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When James Cannon joined Flir Systems as its chief executive in June 2017, he immediately stated that making the company more diverse was a key goal. Five months later, he hired Carol Lowe to be Flir’s new CFO.
Lowe herself embraces diversity and believes becoming a high-ranking woman in a male-dominated industry - industrial technology - was an important step.
But she also stresses she’d never want to be a management team’s “token female.” She prefers to emphasize another quality that appealed to Cannon: her years of experience with Lean manufacturing and driving continuous operational improvement. In addition to two prior CFO posts, Lowe has twice served in divisional president roles.
The company had been performing well from a financial standpoint, but it was clear to Cannon that it was nowhere near a state of optimal efficiency, according to Lowe. Among her first initiatives at Flir was to begin planning for a launch of Lean methodologies in the first quarter of 2018.
Having wrapped up her first year on the job, Lowe says the effort to jack up efficiency “is just now starting to get its legs.”
Flir manufactures and distributes thermal imaging systems and other technologies that detect people, objects, and substances that may not be perceived by human senses. A third of its business is defense-contractor work.
In its most recent fiscal year, the company’s top line was $1.8 billion - not paltry, but far below the approximately $7 billion business she oversaw in her previous role as CFO at Sealed Air Corp.
Change is a key theme at Flir these days. In addition to the operational rejiggering, every senior executive in the company has either joined it or been assigned to a new role within the past 18 months.
Lowe recently spoke with CFO about her transition to Flir, the company’s strategies, and its implementation of Lean. An edited version of the discussion follows.
Why did you move down the company-size scale by coming to Flir?
Compensation usually correlates to revenue, but Jim tells people that he “paid up” for me...