About this episode
When Keith Stauffer’s youngest son learned in grade school that his family would be moving to Singapore, he likely breathed a sigh of relief. After all, his older brothers had already lived in Spain and the United Kingdom, and it would have been only natural for the youngest Stauffer to feel that he had some catching up to do. “Although a lot of people hesitate on opportunities abroad because their kids are a certain age or are going into a certain grade, we have always taken sort of the opposite view,” comments dad Keith, whose finance resume is distinctive as much for its wealth of geographies as for its marquee brands. A quick glance down his resume reveals both: Singapore (Hershey); Spain, the United Kingdom (Dell); San Juan, Puerto Rico (Procter & Gamble). Stauffer reports that it was back in the early to mid-1990s, when he was a treasury analyst at P&G, that his hand shot up for the first time. “I was at the tail end of my first assignment out of college, and I had my eyes set at an opportunity in Puerto Rico,” recalls Stauffer, whose stint there would allow him to boost his Spanish language skills as well as add the title of Plant Finance Manager to his resume. As the late 1990s arrived, Stauffer received a call from a former P&G colleague who had recently joined Dell who convinced him that the computer maker’s future growth path was rich with career opportunities both at home and abroad. Stauffer would join Dell at its headquarters in Austin, Texas where he began as a finance manager inside the manufacturer’s enterprise customer organization before being named controller of the company’s fast-growing K–12 business. Still, his offshore itch resurfaced. “I was 3 to 4 years into my career at Dell when I heard that they were seeking a finance leader to run Spain and Portugal and shot up my hand,” comments Stauffer, who in short order became CFO of Dell’s Spain and Portugal operations. Looking back, he marks his years abroad with as many family milestones as career ones. Says Stauffer: ”My oldest son, who is now 21, was 1 year old when we moved to Spain, and my second son was later born in the UK.” –Jack Sweeney