To Dale Ribaudo, senior vice president and CFO of FM Facility Maintenance, a Hartford comprehensive facilities management firm with annual revenue in excess of $300 million, the good news about being a CFO in today’s environment is that he’s involved in everything.
The bad news, Ribaudo says, is that he’s involved in everything.
“There’s not a lot of places that, as a CFO, I’m not involved in,” he said. “It’s really difficult to have an off day because your people are always seeking you out. And that’s good.’’
Ribaudo, who joined FM Facility in 2005, has experienced the role of CFO evolving over the years and is accustomed to making the necessary changes to grow with it.
After a start as a certified public accountant at then Price Waterhouse following his undergraduate years, Ribaudo went to work for Dexter Corp., then a $1.5 billion multinational company in Windsor Locks, where he spent the majority of his career in various finance-related roles including vice president, controller and treasurer.
“The CFO has to wear so many hats,” he said. “He or she must be well-versed in the traditional roles, whether it’s financial reporting and accounting, governance, financial planning and budgeting. In today’s dynamic environment, a CFO must be prepared well beyond this to lend support to the CEO and the rest of the senior management team in guiding and helping them manage the day-to-day business, and the long-term strategic issues.”
Seeking out top talent that possess these abilities and more, including a knowledge base capable of interacting with a company’s diverse departments — from information technology to operations, to sales, marketing and legal — is critical for a CFO and a company to succeed in today’s business world, he said.
“It goes without saying, that technical abilities are necessary. But, equally important, you’ve got to be an effective communicator and be able to demonstrate strong leadership qualities. They go hand in hand and are essential to seeing a company through the difficult times,” he explained
Having the right people in the right roles has helped FM Facility, a company heavily dependent on providing facilities services to the retail sector, weather challenging periods brought on by a difficult economy.
This includes the financial impact to the company of large, national customers including former Circuit City, Blockbuster and others over the past couple of years who have sought bankruptcy protection, or cut back on the kinds of services the company delivers.
The financial challenges that customers have faced have had a trickle-down effect on FM Facility, Ribaudo said, causing the company to rethink its business strategy and do some things differently, for instance, in the ways it negotiates with new customers and in the ways the company protects itself.
“The climate we’re in has certainly affected FM and made our jobs even more complex than even just a few years ago. We’ve learned a lot from those experiences and we’ve done so many things differently to protect ourselves and our shareholders from any unnecessary financial hardship,” he said.
FM President and CEO Jim Reavey calls Ribaudo a solid business partner and an important team member to the FM senior management team as they continue to grow, a “go to person who has also provided insightful thoughts, ideas and plans for areas of the business outside the financial arena,” he said.
A focus on attracting and retaining top talent is an important part of FM Facility’s strategy. The company does this, he explained, by paying particular attention to an employee’s career track, mentoring them and leading them so they can achieve what they hope to gain in a career, allowing the company to benefit long term through their expertise.
“We have a very strong retention rate here. But we look for people who not only can do the job today, but how they can grow in two or three years when the job and its requirements are part of a much bigger company,” he said.
It’s the ability to “put your thumbprint on something,” Ribaudo said, in an industry in which that can be fairly difficult to do, that gives him the greatest job satisfaction.
As a CFO, being able to be a part of a growing organization, one that he has helped mature and develop in just a few short years into what one day he hopes will be the industry leader, is both personally and professionally satisfying, he said.
“Through the collective efforts of a bunch of smart and motivated people, we’ve grown this company to now over 26 significant customers in excess of $300 million. In the next couple of years, we expect that to be over half a billion dollars and, within five years, with some acquisitions, to be a billion-dollar company.”
Name: Dale Ribaudo
Title: Senior vice president and CFO
Company: FM Facility Maintenance
Company headquarters: Hartford
Annual Revenue: over $300 million
Age: 53
Hometown: East Granby
Education/Credentials: B.S., accounting, Bentley College; CPA; Masters, finance, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Graduate, Executive Management Program at Williams College
