Title: Retired CFO and entrepreneur, author and speaker
Company: John H. Ramsey, LLC
Length of FEI membership: 10 years
Work email: [email protected]
Work phone number: (941) 323-9609
Tell us a little bit about your career, educational/professional background and how you got to where you are today.
I’ve been a Senior Business Executive and a Management Consultant for over
40 years and am currently writing a book titled You, the Money, and the Principal of the Thing: What you must do to fix your Federal Government.
I started my career as an Officer in the Air Force, during which time I directed a major analysis of return on investment and progress payments for the Defense Department’s Industry Advisory Council.
Following my time in the Air Force, I held various executive positions in finance, including CFO of a large California food manufacturing company, EVP and CFO of a diversified mid-western financial services company, EVP and COO of a multi-state mortgage corporation and Director of a commercial bank.
I later went on to serve as an adjunct Management Consultant with two large Florida community foundations, providing consulting services to nonprofits along the Florida Gulf Coast. Most recently, I was a founding shareholder for a global management consulting firm, where I served as the first Chairman and helped grow the organization to approximately 100 consultants in 34 offices in 21 countries worldwide.
What is one piece of information you wish someone had told you when you first started your finance career?
It is always about selling and leadership. The financial person has the information. To be effective one needs to sell/advocate the ideas that information produces.
What do you love most about working as a financial executive?
It is the perfect combination of strategy and detail.
What is your best networking tip?
Show up. It was Woody Allen, I think, who said “90% of life is showing up.”
What are some of your personal hobbies outside of finance?
Politics, and in the last few years, American history.