Featured Alumni
Alumni Council Chair Found Niche In Finance M elissa Love-Greenfield didn’t have a job lined up when she graduated
Jeff Call (’95, accounting, ’96, MAcc) has been elected managing partner of Bennett Thrasher, a top 100 accounting firm based in Atlanta. Call will lead the firm through evolu- tion in new markets and services to help the firm’s clients continue to succeed and grow. As managing partner, he will direct the firm’s strategic plan and growth and continue to advance the firm’s culture. Karen Chatterton Heisel (’91, finance, ’92, MBA) has worked for a variety of consumer packaged goods companies while based in Austin, Texas, for the last 30 years. She said she landed in Austin after getting a job as a management consultant through the Auburn recruitment office in 1993. “My BS in Finance and MBA from Auburn was a great foundation for my career in busi- ness.” Over her career, she has been every- thing from national sales director to direc- tor of sales planning for startup CPGs such as Stubbs BBQ Sauce to McCormick, where she built foundations for companies called MAPS (merchandising, assortment, pricing and shelving principles). Currently she serves as the “Minister of Grocery Commerce” — or national sales director — for The Republic of Tea.
She joined the OCC in 1989 in an entry-level job as a field examiner. She traveled from bank to bank administering supervisory examinations of community banks. She gravitated toward oversight of the use of developing technology. She went back in the field, visiting the largest institutions the OCC supervises. She joined the lead expert team, a group of subject-matter experts. She rose to Associate Deputy Comptroller, where she now oversees the lead experts. Love-Greenfield is the current chair of the Harbert College Alumni Council. “I was incredibly honored,” she said. “It’s a group I’ve been engaged with for several years. I have a lot of love for Auburn and want to do all I can to support Harbert College of Business and the student body.” She finds interacting with students “energizing.” She enjoys the Tiger Cage competitions, in which groups of students make a case for a business idea and compete for seed money. She hopes to see the Council and the college continue to make necessary changes to keep its graduates relevant in the fast- changing business world. “We have alums who are well- positioned to come to campus and talk about what is going on in business, and the faculty can also make some adjustments and suggest how to change the curriculum to help students,” she said.
from Auburn in 1988 and soon learned there were few opportunities for young women with a finance degree. Her father was a Marine and the family moved often as she grew up. He chose to retire in Tallahassee, Florida, working with a business that set up computer configurations for other companies. He was from Alabama and had a degree from Auburn, so Melissa checked out the school because it was close to home. She immediately fell in love with the iconic brick buildings, friendly people and the academic offerings. She found her niche in finance. After graduation, she went back to Tallahassee and worked for a small, family-owned firm doing their accounts receivable and running their computers. She wanted more of a challenge. A friend of her father suggested she try to get on with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which offered plenty of challenges. An independent department of the U.S. Treasury, it charters,
regulates and supervises all federal banks, federal savings associations and federal agencies and branches of foreign banks.
Melissa Love-Greenfield (’88, finance) Associate Deputy Comptroller Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
Harbert Business, Fall 2022 51
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