Pioneer PressPosted on Sun, Dec. 04, 2005
Mover: Curt Petersen
What is your new title? Seniorvice president, chief financial officer, CSM Corp., Minneapolis.
What are your duties? Organizationally, I am responsible for the accounting and finance groups and for information technology. In terms of outcomes, I am responsible for providing fast, reliable and economical information in support of the company's long-term interests, for managing capital resources and for strategies that increase investment returns.
Did you choose this field or did the field choose you? A little of both. While in college sampling business school courses, I did well in accounting. It was a field that offered more opportunity, so I made it my major. Since school, I've had responsibilities that took me outside of accounting, but I have always gravitated back.
Describe a challenge and how you overcame it. A recurring challenge has been managing departments or activities outside of my professional experience. I try to adapt a simple model to the function: Identify what service it provides and to whom; understand the cost to provide that service; and determine a means to assess the quality of the service against internal and external standards. If you can measure these three elements, you can address performance issues and help the function relate well to the rest of the organization.
