Felicia Heard ’16 Has a Passion for Achievement
Felicia Heard ’16, once a Stevens field hockey goalie, followed her passion for business and found career success as director of finance at National General Insurance, an Allstate company. As an assistant coach at Stevens, Heard is guiding today’s Ducks toward achievement on the field and in life.
Even in high school Felicia Heard ’16 was placing a high priority on future job security and earning potential. “I liked science and thought engineering would be cool,” she says. “I was interested in the medical field and prosthetics.”
That was Heard’s original plan. Stevens offered the bioengineering program she was looking for as well as the opportunity to play field hockey.
As is often the case, the first semester at Stevens was challenging. “Most of us who enroll at Stevens were in the top of our class in high school,” she points out. “We never received low grades in our lives! We had to learn what it means to study crazy hard.”
Heard could handle the work, but she was concerned she wasn’t excited about what she was learning. She chose a business course to fill an elective requirement and liked it. By this time, however, she was in the second semester of her second year. Fortunately, the business and technology major would allow her to use some of the credits she had already earned toward her degree.
“Stevens was great about helping me revise my schedule,” Heard says. “But I had to earn a GPA above 3.2 for Stevens to accept me into a new major.”
Heard noticed the difference right away. “Changing majors transformed my experience,” she says. “I was really in the right place – which was a good thing because I needed to take on very heavy course loads in order to finish my degree in four years.”
The intensity of her academic schedule was no match for Heard’s determination. In addition to maintaining a high GPA, she was a four-year member of the field hockey program, accruing 19 saves over 18 career contests. The Ducks reached the postseason in all four of Heard’s seasons, and she helped her team win an ECAC Mid-Atlantic Championship as well as earn an NCAA victory over Mount Holyoke College. In addition, Heard was active in the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority and the Society of Women Engineers.
Heard insists that high academic performance was most achievable during field hockey season. “Our schedules were so strict already,” she says. “And all my teammates were in the same boat – I never felt like I was missing out. I got my best grades during the season.”
By the time Heard graduated and began her career at National General Insurance, she had earned experience as a staff accountant at Noke and Heard LLP and as a sales and finance intern at Onward Luxury Group Spa. Her star at National General Insurance rose quickly, from financial analyst in 2016 to director of finance in 2021.
“National General Insurance allowed me to grow and learn,” Heard says. “I worked across all areas of the business, including SEC reporting, analytics, investor relations and capital management. I was always doing something new and had a lot of opportunities to work with top executives.”
National General Insurance was acquired by Allstate in 2021, and Heard’s role branched into property and casualty insurance. “I have been able to build on my experience, preparing the company’s top executives for investor relations and major business decisions,” she says. “The work is similar, but now I am reporting into a larger conglomerate.”
Heard, who earned an MBA at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2021, looks back on her time at Stevens as providing the foundation for her professional success. “My classes gave me a basic understanding of finance, but the best part is that every class guided you to solve your own problems,” she says. “You had to learn to communicate, collaborate, advocate for yourself and build on your own work.”
“Being part of the field hockey program taught me so much about teamwork and camaraderie,” she says, noting that she is still in touch with her teammates. “The team dynamics of the sport mimic the nature of work in the real world.”
In 2022, Heard returned to Stevens as assistant coach, bringing her expertise as a goalie to today’s Ducks. She notes that Head Field Hockey Coach Meredith Spencer-Blaetz asks her to share her story with incoming students each year. “I tell them it’s okay to change your mind about what you want to do. Follow what you love, and you will achieve success.”