Jessica Ryals is preparing to take over at the helm of CFO Colleague, a consulting firm specializing in private higher education, at the start of next year. This exciting opportunity is the culmination of her years of developing skills, building trust and prioritizing her education.
“It has taken the accounting career and analysis career that I had in combination with the MBA leadership degree I earned from Trevecca. Those are the things that have led me to where I am right now,” Ryals said.
She earned her undergraduate degree in accounting at Houghton College and spent years in public accounting before a move to Australia, where her husband pastored for four years. After returning to the States, she jumped back into the financial world, serving as a controller at a college near her home in Ohio.
“After a few years there, I really decided that I was ready to level up,” Ryals said. “I saw folks I knew getting master's degrees and I knew I could do it too. The timing was right.”
That led her to Trevecca—thanks in part to her father, who had worked as the vice president of finance at a fellow Nazarene institution and maintained a strong relationship with Trevecca leadership. He also founded the company she will be at the helm of next year.
“My dad was probably one of the big players behind my choice to go to Trevecca. He's a big fan of the school,” Ryals said.
Her enrollment in the MBA program was cemented as a family affair when her brother enrolled in the same cohort.
“It was a really neat experience for us. It was fun to be able to swap notes on what was happening in class and discuss our projects and what we were learning,” Ryals said. “At the time, he was living in New York state, so even though we weren’t down the street from one another, the program allowed us to connect in a unique way.”
Taking some time off as she navigated the challenges of her education, work and family responsibilities, she completed her MBA with a track in management and leadership in 2019.
“I was working part-time and parenting and doing my course work. There were definitely some tense moments,” Ryals recalled. “The fact that it was one class at a time was really helpful and there weren't a lot of synchronous requirements. I could do it on my own schedule.”
Since graduating, she has applied her education, incorporating her reading and lectures into her work as she’s excelled in her career.
“The program was worth it for the reading list alone. There is a textbook that I still recommend to help my clients all the time,” Ryals said. “The Introduction to Grad Business Studies class was so helpful for someone who had been out of school for a decade, and my statistics class was very practical–I use it in my work pretty frequently.”
As she steps into her new leadership role, Ryals is focused on long-term opportunities and growth. She is examining ways to improve processes and lead more strategically. The goal is to be a company that provides value for consultants and clients for many years to come in a rapidly changing educational landscape.
She also sees a clear opportunity for innovation, and bringing the best of business to the new frontiers in education.
“There’s been a lot of learning in the for-profit and business world that hasn’t always translated to the business offices in higher ed,” Ryals said. “It’s more complicated to translate it to higher ed culture, but it is worth it. In our culture right now, things are changing. I think college is a really pivotal transition time for a lot of students. And I want that for all students, I want that for my kids.”
In addition to her work at CFO Colleague, Ryals is the author of The Confident Campus Controller, a book she published in 2023 about financial leadership in higher education.
From early accounting roles to earning her MBA while raising four kids to excelling in her industry and leading a consulting firm, Ryals’ dedication, hard work and education brought clarity to her role as a leader and expanded her toolkit–and that’s allowed her to make a difference for colleges and universities who depend on her expertise.
