Olivia Moyle

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Originally, Moyle was set on earning an MBA after graduating from Creighton undergrad. But most programs require candidates to have five years of industry experience under their work belts, something Moyle did not possess. She consulted with target school admissions teams, Heider professors, mentors and Anthony Hendrickson, PhD, dean of the Heider College of Business, to discuss her post-graduate options. Following Dean Hendrickson’s counsel, Moyle decided to pursue a Master of Management Studies.

She only applied to two schools, each located on opposite sides of the country. She heard from the west coast university, but because her admission did not excite her, she declined her seat without knowing if she had one at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

“Sometimes we know what we want but are afraid to say it out loud for fear of failure. If it wasn’t meant for me, I wouldn’t get in. And if I didn’t get in, I would figure out my next move,” Moyle says of her unknown future.

There was no need for her philosophical acceptance. Moyle traded Bluejay status for Blue Devil when she stepped on the Durham, North Carolina, campus last summer.

Ironically, a business career was not the culmination of a life-long dream. Business, in fact, was more of a default.

“I come from a family of nurses, and thinking about anything involving needles or blood makes me queasy,” she laughs. Moyle found business through the process of elimination.

The Papillion, Nebraska, native says she originally chose accounting, “the first degree on the alphabetical drop-down list,” thinking, ‘If I hate it, I can always change my mind.’ And I did. I liked the mathematical aspect of accounting but enjoyed the analytical side of finance more.”

So, finance it was.

“I wanted my degree to lead to challenging, non-monotonous work, and the career options with a finance degree are aplenty,” she adds.

Moyle has the “challenging” and “non-monotonous” job requirements down with her new position at FTI Consulting in Houston. As a consultant with the firm’s Forensic and Litigation Department, she will contribute finance acumen to a multi-faceted team of engineers, lawyers and accountants to assist in all types of disputes, including arbitration, mediation and litigation. Her main duties will be to assess the damages owed to opposing parties and research the validity of all arguments.

“I’ll be working on different projects and have new, exciting work each day – exactly what I was aiming for,” Moyle says.

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In reflecting on her time at Creighton and Duke, Moyle sees many similarities. Cura personalis, care for the whole person, is a hallmark of a Creighton education, and Moyle found this consideration for the whole at Duke as well. In fact, she thinks it helped her gain admission at such an early age.

“I found it interesting that the school asked for a list of 25 random things about me during the application process,” Moyle recounts. “They wanted to ensure students were well-rounded individuals, just as Creighton educates us to be.”

Moyle embraced being a woman for and with others at both institutions. At Creighton, she volunteered as a resume coach with RISE, helping the incarcerated draft strong personal statements, cover letters and resumes. She lived this Jesuit value by sharing her business knowledge with her Duke classmates who did not possess a business background.

“Needless to say, my Creighton education prepared me well for the academic rigor at Duke,” she says.

Experiential learning also played a pivotal role in her education at both institutions. While at Creighton, she worked as a finance intern in Union Pacific’s Accounts Payable Department and conducted research with Sijing Wei, PhD, assistant professor of accounting at the Heider College of Business. She also co-authored and published an article with Wei and Regina Taylor, PhD, chair of the Department of Marketing and Management at the Heider College of Business. Additionally, she worked with Wei and a group of fellow Heider students to revive the business ethics organization Center for Public Trust (CPT), for which she served as vice president.

In graduate school, Moyle discovered her interest in consulting by participating in Duke’s Fuqua Client Consulting Practicum (FCCP), which set her on the path to FTI. “I loved how all my favorite aspects of business came into play in a consulting role,” Moyle says.

And so did her time at Heider. She says her Creighton education taught her to accept “uncomfortableness, knowing how much you can learn from it.”

Like taking classes that were far removed from finance’s regression formulas. There was the education class that taught Ignatian values to young students and the political science class that stretched her mind. “They’re the classes that aren’t always easy,” Moyle says, “but that’s where growth happens.”

“My mind, heart and soul grew and changed for the better through my Creighton education. I know myself better, and my life aspirations are clearer with a Creighton education,” she says.