Lindsey Tanner ’98 remembers the moment she realized that college is not like high school.

She chose Birmingham-Southern because it was small, like the private high school she had attended in Mobile. But on an exam during her freshman year, Tanner learned a lesson that she says changed her life.

“I had studied extremely hard for an economics exam and ended up making a 90,” she recalls. “Most everyone else in the class had gotten 100 on the exam because they had memorized an old test. To the freshman version of myself, I didn’t think that was fair because I had studied and not used an old test but received a lower grade than my peers.

“The economics professor looked at me and said, ‘You didn’t prepare as well as they did. You should always use all of the resources available to you to be fully prepared.’ This is a lesson I have never forgotten.”

Empowered by the idea of taking advantage of every available opportunity, Tanner made a commitment to invest in herself and the campus community. She was a resident advisor, served for two years as an SGA representative and another year as SGA treasurer, and was active with Alpha Omicron Pi.

“One of the reasons I liked Birmingham-Southern so much was that it was small enough that you could be involved in whatever you wanted,” she recalls.  “For example, I was Editor of the Southern Accent yearbook for two years – a role typically reserved for journalism majors at larger schools. I wasn’t a journalism major, I just liked yearbooks! And that’s OK at BSC.”

An accounting major, Tanner graduated with a job already lined up in the audit practice at Ernst & Young, where she earned her CPA and worked in various capacities for 10 years. In 2008, she began her career at Vaco, a business talent and solutions firm whose motto is “Free Yourself.”

Now a managing director, Tanner combines her accounting background with the interpersonal skills she refined through campus involvement to focus on recruiting talented individuals to fill accounting and finance roles in the Alabama market. “The liberal arts education at BSC gave me the well-roundedness that I have benefited from as I serve clients in all different industries and sizes,” she says. “Being able to interact outside of the discipline of accounting has been professionally and personally beneficial.”

Outside of work, Tanner is actively involved in the BSC alumni community and is excited about what they continue to do in the city of Birmingham. “I was not involved in service learning at Birmingham- Southern – I was probably too career-focused and spent my interims (E-Terms) doing things like internships,” she recalls. “But BSC alumni are everywhere you look in the Birmingham community and are actively involved in making it a better place for all. That example was set early, and I always felt like it was my responsibility to do my part.”

Over the last 15 years, Tanner has served in a variety of leadership roles with the Junior League of Birmingham – one of the largest Junior Leagues in the United States and a 2,300-member force for good in the greater Birmingham area. She created and chaired the five-year Community of Lights campaign to raise $1.25 million to celebrate the Junior League’s centennial by gifting One Place Metro Alabama Family Justice Center with a permanent home for services to survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. The campaign, which concluded on May 6, engaged 101 community leaders and 6,000 individual donors to exceed the $1.25 million goal. The Birmingham Business Journal named her to their Top 40 Under 40 list in 2012 and their 2020 list of Women to Watch.

Tanner knows that her time at BSC shaped her perspective of the world and provided her with the tools to make her dreams a reality. “So often as we are growing up and even through college, we focus on the main jobs that we happen to know about – doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher, etc.,” she says. “The world is big and there are lots of paths. I wish I had known earlier to not stress about picking the exact path, but instead learn, grow, and explore and be open to what the world presents to you about it and yourself.

“I am so thankful that I chose Birmingham-Southern – those years can be tough, and being surrounded by such a supportive, tight-knit group made the hardest things manageable,” she adds. “My time on the Hilltop was a great foundation for handling the harder things in life, still supported by so many of those relationships created at BSC.”

This story was included in a special business and economics edition of From the Hilltop, Birmingham-Southern’s alumni email newsletter.

You can email [email protected] to get in touch with the Office of Alumni Engagement, learn about upcoming opportunities and events, and tell us more about you.