Executive Vice President,
Chief Communications Officer
First Horizon National Corporation
Memphis, Tenn.
In her 20s, Candace Steele Flippin was asked to represent her local American Red Cross at a shooting at a post office. “I remember thinking, ‘people are shooting and you want me to go there? I was taught to run away from shootings’,” she recounts. She showed up, terrified, but her fear quickly subsided as individuals approached her for solace. “The American Red Cross has excellent disaster training.
I leaned into that. I just had to do what I was there to do,” she says. She returns to that experience when challenges arise today. “I stay calm, think about my purpose, and work to make difficult situations productive.”
She learned another valuable lesson later, when an event speaker counseled her to be “open to opportunities and see where life takes you,” rather than meticulously plan each step of her career. “When we open ourselves to opportunities, we learn to not be afraid of taking risks. It doesn’t mean you’re not being thoughtful. It means you’re not letting fear dominate your career journey,” she asserts.
Steele Flippin took risks and applied her expertise in the nonprofit, consulting, and for-profit sectors. Today she is the executive vice president and chief communications officer at First Horizon National Corporation, one of the country’s oldest banks.
She holds a doctorate in management from Case Western Reserve University, an M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University, a B.A. in art history from the University of Michigan, and accreditation in public relations. A research fellow at Case Western Reserve, she writes extensively on the different generations in the workplace because “every generation has something to offer.”
Steele Flippin is a member of the Arthur Page Society and The Links Inc., a board director for the Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Memphis River Parks Partnership, and aspires to travel the world with her family.
