I am an accomplished financial professional with over 15 years of experience in corporate finance. My expertise centers on analysis of complex information as well as forecasting and budgeting. I now provide these services for smaller or newer businesses on a contract basis.
I was born in northern Ohio and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. My hard work through my high school years paid off when I was accepted directly into the College of Business at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I majored in Finance (then a top 10 program nationally) and put many of my electives in to Spanish. I am a proud sister of Phi Sigma Sigma sorority and former Vice Archon of the UIUC chapter.
Following my future husband to his first duty station in San Diego, I attended the University of San Diego’s MBA program where I majored in New Venture Management and International Business. Brigand and I married and moved to Japan within minutes of my graduation a year later. My first corporate job was at a San Diego startup, Metabolife International, Inc., where I trained as a financial analyst. These years were a time of change from local start-up to a true corporation for Metabolife. I initiated client profitability studies and designed the company’s first budgets. In addition, I prepared company sales tax returns, supervised Receivables and Customer Service and managed Cash Forecasting. Following my time at Metabolife, I joined a family-owned business specializing in oil and gas exploration, Royale Energy, Inc. My duties here primarily centered on preparation of financial statements; I also worked with external auditors, banks and government offices. Embracing new technology, I built a system to track ACH payments and I electronically archived all accounting records of the company.
I returned to my roots and my love of finance and analysis when I started working at Encore Capital Group. I worked closely with all levels of the company helping over half of the business develop and manage their budgets. Known for my ability to work well with other departments, I led a team to outsource the printing and depositing of over 35,000 checks each month and revamped our peer rewards and recognition program.
Through my work experiences, I have learned a lot about tailoring my services to the specific needs of each client and I have enjoyed this aspect of my job the most. Now that I own my own financial planning business, I like to provide this level of forecasting expertise to smaller, newer businesses.
In addition to my MBA I have also earned my life insurance license and Series 65 for Investment Advisors.
I am married to Brigand Kline. We have two young daughters, Lyra and Kali, as well as a lab mix named Samwise. I am thoroughly enjoying the slow pace and outdoor activities of rural, mountain life in Montana but do miss the San Diego sunshine at times.