All signs are pointing to Allison Ivey ’22 having her dream come true in selling real estate — her family’s business. She is well on her way to that goal, thanks to Berry experiences and opportunities that are giving her a competitive edge as she leverages her accounting and finance majors. After working as an audit intern at Ernst & Young, she is now earning a Master of Accountancy at the University of Tennessee. She says, “I will take all of the CPA exams while in grad school and then work in public accounting before transitioning to the corporate side and combining my love for budgeting and real estate.” Allison already had a head start in the professional world when she had the chance to apply her knowledge interning as an analyst for Sovereign’s Capital, a private equity company. She headed a research project of more than 700 funds to uncover potential investment opportunities and engaged with CEOs of 14 companies. She obtained her internship with the help of Dr. Frank Stephenson, chair of the department of accounting, economics and finance. “I could not be more thankful,” she says. “My finance classes at Berry provided me with a solid foundation coming into the internship, but I learned more than I could’ve imagined. Berry taught me to ask a ton of questions, and it certainly paid off with how much I learned while working for Sovereign’s.”
A master of time management, Allison successfully juggled her role as captain of the NCAA Division III tennis team with work commitments. Her campus job as the lead of the Financial Literacy Team at the Campbell School of Business boosted her skills. There she worked with the dean to provide financial literacy campus-wide, including presentations to almost 100 first-year students each fall. “Presenting with the Financial Literacy Team helped me be more confident in presenting the project I was working on for Sovereign’s to a managing partner of the company,” Allison says.
Allison reflects on why she came to Berry in the first place: “I felt welcome the moment I stepped onto campus. I also loved the idea of highly academic, small classes that allowed for relationships with professors while being able to play tennis. The community at Berry is why I chose to go to school here, so it means a tremendous amount to me. Everybody is so welcoming to others, even when passing strangers on the walk to class!”
