Allison Koenig McLean ’98 named 2025 Shannon Executive Scholar
The Shannon Executive Scholars Program, established by a gift from Professor William N. Shannon and his wife Bonnie, is an annual program at Saint Mary’s College that invites successful alumnae back to campus to share their career development, expertise, and experiences with students, faculty, and staff in addition to personal visits with College leaders. Executive Scholars visit the College and share their expertise with students in professionally related classes as well as informal meetings.
This October, Saint Mary’s College welcomed home alumna Allison Koenig McLean ’98 as the 2025 Shannon Executive Scholar. Over the course of two days on campus, McLean visited several Business Administration and Economics classes, such as Principles of Marketing, Advertising and Promotion, Brand Management, as well as an Introduction to Communication class. Both departments played a pivotal role in setting the stage for her career.
McLean was born and raised in Indianapolis, Ind., She first discovered Saint Mary’s through a high school friend who was attending the College. Her friend mentioned there was an admission event and urged her to come check it out. What began as a down-and-back road trip turned into a family affair, as her parents wanted to attend the admission event with her. That visit changed everything.
She fell in love with Saint Mary’s immediately. It was everything she had hoped for in a college—small class sizes, a tight-knit community, but the opportunity to “be part of a larger college community,” close enough to Notre Dame for social and academic connections; she met her husband across the street and worked on the staff of The Observer for three years. “But, there’s less noise [at Saint Mary’s]. I loved being able to retreat back.” Most of all, her parents were impressed with the data points about graduates of all-women’s colleges: more likely to be leaders in business and community, and to pursue advanced academic degrees.
When McLean began at Saint Mary’s, she declared a major in Sociology. But everything changed after what she describes as a “karmic” moment in Professor William Shannon’s business class. During one class session, an alumna visited McLean’s class to speak about her career in business. “Something just clicked,” McLean recalled. “When the class was over, I walked down to the registrar’s office and declared a second major in Communications, and planned to take additional courses in Business Administration and Economics.”
After graduating in 1998, McLean moved to Chicago and began to work at Starcom in an advertising/media planning role, but quickly realized the job wasn’t fulfilling. After a stint as an editor in business-to-business publishing, McLean realized (with support from the publisher/director), that she was likely more suited for a role in sales. However, due to unfavorable economic conditions, sales roles in advertising/media were limited. Her father offered some sage advice: “Maybe there aren’t many open media sales roles out there for you; go into something else you’re interested in.”
Taking that advice to heart, McLean shifted gears and joined Getty Images, where she spent five years immersed in a fast-paced, creative environment, and took on her first role leading a team. When the recession hit, she and her husband decided they needed a change of scenery and moved to Portland, Ore. There, she freelanced in marketing before being recruited by a former colleague from Getty who had moved on to Yahoo. McLean joined Yahoo as an individual contributor and thrived, surrounded by a team that became her chosen community.
Eventually, another professional connection called, this time from Amazon Ads, located in Seattle. After thoughtful discernment, “My husband urged me to give this Amazon idea a shot,” McLean said. They relocated to Seattle in 2014, and McLean began what would become a 12-year career with Amazon, where she continues to live and work today.
Now, McLean manages a sales team that sells advertising solutions that touch a little bit of everything across Amazon. “Ou solutions range from the search ads you see on Amazon.com to the video ads in Thursday Night Football and in Prime Video.” No single year at Amazon has been the same, which, she admits, is one of the things she loves most about her work. Her team’s focus now includes artificial intelligence and how it interprets user behavior and product data.
With her son in his second year of college and her daughter beginning to explore her college options, and after receiving the news that she had been named this year’s Shannon Executive Scholar, she made clear that this has been a season of reflection, noting that Saint Mary’s played a major part in how she carried herself in corporate settings: “Saint Mary’s grads are confident,” she said. “That’s something unique to the Saint Mary’s experience. They know they have a voice and that they can use it.”
“I’m excited to see what these young women will take away from this experience,” she said. Much like an alumna once changed the trajectory of her own life in a classroom years ago, McLean hopes she might do the same for another Saint Mary’s student today.
What McLean reflects is what her beloved alma mater taught her: “Be yourself. Communicate your thoughts. Share your opinions. Share your ideas. Don’t be afraid to speak up.”
October 29, 2025