SVP, Global Operations, GE
Shane Fitzsimons reckons he flies 100,000 miles every quarter – “that’s like travelling from London to New York ten times a month. It’s amazing how your perception changes of what ‘far’ is when you’re in a job like this.”
His travel schedule is understandable when you discover that his job as CFO for Global Growth and Operations for GE – one of the largest companies in the world – requires him to lead a team of 4,000 in 75 different countries stretching from Asia to the Middle East and Africa to Latin America. He held this post for almost three years, before being promoted to lead the group as senior vice president in November 2013.
It’s a far cry from his plans in the late 1980s when he was training as a Chartered Accountant at his father’s accountancy practice in Cork, Ireland. “As the eldest child I kind of expected I’d end up managing the practice and staying there – so, yes, things have ended up slightly differently. But there again, anything I’ve thought would happen in my career generally hasn’t – which is why I rarely worry about what happens next.”
Overseas opportunity
But it was during his training – encouraged by a father who believed practice accountants still needed industry experience – that he got his first opportunity to work overseas. When a European exchange programme for accountancy students was struggling to fill places, Shane offered to take up one position, at Coopers & Lybrand in the Netherlands, for six months.
Six months at Coopers & Lybrand turned into four years. Then when an acquaintance in the Netherlands mentioned she was leaving her job at GE to return to Canada, he was invited to take a look at the role. His broad industry experience secured him the position, beginning a rich career at GE Plastics starting in general accountancy, then moving to financial planning and analysis and into commercial finance.
Eager to further his career at GE, Shane recognised he would need to spend time in the US. A business analyst role at GE’s corporate headquarters in Fairfield, Connecticut, secured his position within the company’s executive ranks. After a stint in the company’s aviation division in Cincinnati, he returned to Fairfield in 2004 to take up a position as Vice President for Corporate Financial Planning and Analysis.
A way of thinking
GE’s breadth of activities is huge – spanning energy, healthcare, technology, transportation and finance – but Shane has never been fazed by this. “The biggest difference is short-cycle or flow businesses versus long-cycle big equipment businesses, plus also equipment versus service businesses. So you do end up with different financial models in terms of how each business operates. But otherwise finance is pretty fungible – certainly in terms of skillset because it’s a way of thinking as much as anything else.”
Chartered Accountancy, he says, has definitely played a role in enabling him to manage this variety of activities: “My Chartered Accountancy training ensured I am very strong technically, plus it provides a pretty good understanding of tax, treasury, financial systems and so on. As a Chartered Accountant, I’ve always been able to rely on my technical accounting skills and then combine that with my operational and commercial instincts.”
It was in 2011 that he was invited to become CFO for the company’s new Global Growth and Operations Group – tasked with overseeing financial activities throughout GE’s non-US markets. The role meant relocating to Hong Kong to put him at the heart of the company’s fastest-growing territories. “Fifty percent of the world’s population live within a six-hour flight of Hong Kong so it makes complete sense to be there. Effectively we had to create our team from scratch, which was a fantastic challenge.”
His role has two aspects: ‘growth’ and ‘simplification’. On the growth side, he and financing teams across the globe work with GE’s commercial team to support sales and project financing efforts, helping customers to find competitive financing for large-scale projects from building turbines to airplanes.
Simplification refers to GE’s shared service model which aims to lower the cost of execution and optimise operational efficiency. “The simplification journey has been a huge part of the role,” says Shane. “Given that we had conducted over 400 M&A transactions and entered new markets and territories, there was a huge opportunity to take a fresh look at our processes and see if we could do more to make our approach effective and efficient. So we’ve worked with teams in corporate in the US, and across the different businesses, to redesign enterprise standards and to develop an implementation plan which we are in the process of executing right now.”
Being visible
Non-US markets account for 60% of GE’s industrial revenues – and keeping on top of such a vast remit across so many markets is a skill in itself. “You recognise pretty early on that transactions happen at a country level not a regional level and so you need to be very good on the ground in each country in which you operate, which means hiring good senior people to be there. Also, as a leader, you have to recognise that you can’t be everywhere but you do need to be very visible. You have to be able to manage your team from the road and you almost have to over-communicate. People have to know what you’re doing – because if they don’t, they’ll make their own assumptions.”
To manage communication, Shane’s team has its own internal blog which is followed by 3,000 people across GE: “It means everyone in the team gets to hear everything at the same time – plus teams back in the US can see what’s happening in our growth markets.”
It’s been more than 20 years since Shane left Ireland but living internationally hasn’t been a huge challenge. “The hardest thing to deal with is the disruption to your children’s education – everything else is very manageable. But if you asked me where’s home, it’s hard to say: Deirdre and I would both say Ireland, our kids would probably say the US.”
Small and connected
Twenty-two years on, working for GE continues to inspire him. “The things I really like about GE are the people, the way it operates and all the great support you get from senior management. It’s a huge company with over 300,000 employees worldwide, but it feels small and connected. Plus the company keeps investing in you, no matter how senior you are. So for example, in each of the last two years I’ve been able to take a week out for training and development in areas like leadership explorations, and that continues to improve how I approach things.”
GE also strongly supports Chartered Accountants, running training-in-industry programmes in markets including Canada and India. Plenty of Chartered Accountants can be found across GE. “We once counted how many Chartered Accountants there are at GE and it was a big number,” says Shane. “The combination of the qualification and the experience that goes with it makes Chartered Accountants very attractive to us.”
And like his father before him, he’s convinced that it’s experience that can give a Chartered Accountant an edge. “The theoretical side of things is great but it’s balancing that with practical work experience while you are studying that makes Chartered Accountancy training relevant.”
Ultimately, he says, one of GE’s biggest strengths is its ability to develop operational finance leaders. “Here talent will start on the financial management programme, join the corporate audit staff, spend some time in finance and then move onto something more operational. Our finance people aren’t in a backroom – they are out there, understanding different markets and getting transactions done. That’s the secret of success.”
