Leadership Q&A: Managing the Uncertainty of Change

Paul Saleh, CFO of Reston, Va.-based Sprint Nextel Corp., talks to Business Finance editor Donna Nabel about finance's role in a complex, rapidly changing industry and his part in the headline-grabbing merger.

Donna Nabel: In addition to finance and treasury, you gained experience in investor relations, strategic planning and operations at various points in your career. What did you learn that prepared you for the CFO position?

Paul Saleh: Each one of those opportunities provided a different level of skill sets. The investor relations position gave me an opportunity to communicate complex financial issues or strategic issues to the financial community and also provide feedback to senior management about reaction from the shareholder base. In strategic planning, certainly you have the ability to influence the long-term direction of the company, or at least understand the competitive landscape. In operations I gained the ability to work with the businesses, partnering with them and trying to develop creative solutions to operating needs.

DN: Before you joined Nextel, you worked for Disney. Did the switch from the entertainment industry to a telecom company cause you culture shock?

PS: Not really. Certainly the experience at Disney prepared me to deal with an environment that is constantly changing. That's part of the role today of finance executives: The environment around us is changing very rapidly,

regulations are changing and the

competitive landscape is rapidly evolving. As a result, we have to be very

adaptive and be able to react appropriately and in a timely way to all of the opportunities and the challenges that we face.

DN: So the finance function was similar in both of those industries?

PS: I think finance functions have key roles, whatever industry they serve. As a finance organization, you have the responsibility for providing financial analysis to help set corporate strategy for the organization. A finance function also is responsible for acting as a catalyst: to provide insight, to partner with the businesses in executing corporate strategy. There's the role of finance as a steward to protect and preserve the outfits of an organization, and finally, to operate -- as any function -- in an effective and efficient manner.

DN: How is globalization of the telecom industry changing the role of CFOs in that sector?

PS: A lot of the issues that we're dealing with in the telecom world have global implications. We're seeing a lot of consolidation at the supplier level. We're seeing consolidation in channels of distribution. We're seeing content already being transferred across the world and applications that become relevant in one market transfer to another, whether it's gaming coming from Asia or entertainment going from the U.S. elsewhere. It requires us to be much more attentive to what's happening in the rest of the world, just to borrow ideas that have enabled companies to be successful and transferring knowledge where that transfer can be to our competitive advantage.

DN: How does Sprint Nextel prepare future finance leaders?

PS: We have a systematic way of looking at talent. We have a development program where we identify some of our top performers. We talk about them in various settings, all the way to our board of directors. We have targeted assignments for them to make sure that they are acquiring a breadth of experience, whether it's operational or market-facing. We make sure that we provide them the right training and leadership skills that they need to be developing. We also make sure that they are able to perform at that level of expectation, because as you move up, many of those skills need to be sharpened. And the pace, particularly, and the intensity accelerate as those roles evolve.

DN: What leadership skills are particularly important for a CFO involved in a union such as the Sprint Nextel merger?

PS: A merger demands a lot of the leadership skills that are required in a normal CFO role, but they get to be tested even more so. The key role of anybody in senior leadership is creating an environment where people can do their work and do it effectively, where they can grow professionally and be proud of their roles and their accomplishments. But in a merger you're trying to achieve that at a time when people are very concerned about their jobs and their reporting lines.

As a CFO, you're required very quickly to clarify the vision of the company and to help clarify the role and mission of the finance organization in support of that vision. Because early on in any merger, it is important to set the right priorities and make sure that everybody is aligned with a strategy.

And then you move on to the organizational integration and design to facilitate the execution of those strategies. In an environment where the market expects very quick synergies, the speed of decision-making becomes critical. The operational excellence and the mindset that you have to bring to execute those priorities require particular attention.

DN: Does anything specific stand out that was more difficult to deal with in that merger situation?

PS: Any merger is typically quite disruptive, even though two very well-run companies are coming together. We had different customer segments that we were particularly strong at, separately. We had different channels of distribution and different practices for getting things done. We also had to acquire some of the Sprint affiliates, about six of them, while at the same time spinning off a business to reposition the new company on the fastest-growing segment of the market. Integrating all of these was challenging.

DN: You're a director on the board of the nonprofit Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. What have you learned from the workings of such a venerable cultural institution?

PS: I would say the importance of diversity -- diversity of thought, diversity of background, the importance of being good listeners, to hear different perspectives and to realize that there are various ways to arrive at a particular outcome. And as long as you keep that in perspective, you realize that you'd be missing a significant opportunity if you did not solicit and nurture diversity in any setting.