Samantha L. Shea
Samantha Shea is a Finance Executive at ADP, where she supports the Small Business Services business unit with strategic financial planning, analysis, and operational insight across multiple U.S. regions. In her role, she works closely with leaders across field offices and headquarters to manage profit and loss performance, guide staffing and financial decisions, and help translate complex financial data into clear, actionable business strategy. Her work reflects a strong blend of analytical rigor and practical business partnership, with a focus on enabling growth for small business clients nationwide.
Samantha is a graduate of The Wharton School, where she earned a degree focused on finance, legal studies and business ethics, and real estate. She began her career in corporate finance at PetSmart in Phoenix, starting as an intern in real estate before moving into roles supporting merchandising, sales, and margin analysis across hundreds of store operations. These early experiences gave her a deep understanding of large-scale financial systems and the real-world impact of data-driven decision-making in retail and operations.
Over the course of her career, Samantha has advanced into senior leadership roles, including Senior Director of Financial Strategy and Planning at ADP, where she has spent more than six years growing within the organization. Known for her adaptability and commitment to continuous learning, she has navigated complex financial environments while also balancing the unique demands of being a military spouse. Samantha is passionate about making finance accessible, mentoring others, and helping teams better understand how financial insight drives stronger business outcomes.
• The Wharton School- Bachelor's
• Local church volunteering
• Food pantry volunteering
• Rise Against Hunger events
• Military and veterans family support
• Food insecurity initiatives
• Penn Wharton Club of Arizona
What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to my need and desire to be independent. I love my husband and my family, but I didn't always have the best childhood growing up, so the fact that I feel the need to be independent, no matter who is in my life, is kind of my drive. I'm not a pessimist, I'm just a realist. You have to be able to be independent in order to lead a more successful life, because there's a lot of people out there that don't want to see you succeed and will not come to your side to save you. I'm a military spouse and something can happen to my husband, something can happen to my family, whether it's health reasons or an accident. You never know what's going to happen. I don't think that's pessimistic, I think it's realistic, just because of what people in my own community and my own family have experienced.
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be a sponge and ask questions. That's really the best way, and that's how I was. I was just a sponge. I put in a lot of hard work. I always ask questions when I didn't understand something, and I would ask questions to challenge the current view. You just gotta do it in a nice, polite way. People at my company have attributed certain things to my way of speaking and my style, like 'is that a Samism?' because I'm always challenging the status quo. Just because it's been done before doesn't make it right, and that's a lot of good things, especially for younger women and younger folks entering the workforce. My company's been around for over 75 years, and just because we've been doing it for 75 years doesn't exactly make it right, especially in our technology space right now. So be a sponge, learn as much as you can, put in the hours, and always ask questions if you don't understand it, or ask questions to harden your understanding to make sure you really understand it at the end of the day.
What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges in my field right now are that finance remains largely male-dominated, where I’ve personally only had two female managers, while at the same time rapid technological change is reshaping the industry—creating both pressure to adapt quickly and a major opportunity to modernize the field and open new pathways for advancement.
What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me in both my work and personal life are independence, a strong commitment to community service—especially supporting military families and addressing food insecurity—and a grounded sense of realism and preparedness that helps me stay adaptable and intentional in everything I do.