People Over Profits: Bartlett CFO Uses Love of Numbers to Make a Difference
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: justify; font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #1a1a1a}
Crandall Quinn with her husband and their three children. Because she’s normally so busy helping the community, she said that they often have weekend movie nights to spend time together.
Crandall Quinn fell in love with numbers at a young age.
Her grandmother was a bookkeeper and at just 11 years old, she became one, too.
With her mother as her boss, she handled much of the financial side of her mother’s business.
“She had me do everything,” Quinn said.
Years later, after graduating from Central High School, she went on to pursue a degree in accounting at
the University of Memphis.
Her goal was to become a CPA, but that plan quickly changed.
After struggling to pass an accounting course, an academic counselor advised her to pursue a degree in finance, instead.
Quinn took the advice and her life hasn’t been the same since.
She graduated cum laude from the University of Memphis with a bachelor’s degree in finance and a double minor in both economics and sociology.
Two years later, she went back and earned a master’s degree in finance.
Now, as the CFO of ePaymentAmerica, a credit card processing company, Quinn gets to combine her love of numbers and expertise in finance with her passion for paying it forward and helping others.
She’s worked for several companies over the years as a financial analyst but has been with ePaymentAmerica the longest out of all of them.
“I’ve always wanted to make a difference where I worked,” she said.
“I stayed here because I’ve been allowed to continue to make that difference.”
And she truly has made one.
While most people might say that money talks, with Quinn, money acts.
Unlike many people in her field, she said, she doesn’t view clients as dollar signs for the company.
“I love numbers and I love people” she said.
The love she has for people really showed at the height of the pandemic when the company was forced to make salary cuts to stay afloat.
Under her leadership, she made sure that pay cuts were only given at the top, to people who earned the most; not from those at the bottom of the company.
As CFO, she also happened to be one of the ones at the top.
Pulling the company through dark times like that, she said, is something that she considers one of her biggest accomplishments.
Her efforts haven’t gone unnoticed, either.
She has been nominated twice for CFO Of the Year by the Memphis Business Journal.
In 2014, she was a finalist for the award but failed to secure a win.
In 2020, however, she won and was crowned CFO Of the Year for a private company.
She also managed to secure another prestigious honor this year.
Quinn was given the coveted title of Woman of the Year for this year’s Bartlett Express Reader’s Choice competition.
Her drive to make a difference has extended from the office into the Bartlett community which is exactly why she was given the title..
She runs a tax practice on the side out of her home for Bartlett residents that can’t afford the higher fees of companies like H & R Block.
“It’s more of a service than a practice,” she said.
Her roughly 150 clients are mostly made up of single moms, first responders and retirees.
For a low price, she helps them with tax returns and helps them find creative tax write offs so that they can save money.
She also serves as treasurer of the Bartlett Education Foundation, a non-profit charity that raises money
to fund educational initiatives at Bartlett City Schools, once helping them to raise $20,000.
All of the work that she’s done hasn’t been alone, however.
With the help of her husband, Kevin, who is an alderman for Bartlett, they have done even more incredible work for the community together.
“If we don’t pay it forward, if we don’t give to those in need, it hurts,” Quinn said.
They have frequently donated to the Bartlett Animal Shelter, providing it with food, toys and cat litter.
They have even paid half of the adoption fees of some of the animals at the shelter.
As members of a local, Facebook group called Bartlett Blessing Exchange, they have helped give used or unwanted items to those in need in the community.
Quinn may have her roots deep in Bartlett now, but she actually never expected that to happen.
Both her and her husband grew up away from the area.
Quinn in Memphis and her husband in Arkansas.
They moved to Bartlett in 2005 and have been there ever since.
She said that although she may not always think like her neighbors, she knows that the community as a whole has a servant’s heart.
“We don’t always have the same opinion, but we have the same goal,” she said.
Quinn has done so much for the community that she has fallen in love with, yet for her, it’s still not enough.
“I want to be able to do more, but I have time constraints,” she said.
On top of being a CFO, tax assistant and community volunteer, she’s also a wife, a mom of three and most recently, a soccer coach for two different teams.
Quinn said that she isn’t sure what hat she wants to put on next but made clear that, unlike her husband, running for elected office will not be in her future.
She does, however, know that she wants to continue supporting the Bartlett community and making an impact.
“I love Bartlett, I love the community and being afforded the opportunities to help people in need is what I want,” she said.
