Erika Meinhardt is the executive vice president and division manager of Fidelity National Finance in Riverside. She spoke recently with Michele Newbern Gillis of the Daily Record staff.
Her job
Meinhardt has two parts to her job. “I oversee the national agency operations so I have ultimate responsibility for our network of 11,000 agents across the country,” she said. “I also manage Chicago Title and Fidelity National Title operations in the Northeast and Southeast. I work with the management in our various operations and have bottom line responsibility for the success of those operations.”
Fidelity National Finance is a Fortune 500 company that acquired Alltel Information Services and moved its headquarters to Jacksonville.
“We started out as a title insurance company and grew over last 20 years from a $20 million a year company to an $8 billion a year company. The primary business line was title insurance, but in the last few years the company has diversified.
“Buying Alltel Information Services was a key move for us in term of diversification. We have a national and an international presence now as a result of the various acquisitions we have made over the last several years.
“Title insurance is still our largest source of revenue.”
Her career
She started with Ticor in 1982. Ticor was acquired by Chicago Title in 1991 and was then acquired by Fidelity National Title in 2000. “I’ve been through two acquisitions, so technically I get credit for 23 years of service.”
She started out in an administrative position with Ticor in 1982.
“I learned the title business from the ground up and then moved up through the organization, taking on more and more responsibility,” she said.
“Title insurance is one of those unique businesses that most people don’t know anything about. No one starts out saying, ‘I’m going to be in title insurance.’ We all just sort of fall into it. That’s really what happened to me.
“I had moved to Atlanta in the early 1980’s and was looking for a job. I met with a headhunter and she had worked for Ticor before she went into the employment placement business. She knew they were looking for someone in an administrative assistant capacity.
“She said, ‘I think you’d like it and I think you’d be a good fit.’ I just learned the business from the ground up and had great mentors. I found it to be an interesting business and just stuck with it over the years.”
Home away from home
Meinhardt has a condominium on the ocean here and a house in Atlanta. She is in Jacksonville three days a week and the rest of the time she is either on the road visiting her operations or trying to make it back to Atlanta to see her family.
Her husband, John Parks, is a commercial real estate attorney who has a private practice in Atlanta. “He rarely travels, so that is good because he has been home in the evenings for our son.”
Going back and forth requires a lot of understanding.
“It’s a lot of traveling. It’s a challenge. My husband, family and children are very supportive. We make time for each other and talk all the time on the phone. I talk to my son every morning on his way to school and every night before he goes to bed. Every free moment that I have, I try to spend with my family when I am not traveling.
“For the last 10 years, I have always traveled for my job, but this last year and a half has been a new experience where I am actually living in another city. It’s been challenging and interesting.”
Advice to other women
“I think not placing any emphasis on the fact that you are female verses male. It is a man’s world, but I’ve really made a point of trying to live in that world by not really trying to differentiate myself in a male verses female role. There are choices in everything that we do in life. There are sacrifices and compromises and you have to be prepared to make those sacrifices and compromises if you want to succeed. Men do it everyday, but it is more challenging for women. Bringing everyone in your life into those choices is essential.”
Education
Meinhardt has a bachelor’s degree in political science from North Carolina Wesleyan College. She then earned her master’s degree in business administration from Georgia State University.
Pro and con
Meinhardt said she enjoys the diversity of her job. “I get to deal with customers, people in the corporate office and in the field. I have a lot of unique challenges and really enjoy that.”
A pet peeve is people who do not take ownership or responsibility for what they do. “We all make mistakes and if people just take responsibility for that then we can all learn from it and move on.”
Advice
She said one of the things that helped her grow as a manager was learning to delegate and to accept that people may not always do things the way you do them, but it’s not necessarily a bad way to do them. “Delegating frees you up to do more things and it is good for the people that report to you because it gives them an opportunity to grow and develop.”