Kerrie McKenna-Forbes has carved out a 15-year career at Bank of America by working hard and being prepared when opportunities arise. (Photo by Derik Holtmann)

Kerrie McKenna-Forbes started working as a teller at Bank of America shortly before she began taking classes at the University of Missouri–St. Louis in 2010.

This summer, she’s celebrating her 15th year with the company – she’s now a senior credit underwriter – with a four-week sabbatical that’s designed to give dedicated, long-time employees a chance to reset and decompress at regularly scheduled intervals in their careers.

“I made a list of things I wanted to do at home, projects here and there, and getting my daughter ready for pre-K school and everything like that,” she said. “Little by little, I’m knocking them off the list. My work phone was at 6% the Friday before I clocked out, and I just let it sit on the counter and die. I haven’t looked at it. It’s being a brick.”

Ask McKenna-Forbes about her career, and she likes to say that the stars have just aligned, that her career has fallen into place. And that is accurate, to a degree, but the far more important aspect to her success is how hard she worked to put herself in position to thrive. While at UMSL for two years earning her accounting degree, McKenna-Forbes worked three jobs – as a teller, as a nanny and at the front desk of a 24-Hour Fitness – while being part of the Pierre Laclede Honors College and also picking up occasional shifts at a local restaurant.

“Going to a four-year institution for such a prestigious degree while working three jobs and managing to do it all is definitely multitasking,” she said. “It prepared me for real world. I got up early, I came to school, got my work done, went to work and then I’d go to a library and do my homework. It proved that I could do it, and I think that set me up for where I’m at now. I think, ‘I can do this work. I know I can. I just need to sit down, focus and break it down by task and do it.’ I know because I’ve done it.”

Help along the way

Thinking back on her time at UMSL, the Honors College classes she took still stand out to McKenna-Forbes because of the smaller class sizes and how the sessions encouraged the type of discussion and engagement that fostered experiential learning.

And she still thinks back fondly to the UMSL faculty members, including accounting professors Jennifer and Steve Moehrle, who helped her make her hectic schedule work.

“I remember (Steve) would hold evening sessions if people wanted to come in and needed help,” he said. “I appreciated that, especially, because after class, I couldn’t always stay and ask questions. I’d get here early to take my three classes, then I’d have to bust it down to Clayton for work, and then I’d come back up here and get my nighttime study hours in. I always appreciated that he held those evening hours. It was helpful. Both of them have always stayed in my mind.”

McKenna-Forbes grew up in Kirkwood and attended Nerinx Hall High School, where she enjoyed the accounting classes that were offered. Her original plan was to follow her older sister to the University of Missouri–Columbia, but life circumstances dictated that she needed to stay closer to home. She took classes at the nearby Meramec campus of St. Louis Community College and earned her associate degree in business.

Toward the end of her time there, one of the clients at the gym who knew she was studying for a business career mentioned that Bank of America had teller positions, so she applied and got the job. McKenna-Forbes was considering MU and UMSL after Meramec – there was a Bank of America branch in Columbia, and she could have transferred locations – but the more she pondered her options, the clearer the choice became.

“Once I started really looking at UMSL, I realized I could get a bachelor’s of accounting without a five-year program and when you can say that you’re an accounting major, it’s kind of a big deal,” she said. “You can get a job almost anywhere, because someone always needs their books done, or accounting can roll into finance or something like that. I really thought UMSL was the right fit for me and what I wanted to do. I didn’t necessarily want to be a CPA, but I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I enjoyed my time as a teller, and so I got to keep my job at the bank, got to keep my existing nannying job, still got to work at the gym, all while going to school in town, living with my parents and saving money. It was just like, check-check-check, every box on the list. It was perfect. And it really worked out.”

Embracing opportunities

She started at UMSL with a full schedule that was about to get even more packed.

“Fast forward a few months and I’m at UMSL, in the Honors College and one of the requirements is needing an internship,” she said. “I was thinking to myself, ‘I can’t give up my three jobs. I need those to be able to pay for school because I took out minimal loans.’ So I was on the hunt. It just so happens that Bank of America’s U.S. Trust division had an office upstairs in our building from the bank, so again, stars aligned.”

She heard about the internship through the father of one of her Nerinx Hall classmates who happened to work at Bank of America, too. The bank put her on leave from her teller job for the 10-week internship program. She flew to New York for three days of training, then worked in the Global Wealth and Investment Management department in the downtown office for her internship.

Another perk of that internship was the possibility of a full-time position after graduation. Ever the hard worker, McKenna-Forbes had impressed her bosses during the internship, so she had the promise of a full-time job waiting after she finished her accounting degree. It was during the internship that she started to get excited about a long-term future with Bank of America.

“As you’re sitting there at the desk as a new person, you start realizing there are so many different aspects of the bank,” she said. “There was a guy sitting behind me with a law degree. I was in accounting. You can bring that knowledge into what we do. It’s just kind of fallen into place. I’ve been in the same group since 2012, just different positions. With such a big company, the possibilities are endless, and you can move around, especially if you’re willing to relocate.”

McKenna-Forbes started as a FAM – financial analysis monitoring – specialist and spent seven-plus years in the role. Encouraged by co-workers to pursue a move up, she applied for a streamline underwriter position and worked in that role for two years before moving again to a real estate-dependent underwriting team. After a reorganization of the department, she is part of a team focused on the Southwest region of the United States.

“I’m still utilizing my real estate background to help the people that weren’t real estate-dependent underwriters underwrite those clients now,” she said. “I’m doing all kinds of loans now: real estate, investor real estate, unsecured and things like that, but at the bigger scale, not the streamline scale. We’re looking at the covenants, we’re negotiating docs, things like that.

“I’ve been three different types of underwriters over six years. Technically two positions, FAM and underwriting, but four different teams and I’ve kind of picked up expertise here and there.”

Another “stars aligned” for McKenna-Forbes: Because she stayed home at Meramec and then chose UMSL, she reconnected with Bobby Forbes when he returned from Afghanistan. They started dating in 2012 and were married in 2020.

“We had known each other since high school, but had I gone away to Mizzou, we wouldn’t have made that connection again,” she said. “What is that called, kismet? It’s just worked out for me.”

McKenna-Forbes is hoping to help the stars align for UMSL students going forward, too.

“I’m an advocate for saying the bank needs to recruit from St. Louis, because we have a large presence here,” she said. “All of our GWIM loans are processed here and in Charlotte. I’m still pushing and advocating that the bank needs to start recruiting here. They would get quality people. UMSL is an in-town university with a lot of students who already live here and don’t get their degree and then leave.”