Silver Anniversary Honoree Profile: Joan Campion '92CC
5/1/2009 11:00:00 AM | General
The 2008-09 year marks the Silver Anniversary of the Columbia-Barnard Athletics Consortium. In a year-long celebration, Columbia Athletics will pay tribute to the administrators, coaches and student-athletes who have brought distinction to Columbia Athletics. During the next few months, gocolumbialions.com will post profiles on the former student-athletes named to the "25 Most Influential" list and the Silver Anniversary honor roll. The next in the series is former women's soccer player Joan Campion '92CC.
At the end of every women's soccer season in the early 1990's, a team dinner was held to celebrate the season that had just concluded. It would honor those student-athletes that made an impact on the program that year, and those that would be moving on to bigger and better things upon graduation in the spring.
The 1991 season saw the Lions win their first Ivy League game in history, a 2-0 defeat of Penn at Baker Field. It also saw the close of the career of Joan Campion '92CC, a team captain and a three-year letterwinner.
Upon saying a few words in front of the group, Campion's thoughts harkened back to yesteryear, and how her soccer odyssey had begun.
“I'll never forget being at the boathouse celebrating my last year, and having a feeling of 'who'da thunk?'”
Campion grew up with her family in Bayonne, N.J., a 30-minute drive to New York City. She was an athletic kid who could always be found playing outside with the other children on her block. Her mother, Jane, had read an article in the local newspaper promoting a tryout for the local girls soccer team and asked a nine-year-old Joan if she'd like to play. The answer was yes and the rest is history.
A key contributor to a pair of New Jersey State Runner-Up teams at Holy Family Academy, Campion was a two-time all-county selection and was named All-New Jersey honorable mention for the Falcons as a junior in 1987.
Throughout her childhood, Campion had made the short trip to New York City on many occasions with her family and had enjoyed her experiences while there. The opportunities that New York offered, coupled with a chance to play soccer and the academic tradition of the university, made choosing Columbia for college a no-brainer.
“I felt like there was so much more to see in New York and Columbia was a way to leverage that,” Campion says.
While at Columbia, Campion played three years of varsity soccer and earned a spot on the Seven Sisters Tournament First Team as a junior in 1990. Prior to the 1991 season, Campion was elected captain and helped the Lions to that historic win over the Quakers in the fall, a win that she recalls as the highlight of her athletic career.
“I remember it was Baker Blast weekend and everyone from my family was there, my parents, my grandfather, my sister,” Campion says. “It was a big deal for the team and a big deal for my family, who had never imagined celebrating anyone's first Ivy League win.”
Also a standout student, Campion was an Academic All-Ivy League selection as a junior and senior, and graduated with a degree in history from Columbia College in 1992.
Upon graduation, Campion took a job as an underwriter for a risk company. Then in 1997, Campion moved on to Lucent Technologies, a large telecommunications firm, and worked in the investor relations division, which was a “hybrid of finance and communications.” Campion was at the forefront of all merger activities, serving as the chief spokesperson for Lucent Technologies. During her time there, the company underwent tremendous growth and change, and ultimately merged with Alcatel in December of 2006. She was responsible for the initial merger announcement between the two companies and also provided expert public relations counseling for the senior-leadership team.
About a year after the merger, the chief financial officer of Pfizer gave Campion a call and offered her a job as the director of financial communications at the large pharmaceutical company. Campion took the position in 2007 and has been there ever since, now reporting to the worldwide communications group as it relates to finance and business developments.
Through it all, sport has played an integral role in her life. Campion has taken part in two New York City Marathons, in part because of her thirst to compete.
“Every year late in August, I get nostalgic about going back to campus early and actually missing double sessions,” Campion exclaims. “I actually miss it. And there were some years training for the marathon that almost felt like going back to school and doing double sessions. It fulfilled my needs.”
The lessons learned on the pitch in the decade-plus of playing soccer have also helped in the business world.
“I look at things from a team perspective now,” Campion says. “For example, at Pfizer I think of everything I do in relation to advancing Pfizer instead of advancing me personally. I always consider it a team effort.”
Campion has been active in giving back to Columbia, as the chair of the Varsity C women's soccer advisory committee, and influenced her family so much from her experience at the school that her younger sister, Katie, attended and graduated from Columbia in 2001.
Asked about being named one of the 25 most influential women during the Columbia-Barnard Consortium, Campion said, “I'm absolutely thrilled to have been named and it's one of the best honors I've ever received. Columbia meant a lot to me and athletics meant just as much. I look back and (my time at Columbia) was the best four years of my life.”
