Career Management Center

Read McNamara

Executive Director
615.322.6176

Read came to Owen after a successful 35-year career in the private sector. He holds a BA from Colgate, an MA from Vanderbilt in Latin American Studies, and an MBA from Wharton. McNamara has held officer-level senior executive positions at Fortune 500 companies including Gillette, Pillsbury, Revlon and Bausch & Lomb. He has had full P&L responsibility for Asia and Latin America, and has lived in six different countries in Latin America and Asia. He founded and was a partner at CXO Management Consultants, and came to Owen 2010. He has served as a director of both publicly owned companies and non-profits, including a term as a director of the Colgate Alumni Corporation. Read and his wife of 39 years, Mary, have five grown children and four grandchildren. They all enjoy the McNamara cottage in Popham Beach, Maine.

Emily Anderson

Senior Associate Director, CMC Coach
Director of Internal Operations
Career Path Expertise: Consulting, Finance and Health Care
615.322.4068

Emily graduated from Texas A&M University with BS degrees in petroleum engineering and geology and spent nine years working as a production and reservoir engineer for Kerr-McGee Corporation (now Anadarko) in the Gulf of Mexico Division in Lafayette, LA. Emily graduated from Owen in 1999 with her MBA, concentrating in finance and operations management. Upon graduation from Owen, Emily joined HP in Loveland, CO, as a financial analyst and then as a supply chain analyst. Emily has been at Owen in the Career Management Center since November 2001 and works primarily with students interested in finance, consulting and health care.

Blake Gore

Senior Associate Director, CMC Coach
Career Path Expertise: Finance and International Advisor
615.322.4978

Early in his career, Blake realized that vocation is more than a job - it's an expression of your life's calling. Fascinated with this reality, he helps students discover where their gifts intersect with the world's needs and supports them as they transition into meaningful, fulfilling careers. Since joining the Career Management Center at Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management in 2010, Blake splits his time between working with MBAs and students seeking the MS Finance degree. He is a National Certified Counselor and a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Mississippi, where he earned his BA and an MEd in Counselor Education from the University of Mississippi. After serving as a Career Planning Specialist and Course Instructor at the University of Mississippi’s Career Center, he became the Director of Huntingdon College’s Center for Career and Vocation in Montgomery, AL. Before joining the career services team at Vanderbilt, he was recruited to Nashville to be an Associate at Stanton Chase International, a top 10 global retained executive search firm with 70 offices located in 43 countries. A husband and father of three, Blake spends a lot of time attending soccer games and dance rehearsals. However, he sometimes is able to slip away to do non-profit work and explore hole-in-the-wall eateries around Nashville.

Sandy Kinnett

Associate Director, Employer Relations and Events, CMC Coach
Career Path Expertise: HOP, Real Estate and Operations
615.343.1122

Sandy graduated from the University of Richmond with a BS degree in Business and a minor in U.S. History. Upon graduation, she spent five years working as an Account Manager for Equifax Information Services, Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. In her role at Equifax, Sandy managed a portfolio of financial and retail institutions in Georgia and South Carolina. Upon moving to Nashville in November 2005, Sandy joined the Career Management Center team at Owen. As an Associate Director, she works as a career coach to students pursuing careers in Human Resources, Operations and Real Estate and also serves as the Owen team lead on off-campus recruiting events.

Amanda Fend

Associate Director, CMC Coach
Career Path Expertise: Marketing
615.343.0621

After graduating from Middlebury College with a BA in English, Amanda spent several years in New York working in financial communications with Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, a leading transaction and crisis communications firm, and later at Burson-Marsteller, an international public relations firm. After earning her MBA at Owen in May 2009, during which she focused on marketing and finance and spent a summer with JPMorgan, Amanda joined the Chicago office of Tiller LLC, where she helped asset management clients develop research-based advocacy marketing and communications programs. Amanda later rejoined Burson-Marsteller’s Chicago office where she developed communications programs for clients including Bank of America, Accenture and Discover. Amanda joined the Career Management Center team at Owen in February 2012, and in her role as an Associate Director, coaches students pursuing careers in marketing and focuses on employer development in the greater Nashville area. As a former New Englander, Amanda loves anything outdoors in Nashville’s warm weather, including running, hiking and of course, Vandy football games.

Debbie Clapper

Associate Director, Executive and Alumni Career Services
615.322.3797

Debbie has provided career support and coaching to Owen alumni in career transition – both planned and unplanned - since February 2006. She compassionately and wisely guides alumni through the strategy and tactics of career change and growth. Prior to Owen, Debbie worked for seven years as an adjunct consultant with Lee Hecht Harrison, a global career services company, in both the Seattle and Nashville offices. Additionally, Debbie worked on the corporate side for Sara Lee in the areas of organization and leadership development in Winston-Salem, NC. She traveled to many of the Caribbean and Central American offshore facilities providing leadership development opportunities. Earlier in her career she taught at a community college. She earned a BA at the University of Massachusetts and holds many professional certifications, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, CareerLeader, Franklin-Covey and DiSC. A grandmother of four and an avid hiker, she has hiked in Patagonia, Chile, New Zealand, Alaska and many points in between.

Sylvia Boyd

Associate Director, Employer Relations
615.322.4975

Sylvia has worked at Owen for 20 years. Prior to joining the Career Management Center (CMC), she spent 12 years in the Alumni and Development Office, first as the Development Assistant responsible for alumni outreach and event planning and later promoted to the Program Coordinator of the Annual Fund where she managed the portfolio of 250+ Owen Associates/Elite Donor Society ($1,000+); recruited, trained and managed leadership for class gift committees including the proposal of a 2:1 matching gift incentive to the Class of 2004 from a major alumni donor. Sylvia joined the CMC in 2004 as the Assistant Director of Recruiting and Operations where she managed all aspects of on-campus recruitment. In 2006 she was promoted to Assistant Director, Corporate Relations, based on her 15 years of institutional knowledge and successful interactions with Owen alumni. Most recently, she was promoted to Associate Director, Employer Relations, coordinating corporate and alumni campus visits with various constituents in regard to recruitment and employer development. She’s an intricate part of the Employer Development team in which she helps to identify the companies where Owen has a strong contingent of alumni, reaching out to these alumni and encouraging them to support efforts to establish more formal recruiting relationships between their companies and The Owen School.

Emily Hoener

Assistant Director, Recruiting Operations
615.322.4452

Emily earned her BS in Recording Industry Management from Middle Tennessee State University. After serving as the Entertainment and Marketing Coordinator at a local music venue, she joined the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management as the front desk assistant for the Career Management Center and Admissions office. In this role she was the first point of contact for students, recruiters and prospective applicants to the school. In 2009, Emily accepted a position with Vanderbilt Alumni Relations where she implemented marketing and communication initiatives for the Vanderbilt Alumni Association. In April 2011, Emily happily returned to the Owen CMC office in the Recruiting Operations role where she oversees on-campus recruiting activities and maintenance of the online recruitment database.

Megan Denson

Program Assistant
615.322.4076

Megan graduated from the University of Tennessee with a BS in Public Relations. After attending college in Knoxville, Megan moved back to her hometown of Nashville and joined Cumberland Heights Drug & Alcohol Treatment Center and later the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health as a marketing coordinator. In March, she gratefully joined the Vanderbilt Owen CMC office working closely with Emily Hoener to facilitate recruiting operations and to create an outstanding experience for recruiters and students alike. She will serve as one the points of contact for companies for recruiting activities, and with maintenance of the online recruitment database. Megan is a devoted Volunteer fan, but loves attending Vanderbilt sporting events and just about anything that Nashville has to offer!

Cori Washington

Communications Assistant, CMC/Admissions
615.322.4452

Cori earned a BA in Broadcasting Communications and Electronic Media from Eastern Kentucky University in 2004. Cori has extensive experience in the area of higher education administration. Beginning her career as the student assistant in the office of Enrollment Management at Eastern Kentucky University, she moved on to become the Development Assistant and the Data Coordinator in the Office Of Institutional Advancement at Fisk University, a position she held for 6 years. In 2011, Cori accepted her current position with Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management where she serves as the Communications Assistant for the Career Management Center and Admissions office. In this role, she is the first point of contact for students, recruiters and prospective applicants to the school.

Tami Tinsley Fassinger

Chief Recruiting Officer
615.322.2402

MBA—Rollins College, 1987
BA Russian—Vanderbilt University, 1985

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Tami Fassinger began her MBA career in marketing and product management with NCR Corporation in Ohio, focusing on new product releases and marketing communications. Her recruiting and training expertise includes corporate recruiting and staffing in the consulting industry as a western regional director and national recruiting director for Cap Gemini; executive search work in the technology and consulting industries for MRI in Denver; consulting to the Graduate Management Admission Council® in Virginia, owner of the GMAT® exam; university administration including EMBA degree and executive non-degree program management, MBA career services and MBA student recruiting and admissions at Vanderbilt. While at Vanderbilt's career services office, Tami co-authored Adams Job Interview Almanac, a popular business career book published in 1996. As Chief Recruiting Officer, Tami’s role helps students take a more career-centric approach to evaluating their choice of program within the Owen portfolio as well as maximizing potential career opportunities once enrolled.    

A native of Sarasota, Florida, Tami lives in Franklin, Tennessee, with her husband, two daughters and her dog.  She writes fiction, likes to cook, loves to eat, and spends as much time as possible outdoors or in Nashville's eclectic music venues.

Meet Tami in one of these locations in 2012:
Atlanta, Birmingham, Bowling Green, Chattanooga, Clarksville, Evansville, Hopkinsville, Houston, Huntsville, Knoxville, Lexington, Louisville, Memphis, Nashville, Paducah, and Tampa.