Adriana Salerno
Adriana Salerno is an accomplished accounting and procurement professional with nearly 30 years of experience driving operational excellence across accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, fixed assets, financial reporting, and corporate travel operations. She has a proven record of delivering cost savings through strategic vendor negotiations, process improvements, and system implementations. Highly skilled in high-volume AP operations, Adriana is recognized for her collaborative approach, focus on customer service, and ability to build strategic relationships that ensure compliance and optimize financial outcomes.
Throughout her career, Adriana has held key roles at major organizations, including McDonald’s Corporation, TransDev North America, John B. Sanfilippo & Son, Inc., and Ortho Molecular Products. At McDonald’s, she gained comprehensive experience across shared services in accounts payable, payroll, fixed asset accounting, and financial reporting, contributing to numerous system upgrades and training initiatives. She later transitioned to corporate travel operations at TransDev, overseeing travel procurement, policy compliance, and vendor management while implementing programs that resulted in substantial cost reductions. Most recently, she served as Accounts Payable Specialist at Ortho Molecular Products, leading AP processing for the U.S. and Canada, supervising staff, and streamlining processes through automation and standardization.
Adriana is known for her adaptability, mentorship, and commitment to continuous learning, thriving in environments that challenge her to innovate and lead. She actively engages in volunteer initiatives with organizations such as Feed My Starving Children and Ronald McDonald House Charities and has been recognized as one of the Influential Women representing Roselle for 2026. Currently seeking her next opportunity in accounting or administrative leadership, Adriana is eager to leverage her extensive experience to deliver operational excellence, strengthen teams, and drive strategic financial initiatives in the Greater Chicago Area.
• College of DuPage- A.A.
• Global Business Travel Association
• Feed My Starving Children
• Ronald McDonald House Charities
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a natural affinity for numbers, extensive on-the-job training and rotational development—especially at McDonald's—and my ability to build strong relationships and collaborate effectively across teams.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I’ve ever received is that success isn’t given—it’s earned through hard work and dedication.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say my biggest piece of advice is don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Volunteer for a project, get involved, and learn and grow. Get out there and meet the people that you're working with, because when you're in finance, you're one piece of the pie and there's all these other people in different departments. I know nowadays young folks are used to just communicating by email, but make that phone call and build that relationship. Get to know them personally if you can. Those relationships will take you far because it'll help you in your daily work. Sometimes people will send 10 emails before they'll pick up the phone and say, hey, can we have a conversation about this? Can we talk this out? Can we throw things back and forth? If you're in the same location, have a face-to-face, sit down with people. Have a cup of coffee with someone if they're in your office and you've never met them but you've communicated through email because of your position. Just get to know them and let them get to know you. Those relationships really helped me.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Some challenges that you face, especially in a company as large as McDonald's, is some pushback with people saying 'I really don't want to do that, why do we have to do this? Why can't we do things the old way?' That change in general is difficult. My approach to change always was building those relationships so that if I didn't have them with those particular people that one of our upgrades or changes was going to affect, it was building those relationships.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I would say the biggest thing is the relationships - building the relationships with folks. Because once you build those relationships, you can collaborate much easier with folks. You need to have the right people at the table when you're doing a system upgrade for something, and I've been fortunate enough to be on many teams at McDonald's for different upgrades. You're not just doing the same thing every day. You feel like you're valued because you're on these teams that are going to make a difference and change something major in the company. You're looked at as part of that team, and once we picked a software and learned it all, our job was to go out there and create the training materials and teach everyone else and be that expert. That collaboration is what I really loved.