Back in 2020, the call that longtime General Electric veteran Ana Chadwick accepted from a recruiter would prove to be the one solicitation in a career’s worth of such outreaches that would ultimately result in an executive search fee.
Still, while Chadwick would be a prize placement for any headhunter, it is clear that this career segue for her would represent something significantly substantive both for the company that she would be joining and the one that she would be leaving behind.
“I knew that my time was getting close, so when the phone rang and it was a public company CFO position, I thought, ‘Let’s listen,’” Chadwick tells us, as she recounts the reasoning and circumstances that led her to accept a CFO position with historic brand Pitney Bowes (NYSE: PBI), the global mailing, shipping and logistics company that turned 103 this year. Now Read the Article on Forbes.com
Made Possible By
- Ana Chadwick discusses her career journey and how her network of people from her early days on forward played a crucial role in her success.
- She highlights her experiences at General Electric (GE), including training programs, travels, and insights gained during her tenure there.
- CFO Chadwick mentions the importance of data and transparency in finance, specifically in pricing and forecasting.
- She emphasizes the significance of having sponsors who are willing to support your career advancement rather than just mentors.
CFOTL: Tell us about Pitney Bowes … what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Chadwick: Pitney Bowes has historically been heavily invested in mailing, which can be differentiated from shipping. Mailing is more letters. The company was started as a producer of indicias, the little red-print postal imprints that are mass-produced by a meter. We were really all about the production of these mass stamps.
Read MoreAs we all know, everywhere in the United States and around the world, everybody wants to move to digital. These days, you don’t pay your credit card via a check that you put in an envelope with a stamp on it that then gets mailed. You get a digital statement, and you actually do a bank transfer. So, more and more, the mailing part of our house, as a market, has been shrinking. Having this problem challenge at hand—and realizing that we have a lot of subpieces to our business—created the impetus for a rise in our innovation. The idea was, “Hey, we’re good at mailing, so we can be good at shipping.”
There are certainly adjacencies. We have a strong relationship with the United States Postal Service that comes from having been the first to innovate around the postage meter, some 103 years ago. Today, we are here to solve the complexities of shipping and mailing. We provide technology, we offer financial services for implementing it, and we make available a complete suite of products for our customers.
Our company operates in a number of segments. We have our sending technology division. We presort first-class marketing mail and letters on behalf of the United States Postal Service. Among others, we have our fastest-growing component, global e-commerce, which is centered on parcel sorting. We use the USPS for last-mile delivery. We have seen a lot of good development in revenue growth happening here. Part of the transformation in which we now find ourselves involves making this revenue growth profitable. The ultimate goal here is really shareholder return. We’re heavily involved in this process and on that journey.
“Build your network and use technology to your advantage. Make an impression with every person you meet, stay connected, and surround yourself with people who will challenge and support you—and then pay it back twofold.” –Ana Chadwick, CFO, Pitney Bowes
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Pitney Bowes | www.pitneybowes.com | Stamford, CT