neighbor Vanessa Salinas Beckstrom joined Texas Women’s Foundation Board of Directors earlier this summer. 

Beckstrom moved to Lakewood with her family in 2020 from North Oak Cliff to be closer to her children’s school in East Dallas. She grew up in Brownsville in South Texas, and she left home to attend college at the University of Notre Dame in the Midwest. Beckstrom grew up attending private Catholic schools, so Notre Dame seemed fitting, “despite the weather,” she laughs. She still practices Catholicism today and attends services at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.

After college, Beckstrom started working in Chicago at PwC (which “provides professional services across audit and assurance, advisory, and tax,” according to its website) in 2001 before transferring to Dallas when her children were born 11 years ago. 

“I’d been wanting to come back to Texas, and for work and personal reasons, I stayed in Chicago, and then once I got pregnant with the twins, I decided, ‘All right, now we really need to go back,’ closer to family certainly being a big driver of that,” she said. 

Beckstrom still works for PwC, now as an advisory partner in PwC’s Investigations & Forensics practice.

“I sit in effectively what we call a risk and regulatory platform,” she said. “It’s risk consulting, so helping our clients manage and deal with event-driven responses. This could be a regulatory investigation, an internal investigation or a regulatory event, and I help our clients respond to that. And I am a CPA, specifically a forensic accountant, but we work with a lot of our technologists in helping clients with AI and technology solutions as well.”

Beckstrom also uses her bilingual skills in her profession, and thus, she’s able to work with clients in Latin America. As someone who had the chance to study in Spain and intern in Chile, having a career that involved travel as well as utilizing language and cross-cultural skills was important to her.

“It’s been great,” she said. “It’s been a way to continue to use my language skills, and I do have a passion for travel, even personally, outside of work, so I really enjoy it.”

Alongside her career, Beckstrom has also been involved in her local community (both here in Dallas and when she was in Chicago) and passionate about mentoring others, including women, Latinos and professionals. 

Enter, Texas Women’s Foundation, which Beckstrom was introduced to by hearing the CEO speak about the foundation’s research. 

“I was super interested in learning more, and PwC was partnering with the foundation, given that they are a research-based foundation that funds grants and other awards to nonprofits throughout the community,” she said.

Beckstrom attended the foundation’s events and joined the economic leadership council, where she eventually became the co-chairperson, a few years ago. Last year, she was asked to be the vice-chairperson of the audit committee and is now the chairperson of that committee in addition to joining the board of directors. Being on the board now gives Beckstrom access to a governance position, something she didn’t do in her previous roles with the foundation. 

“PwC continues to support (the foundation), and I just wanted to lean in at a higher level, supporting the work that they do and the research that they do,” she said. “They have a leadership program. They have giving circles, which really resonate with me and others in the community, as well as the nonprofits that they support. So I think their impact is great throughout not just Dallas, but throughout the state of Texas.”

Moving forward in her role, Beckstrom aims to learn more about the foundation and how she can support it as well as bring her experience from other boards and as a Texas Latina to the table. 

Texas Women’s Foundation will host its 40th annual luncheon at 11:30 a.m. Nov. 14 at the Omni Dallas Hotel in Downtown with decorated actor Christine Baranski as the keynote speaker. The event is co-chaired by a group that includes two more East Dallas neighbors — Gail Griswold and Brenda Jackson.