489: The Elements of Transformation | Ted Myles, CFO, AMAG Pharmaceuticals

When Ted Myles is asked to reflect back on his early efforts to land a CFO role – he arguably sounds a little bit like a safe cracker: “Breaking into the c-suite that first time is always hard,” he explains. “I went in and would continue to get beat out by a sitting CFO,” says Myles, who comments: “Understandably – a board or a CEO is always going to look for someone who’s already proven in the seat.” Having to date successfully decoded the c-suite’s entry formula not once but four times – the CFO seat at AMAG Pharmaceuticals is today filled by a seasoned CFO, who is routinely raising the bar for himself as well as AMAG’s finance team. This past January – six days into the new year – AMAG preannounced its 2019 earnings at the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco – an energetic gathering where the bio pharmaceutical crowd traditionally kicks off the new year with some blatant chest beating. “Our accounting team had about six total calendar days to provide us with a tight fix on what the accounting numbers were,” recalls Myles. “Fast forward six weeks after we got through an audit and the numbers were pretty much exactly what we announced six weeks earlier, ” explains AMAG’s finance leader, while exhibiting a little extra pride in the biotech firm’s fast and accurate close capabilities. At AMAG, apparently, the ease with which numbers are accessed is as worthy of note as the numbers themselves. – Jack Sweeney NOW SUBSCRIBE: The Quarterly Digest of CFO Strategic Insight http://bit.ly/2Wfv291 (50 CFO Profiles Every Issue).