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Five Questions: Linda Allen

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Linda Allen is accustomed to change and that might be why shy feels ready to tackle a new challenge. Starting July 28, Allen will begin working at Evangel University as the vice president for business and finance – in what is effectively the Christian school’s chief financial officer role. The challenges are significant for Allen as the university continues its consolidation process with Central Bible College and Assemblies of God Theological Seminary and addresses a combined debt load of roughly $30 million – nearly three-fourths of last year’s $38.7 million operating budget. Allen, an Evangel alumna and recent board member, has navigated changes before as director of finance for Northwest Airlines, chief accounting officer with Nextel Partners, vice president of finance for Sprint-Nextel and CFO for cloud communication firm Telesphere Networks. Allen succeeds David Willemsen, who resigned after one year for undisclosed reasons.

Crusader Roots
“I went to Evangel and graduated in 1983. I also had three brothers that went to Evangel. I grew up in Minnesota and South Dakota. … I was looking at teaching. Growing up, I thought I’d always be a teacher. I took a teacher aiding class my first year at Evangel and decided that wasn’t for me. I had taken accounting in high school and was taking accounting at Evangel, and I decided to continue on with [a double major in] accounting and management.”

Life After Nextel
“From graduation, I went back to Minneapolis. I worked at Fingerhut Corp. for about three and a half years in its accounting and budgeting departments. … From there, I went to Northwest Airlines (to) help set up financial policies and procedures and systems and lay out the finance side with the controller. When the controller left, I was promoted into his position. From there, I went to Nextel Partners, and it was truly a startup company. I think I was No. 20 on the payroll roster when I was hired. About seven or eight years after that, we had 3,000 employees and about $2 billion in revenue. It was incredible growth. … The CEO for Nextel Partners was an investor and on the board for the company Telesphere in Phoenix, and there was another on the board for Nextel Partners. … Since I had worked with both of them, they contacted me to see if I’d be interested in the opportunity as CFO for Telesphere. And when they recruit you down from Minnesota to Phoenix in February, it’s pretty inviting.”

Back to School
“I have been on the Evangel board since 2008. I started a couple of years before the consolidation happened. Then, I was on the board through the consolidation and all the beginnings of discussions. I had to resign to take this position, but I was chair of the finance team. The board structure after consolidation had changed where there were a lot of committees. Well, I was selected chair of the finance committee. Over the last year, I worked a lot with Dave Willemsen, just in understanding the finance side of things. We had to take a much deeper view with the way the board was structured. Then, when Dave resigned, Dr. Taylor asked if I would be interested in putting my name in the hat.”

Inner Workings
“Being on the board allows you to see the inner workings of a place from a different view. It’s been very interesting working through the consolidation, seeing that developing and unfolding, and then seeing actual integration starting. … Understanding what Evangel provided to me, it’s quite incredible to step into this role and hopefully give back what it’s given me. It’s a new Evangel, but I’ve been through consolidations myself with Nextel Partners going into Sprint. And when I was at Telesphere, we did some acquisitions. Understanding what that brings, it’s a lot of change to organizations and to people. It was interesting watching the consolidation and knowing some of these people have no idea what they’re going to go through – especially at Evangel with Dr. [Robert] Spence and his great leadership. With him leaving, there’s a new president and new leadership and a lot of change. I’m looking forward to helping navigate through the changes we are going through now.”

Job Duties and Debt
“One of the focuses on the board is the debt load. That is an area that needs to be worked on, in addition to strengthening financial sustainability. Part of the whole consolidation is … how do we continue to strengthen the financial sustainability of Evangel, and part of it, obviously, is working down the debt.  … I don’t want to give out any numbers yet until I get in there and see where we are at. … What I’m expecting is to deal a lot with the integration. … Part of it will be working with the finance and business department and moving it to the next level in terms of systems, processes and procedures. … In all that we do, we need to make sure we have the resources and funds and cost structure that we need to ensure the financial sustainability of the university.”[[In-content Ad]]

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