Employee Stories: Meet Mary Jovanovich

Name: Mary Jovanovich

Position: Senior Manager, Charitable Consultant

Location: Indianapolis, Indiana

Education: BA, Wright State University; MA, Indiana Wesleyan University; MA, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

Hobbies: Taking care of two rescue puppies, yoga, biking, and exploring a new part of the world every year with her husband

For Mary Jovanovich, serving and empowering others are closely intertwined, both in the workplace and her community. She approaches her job at Schwab Charitable^TM with the perspective, “I'm supposed to be here, and I'm actually fulfilling a purpose.” Ultimately, she’s discovered that finding a job linking your personal and professional passions doesn’t feel like work.

However, this natural connection didn’t take place overnight when she launched into a financial services career nearly 30 years ago. So how did Mary’s rewarding career path unfold?  

Step one may have involved something like fate.

A charitable beginning

Long before joining Schwab Charitable, Mary’s charitable roots could be traced to her early life in the rural community of Beavercreek, Ohio. Named after Sister Mary Camille, one of the Sisters of Mercy, an international community of Catholic women dedicated to justice and inclusivity, her faith shaped a significant part of her upbringing and later gave her a clear direction while navigating her personal life and career. 

The call to service is not only in her name, but also her DNA. Mary was inspired to service at a young age by her family, particularly by her dad who was a Boy Scout leader for 35 years. She followed his example by joining the Girl Scouts and earning the Gold Award, the highest award. 

“That’s something which has always been important to me—that my actions do something for the better of someone else,” she says, “and that goes back to my dad being a Boy Scout leader and me being a Girl Scout.”     

When she was growing up, Mary’s mom also encouraged her to help her war-widowed great-aunt shop for the best deals at the grocery store. As a child, her great-aunt had worked on the family farm instead of attending school, so she never learned to read or write. 

Through that experience, “I decided that education was the most important thing in my life, and I wanted to be self-sufficient,” Mary explains. At the same time, she determined, “I need to do something where I can help people control their own destiny. That really drove me as an individual.” 

When plans and reality diverge

After living as a high school exchange student in Brazil and earning her bachelor’s degree, Mary headed to graduate school at Indiana University to pursue a master’s degree in Brazilian literature. Her goal—to become a teacher for Spanish and Portuguese.

However, life had other plans. She reflects, “While I was in school, my father came down with cancer. So I withdrew from school, and went back to Ohio to make sure my dad was okay.” 

While Mary helped care for her dad who had always looked out for others, she put her dreams to be a teacher aside so she and her husband, whom she met in Indiana, could make ends meet. She ended up with what she thought would only be a short-term job at a bank. 

“I’ve always had that strong work ethic, like some job is better than no job,” Mary says. She told herself, “Just get a job and then figure it out.”

The job she took as a stopgap soon turned into a career. She started as a bank teller and then excelled at sales and investment brokering, before moving on to bank branch management. Mary’s tenure as a bank manager derailed when she and her colleagues were locked in a vault and robbed at gunpoint—a traumatic event which led to her revaluating her career path.  

Mary took her earlier promise of controlling one’s own destiny to heart when she came across an employment ad for a job at Charles Schwab, which was running a campaign at the time called, “Talk to Chuck.” After deciding she liked what the company stood for, Mary decided that’s exactly what she would do. 

“I'm going to go talk to Chuck. I want to work there,” she resolved, before walking into the lobby of the Schwab Call Center in Indianapolis. “I walked in, and I literally would not leave because they had security guards, and I knew how protected I would be. I would never be at gunpoint again. I said I basically wouldn't leave until they gave me the job.”

Her tenacity paid off, because Mary was hired at Schwab, which eventually led her to Schwab Charitable.

Making a career shift

For most of her 17-year-long career at Schwab, Mary was extremely active with employee resource groups and nonprofits. She signed up for every possible volunteer opportunity, such as serving at domestic violence shelters and teaching classes for financial literacy. “I wanted ‘Mary Jovanovich’ to be synonymous with ‘charitable,’ and ‘charitable’ to be synonymous with ‘Mary Jovanovich,’” she says.

As a result, colleagues started approaching Mary to tell her, “Hey, we appreciate who you are and what you do, but there's so much more to what you're capable of.”

One of those colleagues gave Mary a Schwab Charitable job description and urged her to apply, but Mary countered, “I'm really happy in my role. I love it here. I have no interest in leaving.’” 

However, he encouraged her to read the job description. And once she did, “I was like, this is 100% me. And I applied for the job. Still to this day I credit him and all of the people that helped me secure an interview.”

She had the support of other advocates as well who helped her land the first of nine interviews before being offered a job. 

Once again, her determination paid off, and she knew she had found her niche at Schwab Charitable.  

“I couldn’t wait for the opportunity to link my passion with my profession,” Mary reflects. “And ever since then, it's been the most incredible experience I've ever had in my entire life. It doesn't even feel like I actually go to work, as crazy as that may sound. It doesn’t feel like a job to me.” 

The domino effect of charitable consulting

Now as a Charitable Consultant based in Indianapolis, Mary connects with donors and advisors on their charitable planning strategies to grow their giving impact. She also prioritizes discussions with nonprofits to help them rethink the status quo of how they may have raised money for decades.

While some people might run out of steam after eight years in a role, the psychology of giving keeps Mary engaged, especially when interacting with donors. She says, “It doesn't matter what the cause is for me; it's that they care and I'm happy that they care about something. And whatever it is that they care about, I'll be 100% behind them.”

She continues to find purpose and motivation in how a connection she makes with a donor may result in a life-changing experience for someone else. 

“That one donation could potentially save a life; that one donation could save an animal; that one donation could open up a door to education that a person never thought was possible,” Mary explains. "That one donation has unlimited potential to change the world for the better.”

She continues, “It's almost like a domino effect; that this action will cast out a net far beyond what my eyes will ever be able to see. And it pays dividends again and again and again.”

Looking to the future

After nearly 30 years at the intersection of financial services and philanthropy, Mary is particularly mindful of paying it forward. She recognizes the importance of champions along her career who supported her aspirations. “My goal is to give back and try to find people to sponsor and help with mapping out their careers,” Mary says. 

More recently, she also earned two master’s degrees in management and philanthropy, picking up where she left off when she paused her graduate studies to care for her dad. Mary and her family enjoyed 25 more years with her dad, Jerald, until his cancer returned and he passed away in 2019.

And although Mary has “no intention going elsewhere,” if she does take another job before retirement, she already knows it will also be about helping people. She aspires to be a philanthropic advisor, either to ultra-high net worth donors in creating customized giving plans or to the nonprofit sector in better stewarding their resources.

When the day finally comes for retirement, Mary has it all figured out. “I’m going to be a yoga instructor because there’s a lot of beauty within yoga from a physical, mental, and spiritual standpoint.” Whether at work or in her community, Mary’s actions are all aimed at one overarching goal: making the world a better, more beautiful place—just like her namesake, Sister Mary Camille.

About Schwab Charitable

Schwab Charitable's mission is to increase giving in the U.S. with donor-advised funds and philanthropic resources that make charitable giving tax-smart, simple and efficient. We offer tools, guidance and relationships that empower donors to incorporate charitable planning into their everyday lives and make a bigger difference in the world. 

Since our founding in 1999 as an independent 501(c)(3) public charity, Schwab Charitable donors have granted more than $33 billion to more than 246,000 charities. You can learn more about this philanthropic impact in our Giving Report.