As a sophomore physics major at Duquesne University, David Christie began wondering where his degree would take him and if he would really enjoy a career in science.
About the same time, his mother opened her own tax and bookkeeping practice, and soon thereafter, Christie, seeing many more career options, switched his major to accounting.
“I changed my major and worked with my mother during the summers and school vacations,” Christie recalls. “That’s where I really came to enjoy the client service side of the accounting industry. I enjoyed visiting clients, learning about their businesses and providing an expertise they needed.”
The decision certainly paid off for Christie, who has served as CFO at Avon financial technology services provider COCC for the past 11 years.
COCC, which offers technology platforms to banks and credit unions, has about 380 employees and generates nearly $75 million in revenue.
As the firm’s CFO, Christie spends much of his time making decisions or action plans, providing or receiving an update on a project or situation, or providing coaching or guidance.
He also spends a great deal of time writing reports, studying financial information (analyzing financial trends for a presentation, or evaluating the profitability of a new product line or new client), and reviewing new sales or vendor contracts.
Christie is more than happy with his work, a passion he says comes from believing in something and feeling as though he is making a difference.
“I believe that everyone wants to work for a company that is the best at what they do,” Christie said. “And though we are not the biggest in our industry, I truly believe that we are the best.”
Due to COCC’s size, Christie’s role extends well beyond finance to include human resources, office services, internal communications and training, quality assurance, procurement, and contracts and vendor management. He believes these behind the scenes functions enhance COCC’s service partnerships and the client experience.
However, COCC’s smaller size also leads to growing pains.
“Soon into the tenure of our current executive management team, we came to the realization that business as usual was not going to be enough for COCC going forward,” Christie said. “Between the rising demands of the marketplace, downward price pressure and increased regulatory scrutiny, the keys to success were going to be different than they had been in the past. We needed to become a growing, profitable, performance driven organization.”
To get there, he said, COCC had to start with changing its culture.
In 2006, Christie was tasked with leading an effort to reinvent the company. That effort, known as Core Values was a yearlong project involving 15 to 20 employees from several departments. The ultimate goal was to identify and promote not only what made COCC successful, but also introduce new elements that would be necessary for the company to thrive over the long-term. The firm established a new internal brand, mission statement, vision statement, core values, and business priorities.
Christie said the internal branding project was not intended to, nor did it, lead to new product or geographic growth. Rather, it shifted the company’s culture to a performance-driven, results-oriented organization.
“The project took a couple years to get some traction before we started to see real change in our organization,” Christie said. “Once we did, we had our best year in our history in 2009 in terms of profitability, service levels, and product quality. Each year since has been better than the last, which means we have had five years in a row of having our best year. We attribute much of that success to the foundation laid by the Core Values project.”
As a result of its growth, COCC is in the midst of a nearly $14 million building project that will include a move of its Avon headquarters to a new office in Southington. The new building has required extensive renovations and Christie has been directly responsible for all phases of the project from needs assessment to purchase, renovation, outfitting, and ongoing facilities management.
“By the time we are done, our new corporate headquarters will represent the largest dollar investment COCC has ever made in a single project, and from the beginning, it has generated a high level of interest throughout the company,” Christie said. “Early on, we decided that we wanted this project to have transparency within our organization. To that end, we shared our initial plans with the staff, formed focus groups to get targeted feedback from across the company, have provided updates on progress, and continue to seek feedback on designs and decisions. That transparency has helped to engage our workforce and make everyone feel like they have been part of the process.”
Christie has been leading efforts in several other areas as well, including an overhaul of COCC’s sales and billing systems.
COCC President and CEO Rich Leone has known Christie (or “the little brother I never had” as he calls him) for nearly 25 years and hired him at COCC back in 2002. Always collaborating on accounting and business issues while bouncing ideas off one another, Leone said he has found Christie to be extremely competent, hardworking, well-spoken, and a shining example of COCC’s workplace culture.
“More than any other professional I have worked with, Dave has the great ability to be objective in his advice and decision making,” Leone said.
Nonprofit category: Paula Altieri, Hartford Public Schools
Public: Christopher Swift, The Hartford
Private (under 100 employees): John Tinnirella, First National Bank of Suffield
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