Vincent Digiovanna and Sherie Peacock-Flohr

Budget, Financial Planning and Analysis
Start Dates: February 20, 2023 and November 29, 2022 (respectively)

Having spent most of his childhood in Suffolk County, Vincent Digiovanna felt like he was ‘coming back home’ when he got the job he’s always dreamed of at Stony Brook University. Sherie Peacock-Flohr literally traveled across the world – from Australia! – to come live and work here. Vincent and Sherie both feel at home now on campus, doing work they value, in an environment they love, with caring friends and colleagues all around. 

Meet the two newest members of the close-knit Budget, Financial Planning and Analysis (BFP&A) team – the people who help schools, colleges and departments across the University develop their budget plans and meet their goals within the broader context of helping ensure the long-term financial health and well-being of SBU.

Vincent Digiovanna
Senior Financial Analyst

Like several new colleagues we’ve highlighted, Vincent Digiovanna ‘kept his eyes out’ for opportunities at Stony Brook when he was looking for the right career opportunity in the ideal location.

“I didn’t get here for college, but thankfully I got here now. I couldn’t think of a better place to be than Stony Brook and so when I saw a job that matched my skills on LinkedIn, I was so happy to pursue and get it.”

Born in Queens, NY then moving to Suffolk as a young boy, Vincent has lived in Smithtown for about the past two decades. He says he was more than happy to give up his long commute to downtown New York City working as a financial analyst for Goldman Sachs. But he was equally excited to move into a position that involves strategically managing resources with an eye on the ‘bigger picture.’ With internal clients in areas from Athletics and Student Affairs, his responsibilities run the gamut from helping them ‘sense check’ their budget decisions, account for their expenses, input information into the University’s online budget management system and decipher analytics, to executing on their strategies and staying on track to meet their goals. Also potentially reassessing budget decisions to be more in line with the University’s overall financial strategies.

While he started out pursuing Accounting up at SUNY Cortland, Vincent soon realized that economics and finance were more his passion. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do at first, but then I was hooked. I liked the concept of managing money and knowing the health of a business. If accounting reflects an organization’s financial health, economics and finance are the blood flowing through the system to get to that state.”

Beyond the job itself, Vincent loves the people he works with and the campus environment. “It’s friendly, lively and there’s such a strong sense of community. I share the University's values and I’m with people I want to work with. I also love checking out all the different food venues and just being around all the fun and exciting campus happenings.

Vincent – who enjoys basketball, working out, music and sci-fi movies – also shares that he comes from a tight-knit, old-world Italian family, with his dad from Sicily, mom’s family from Naples and grandparents often on the scene. Home for him, he says, will always be Suffolk County: “I’d love to live out here the rest of my life.”

Sherie Peacock-Flohr
Budget/Office Coordinator

Sherie Peacock-Flohr came to America in 2019 after meeting her now-husband playing online video games across continents. “He was from Long Island and I lived in Victoria, near Melbourne, Australia. We became good friends online before he came to visit me, then I came here to live and work. We had our wedding last year and live in Holtsville now.”

Coming to SBU following a stint at a media company in Ronkonkoma, Sherie is new to the University environment. In this new role, she is the glue of BFP&A, coordinating logistics and making sure team members are engaged. “The team is fantastic and always a great help and support system, no matter what."

Sherie also enjoys her day-to-day responsibilities, which include monitoring and scheduling meetings for the BFP&A office staff; coordinating travel arrangements; preparing, tracking and processing commitment approval forms; and supporting the maintenance of transaction logs and utility transactions. She says, “anything office-related, that helps the office run and the people do their jobs best, is what I try to do.”

While she misses home, she likes it here and she and her husband are expecting their first child in September. And while she grew up “watching a lot of American culture on TV,” little things continue to surprise her. “I didn’t realize the school buses really are yellow here. And little things like the size of gym lockers – they really are so big and I don’t know why.”