MC staff changes: Berry promoted to COO, Leonard to CFO; Ingle announces retirement
May 17, 2022
Effective June 1, the role of Maryville College’s vice president for finance and administration will become two positions, President Bryan F. Coker announced recently, and two current staff members have been promoted to assume them.
John K. Berry, who has served as Maryville College’s director of information technology since 2014, will assume the role of the College’s chief operations officer. At the same time, Kelly Leonard, who has been the College’s controller for more than two years, will become the College’s vice president for finance.
The newly created positions, MC President Bryan F. Coker detailed in an April 26 memorandum to the College’s faculty and staff, are designed to divide up the abundance of responsibilities previously assigned to Jeff Ingle, who announced earlier this spring his decision to retire at the end of the 2022 calendar year from the vice president’s post.
“Under Jeff’s leadership, our endowment has grown to its highest point ever, and budgets have been balanced during his entire tenure, frequently making us the exception amongst our peer institutions,” Coker said in the memorandum to MC employees. “Most notably, Jeff has provided extraordinary fiscal leadership during one of the greatest challenges in the College’s history, the COVID-19 pandemic. He worked diligently to balance all the College’s interests and sought and secured aid for both students and the institution.
“This new model will permit the vice president for finance (VPF) to comprehensively focus on strategic management of our financial resources, within a competitive and evolving landscape for higher education. The chief operations officer (COO) will then be tasked with bringing a coordinated, integrated and strategic approach to college operations, recognizing the importance of how all students, faculty and staff experience the College.”
Leonard, a certified public accountant, previously served as the College’s director of financial reporting for four years. Before that, she served as business manager for Sacred Heart Cathedral School in Knoxville and as grants administrator for the Boys and Girls Club of the Tennessee Valley. She obtained her bachelor’s degree from Quinnipiac University School of Business and holds a number of financial certifications.
As COO, Berry will focus on administration and oversight of such areas as the physical plant, campus security, information technology, human resources, the campus post office and risk management assessments and planning.
Prior to joining the MC staff, Berry served as director of information technology for the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Tennessee Valley. In addition to his IT duties, he served as Staff Council Chair from 2016-2017, on the Strategic Planning Task Force in 2017 and participated in the 2019 Tennessee Independent Colleges and Universities Association Advancing Leaders Workshop. Also in 2017, Berry received the Martha Hess Outstanding Administrator Award from the College.
“Our finance and operations areas are critical to the institution’s stability and viability, and I am grateful to have known and trusted individuals with institutional knowledge for these two positions,” Coker said. “I am confident that we will not skip a beat during this transition in these very important areas of college administration.”
With Berry’s appointment to the COO post, Systems Administrator Ben Howard will be promoted as the new director of information technology, Coker continued. Howard came to MC last fall after 15 years as the IT manager for Sertoma of Knoxville. In addition, Leonard’s role as controller will be filled by Tessa Cortes, who has served as assistant controller since 2014. She also has served as the College’s director of financial reporting and holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting and languages from Carson-Newman University.