Christian Varnado is the Assistant Director for The Smith Institute for Research, Career Development, and Postgraduate Readiness at °ÅÀÖÊÓƵ. In this role, Christian provides leadership and vision to offer coaching, experiential learning opportunities (internships, corporate site visits, research fellowships), and creates internal and external partnerships to further advance the goal of the university to have every student take advantage of an experiential learning opportunity.
Christian joined Johnson C. Smith in the summer of 2023 and several impactful accomplishments have occurred. Under his leadership, the school welcomed its very first scholars to be accepted into both the Management Leaders of Tomorrow Career Path and Ascend programs. The school, for the very first time, had two students to be awarded scholarships through the prestigious Executive Leadership Council. In addition to these accolades, students continue to be considered for opportunities at companies that do not have a presence on campus. This speaks volumes to his vision of having students explore opportunities well beyond Charlotte.
Previous to his current role, Christian was a Commercial Banking Portfolio Manager in the Beverage Finance Group at Wells Fargo. This group was responsible for underwriting and performing annual reviews for a $6.0B portfolio of beer distributors, wine and spirits distributors, craft breweries, beverage production companies, and soft drink bottles and distributors. Prior to this role, Christian was a Manager in the Commercial Banking Credit Analysis Operations group. There, Christian managed a team of credit analysts responsible for spreading financial statements, testing financial covenants, and setting up the financial reporting ticklers and covenants. Christian's team was a part of several teams based in Charlotte, Denver, and India that performed these services for the entire Middle Market Banking portfolio and certain customers within Corporate Banking. Collectively, this group, on average, processed over 120k spreads, covenants, and other maintenance items each year. His previous roles also include being a Quality Assurance Analyst in Loan Syndications, Financial Consultant in IT Finance, and being an Auditor at both a Big 4 and National Accounting Firm.
Christian has had a passion for early talent since his days at Wells Fargo. He created a grassroots mentoring group in the College of Business at Jackson State which led to students being able to land prestigious offers at companies that did not recruit out of the university. This effort resulted in the COB's first ELC scholar, first student to intern at Goldman Sachs in over a decade, first cohort of students to intern at Wells Fargo and Bank of America in over a decade, along with many other accomplishments. Out of this program, Christian partnered up with other fellow COB alums to create The Give Back Group. With more resources, this group made significant strides during COVID-19 and enabled students to obtain even more opportunities, along with sessions dedicated to professional development, resume and interviewing skills, and personal wellness. Along with his work with these students, Christian has been invited to serve on multiple panels not limited to the National Association of Black Accountants in Charlotte, the Louisiana State University Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion, the Jackson State University Notable Alumni Panel, the Wells Fargo African American Leaders Program, as well as many other formal and informal engagements.
As a native of Mississippi (Jackson/Magnolia), Christian holds a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting from Jackson State University and a Master of Business Administration from Louisiana State University in Shreveport. He resides in Charlotte with his wife and two boys.