During the recent week, we had the privilege of hosting Aaron Holt in our Don Condon Speaker Series, titled “Journey to CFO”. Aaron is a longstanding member of our Advisory Board and the Executive Vice President – Chief Financial Officer at Hoffmaster Group, Inc. He graduated from the Nicholas Center’s first MBA class in 2000 and had the opportunity to share his career journey and post-graduation experiences from the Wisconsin School of Business with our MBA students.
Aaron grew up on a pig farm in Baraboo, WI and initially chose teaching as a career path. After graduating from Winona State University, he was a high school math teacher in Fort Atkinson, WI before obtaining his MBA degree at WSB. Today, Aaron is an accomplished finance executive with a wealth of experience spanning various leadership roles. Aaron spent over 19 years at SC Johnson where he climbed the ranks to Vice President of Global Product Supply & Global Business Services. In 2018, Aaron transitioned into the role of CFO at Campbell Soup Co, where he delivered financial leadership of the company’s Campbell Fresh turn-around, readying the business for sale and optimizing divestiture proceeds. Aaron also served as CFO at Feld Entertainment, overseeing treasury and tax and helped the company restructure during COVID. Aaron is currently serving as the Executive Vice President – CFO at Hoffmaster Group, Inc where he is responsible for financial leadership and strategic initiatives.
Aaron shared valuable insights into his career journey and encouraged students to leverage their finance knowledge and skills to develop a deep understanding of how a company makes money. He discussed the pivotal role that finance plays across key business processes and functions and stressed the importance of developing soft skills to be able to influence change. He underscored the significance of a CFO in establishing effective priorities and crafting a comprehensive finance strategy for an organization. Aaron highlighted how finance leaders can strategically navigate changes in organizational structure to contribute to the overall success of a company. Most importantly, he spoke about the importance of being not just a finance person but being a business partner.
Accompanying Aaron during the session was Alumnus Samuel Richards, (CFIB ’23), who interned at Hoffmaster during his MBA program, and then joined full-time as an Associate Finance Manager. Sam talked about how the MBA program helped him successfully switch careers and discussed some of the interesting projects he has been able to work on in his short time at Hoffmaster.
We extend our gratitude to both Aaron and Sam for returning to campus and graciously sharing their career advice to our students.
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