John Kiernan

Background

About John Kiernan

Unflappable CEO bringing lessons learned from Wall Street to improve company excellence and build global executive teams that thrive under pressure. After spending 12 years as an investment banker helping technology companies merge, I entered the corporate world focused on M&A, corporate development, treasury, and investor relations as a path to the CFO seat. Along the way, I learned the value of being fully prepared to my own reputation as well as to my productivity. I believe that every executive must consider themselves to be a salesperson first, so I developed a mindset to think like a customer and strive to deliver value that delights that customer. At the height of the Internet boom on Wall Street, I was offered capital by an IPO customer to create an early–stage investment bank, Alley Capital. This on–the–job training complemented my formal MBA education with practical business operations. I was then rehired at Bear Stearns as MD, Technology Investment Banking. Five years later, I was recruited into IBM, leading 4 engagements in the US and China. London-based Misys was in the midst of an aggressive turnaround and former IBM executives tapped me to join them in the restructuring, where I was ultimately held accountable for daily market valuations of the stock price, the key driver of executive compensation. Suffering from operational inefficiencies, high–leverage debt covenants, and overwhelmed Treasury managers post–bankruptcy, Global Crossing recruited me to engineer cash flow discipline and new global treasury policies and procedures. As Treasurer, I raised $1.1B in new capital. CFO of Greenwich Associates, I transformed an under–valued Finance Department, eliminating 5% from the expense base with no business disruption while achieving EBITDA targets and debt compliance ratios. I became a CFO of a public agriculture firm, Alico, and was named President and CEO in July, 2019. My degrees include a JD and MBA in Management, and I am a Certified Treasury Professional.