Organizational Leadership with Mike Jokerst

Mike Jokerst, founder and president of CFO Leadership, LLC, is a CPA, business executive and entrepreneur who has held leadership roles in finance, operations, and accounting for over 25 years. Mike has a strong track record of helping organizations deliver superior financial results and leading projects and processes that improve business performance.   His success is attributable to a focus on long-term value creation by building engaged, high performing teams, improving processes in a sustainable manner, and collaborating with the business.  He also brings exceptional organizational leadership and analytic capabilities to help solve tough business challenges.

He served Nationwide Insurance for 16 years in various roles, including CFO of its shared service company and vice president of enterprise-wide sourcing and supplier management.   Additionally, he co-founded an educational publishing company and worked with several small businesses as General Manager, CFO, Controller, and in advisory capacities.  He began his career with KPMG, a big four accounting firm. 

Specific areas of organizational leadership

View Mike’s LinkedIn profile to read additional information and recommendations. http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljokerst

Relevant accomplishments

1. Led a cross-functional program to reduce expenses and improve profit for $14 billion, 23,000 employee, diversified insurance operation.  Drove cost reductions to achieve $160 million annual savings, principally through process improvements, structural reviews, and demand management.
   
   
2. Played an instrumental role on governing bodies for Finance and IT enterprise-wide organizational transformations.  Both initiatives impacted people, organizational structure, processes and technology.   With each initiative, led selected initiatives to drive improvement in sourcing and financial management processes.   Key results included:
   
   
• Increase in annual savings (5X) from new sourcing capabilities, enhancement of talent, and more effective business relationships and governance.
• Lower unit cost while remaining focused on improved service and delivery of important projects.  
• Better project prioritization through assessment of financial returns, strategic alignment, and risk of delivery.
• Consistent information for decision-making.
  
  
3. Led the continuous improvement of internal product /service pricing and billing processes.  Our team received 2005 IT Financial Management Excellence Award for Best IT Chargeback and Pricing Structure by the International Quality and Productivity Center.
   
   
4. Provided finance leadership for start-up Shared Services Company (IT, Human Resources, Print, Supply Management, and Real Estate).    Built and led new processes for financial reporting, budget and control, balanced scorecard, benchmarking, product/service rate management, billing, and demand management.
   
   
5. Initiated and developed activity-based cost management capabilities and system to improve understanding of cost drivers.  This initiative gave business unit leaders enhanced information on the overall cost structures and facilitated department manager efforts to address cost drivers and non-value added activities.
   
   
6. Led large scale project to implement Securities and Accounting system.  Fix-it role over a project that was in trouble.  Recommended alternatives, selected new vendor, drove resolution of key issues and achieved target dates for system implementation.
   
   
7. Recommended by regulator to serve as CFO for small, troubled insurance company.  Stabilized financial operations, managed banking and regulatory relationships, and helped negotiate sale to resolve the diverse interests of regulators, debtor, and principal shareholder.
   
   
8. Organizational Leadership drove market share to #1 position for automobile dealer in metropolitan area while improving profitability.  Focus areas included merchandising, inventory management, advertising, sales force effectiveness, compensation, and new product offerings. 

Education, training, and certifications

1. Bachelors of Science in Business Administration, major in accounting (cum laude) from The Ohio State University.
   
   
2. Certified Public Accountant (CPA)
   
   
3. Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU)
   
   
4. Professional development includes computer audit specialist (KPMG), leadership and executive development (Nationwide), and continuing professional education to support active CPA licensing (120 hours in most recent three years).