Accelerate Faculty

Nancy Hernandez has always felt she could be a leader. Now, she's ready.

Hernandez is pursuing her bachelor's degree in business at Alverno, taking classes during the evening or online while working full time as a life insurance underwriter at Catholic Financial Life. The opportunity to connect the two came immediately. Classes that focused on leadership and leading effective teams dovetailed with a Catholic Financial Life corporate initiative focused on teamwork.

After excitedly sharing all that she was learning with her supervisor, Hernandez was invited to teach her whole team. She prepared a presentation for approximately 30 people about how to translate their personal development into cultivating her whole team.

“What I learned from class, I've been teaching to my coworkers to help us improve,” she says.

The presentation went so well that Hernandez was also asked to give similar training to Catholic Financial Life's salesforce.

Presenting to large groups was something Hernandez hadn't done much before Alverno, and she knows the classroom practice paid off.

"I felt more confident, more organized and more put-together overall,” she says.

Hernandez expects to graduate next year, but she already found out that she is being promoted by the end of the year and has been identified as someone with the skills to become a manager. She believes presenting what she learned at Alverno is what put her on the map.

“It truly helped me move up. They're looking at me as a leader now,” she says. “I've always felt I could be a leader, but now I feel I'm prepared to be one.”