Because her family couldn't afford to send her to university, she left school after the sixth form and took up an accounting internship at the local KPMG office. For two years she worked fulltime and completed two university papers a year, saving enough to attend Massey University fulltime for three years, where she completed her accounting degree and studied IT.
At Massey she also met her future husband Sean Wilson and both had a desire for big city life, so they moved to Auckland where Ms Malcolm got a job as a graduate at the central city offices of accountants Gosling Chapman. Through various name and ownership changes, she has effectively worked for the same firm throughout her career.
She stayed in Auckland for eight years, becoming a team manager with a stable of clients.
"We knew we didn't want to bring up a family in Auckland and we had decided to relocate by the time I got a certain position and before the age of 30," she said.
Both great lovers of the water, and wanting to live in a reasonably central location after growing up in relatively isolated cities, they opted for Tauranga and relocated in 2000. "Even though we didn't know a soul, we loved Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty," said Ms Malcolm.
Gosling Chapman didn't want to lose her and agreed to set up a satellite office, so she continued to look after her Auckland clients, employing three part-timers working out of a tiny office and flying under the radar locally.
Initially trading under a separate entity, Sky Blue Holdings, after five years Gosling Chapman became first WHK Gosling Chapman, then after a couple of years just WHK, while Ms Malcolm continued to expand the business locally.
Katrina Hulsebosch, a senior lawyer with Harris Tate, a longtime client, attributed the firm's current success to Ms Malcolm's passion for her clients.
"She's been in Tauranga a lengthy amount of time and slowly built up the business, which has gone from strength to strength," she said. "A lot of it was word of mouth because clients love her. She's vibrant, very passionate about her clients, and gets right in behind them. I think clients can feel that - it's not fake. Her passion for the job is what's driven her success."
Two years ago, WHK adopted the name of its then ASX-listed sister firm Crowe Horwath as it consolidated the brand across Australasia. Earlier this year, Australian company Findex bought Crowe Horwath and de-listed it from the ASX.
Unusually for an accounting and business advisory services firm, Crowe Horwath operates on a model in which clients are shared across the firm and serviced on the basis of who can best service the client, rather than who originally won the business. And since the delisting from the ASX there has been no equity component, an approach formed during the early days of WHK in Australia, where younger accountants in the industry did not necessarily want to put up a large equity stake in becoming a partner, and some firms were having succession planning problems with no one to sell out to.
Crowe Horwath partners were now salaried with a profit-share based on performance, said Ms Malcolm, noting the firm had grown quickly across New Zealand because it had the financial scale to acquire small accounting firms where partners were looking to exit in two-to- three years. "Clients really see us as their business adviser," Ms Malcolm said. "Every day there's a different thing. It's never been boring and it's always changing. I love helping clients achieve their goals in business and holistically tying that up with what they want to achieve for their families as well."
Jeremy Curragh, the Crowe Horwath Tauranga principal who focuses on business performance, described Ms Malcolm as a strong and grounded person.
"One of the telltale signs that she's good [at] what she does, is that her clients think she's fantastic," he said. "They're very close. They use Michelle as a valued part of their team. They respect and trust how she advises them and value the relationship."
Juggling skills are a must
Michelle Malcolm has two young children with her husband Sean Wilson, a builder, and says she was determined from early in her career to prove a woman could manage the demands of motherhood and a professional career.
"When I first came down to Tauranga there hadn't been many women who had been allowed to be mothers and remain pretty high up in the firm," she said.
"I was determined to prove that I could do this."
Ms Malcolm took three months off with each of her daughters, now aged 10 and 12, before coming back to run the firm.
"The firm's been really accommodating and I've tried to make sure I have been the same with the mothers working with me," she said.
"And you do have to have a very supportive husband. It is a juggling act. He's got to be able to pick up the slack and Sean's been amazing at that."
Wakeboarding real family favourite
Michelle Malcolm and her husband Sean Wilson are big water sports fans, as are their two daughters Brooke, 12, and Zoe, 10.
The family became involved a few years ago in wakeboarding and Ms Malcolm is heavily involved in the sport's administration, sitting on the New Zealand Wakeboarding Board. She is also on the board of Tourism Bay of Plenty.
"We've just finished the wakeboarding season," she said. "It takes up a lot of my non-working time."
The family, which has a Mastercaft X2 wakeboarding boat, puts a lot of effort into supporting the girls' training.
"Wakeboarding's like gymnastics on water," said Ms Malcolm. "I do it but I'm not very good."
However, her daughters are, with Brooke coming second for her age group in the national championships.
Zoe also wakeboards but is more focused on running, coming second in the 100 metres and third in the 200m for her age-group at the recent Waikato-Bay of Plenty athletics competitions.
Michelle Malcolm
Role - Principal, Crowe Horwath
Born - Gisborne, New Zealand
Age - 44
First job - Accounting intern
