Coming to E-Dak, for me, meant leaving a comfortable “big-six” accounting position to work for a 30-person start-up. It was a tremendous gamble, but my choice came down to whether I wanted to continue performing repetitive audits or face new challenges at E-Dak Dynamics, and in the process help to change the world. Working for E-Dak places me at the epicenter of one of the world’s most dynamic industries: telecommunications/ networking.
Although I knew little about E- Dak’s domain of fiber-optics, I felt strongly that my fate rested in the renches of Silicon Valley, in an industry where only the paranoid survive, at a company with a business model in defiance of Moore’s Law. At the time the term ‘information superhighway’ hadn’t been coined yet, but it would soon become our driving focus, as data traffic over long-haul networks skyrocketed and the world’s telecommunications providers increased their investment in high-capacity fiber-optics.
With an innovative product line that provides pavement for the information highway, E-Dak quenches an unending and growing thirst for bandwidth. For me E-Dak has meant working at the fourth fastest growing company in Silicon Valley, with $500 thousand of revenue exploding to over $60 million in four short years. It has also meant playing a role in the information revolution. E-Dak gives me a broad business perspective. It’s relatively small size facilitates a close interaction with department heads.
If had I stayed in public accounting or gone to a larger corporation, I would not have earned the same breadth of experience, most likely being limited to working within a single division or with a handful of accounts. At E-Dak my scope encompasses all aspects of accounting and finance across the entire enterprise. My reports show the “big picture” and are used extensively by senior management as a map to chart company progress and plot future growth. A start-up firm gives me the opportunity to deal with a wide variety of issues.
From its infancy, I have had the chance to help shape E-Dak’s growth strategy. Once proving myself to management, I was given challenges beyond the realm of debits and credits, including managing a short-term investment portfolio, mplementing an information system, establishing a German joint venture, and financing a real estate deal. I derive much pleasure in overcoming each new challenge and cherish the knowledge and experience gained in each endeavor.
E-Dak has allowed me to develop working relationships with a premium community of finance and accounting professionals. I’ve gained insight into how accounting firm partners manage audit teams, how top-caliber investment bankers perform valuations, how banking officers approve funding requests, and how tax attorneys structure cross-border transactions. Additionally, the contacts I’ve made are invaluable to my career development. International exposure is imperative to success in today’s integrated global economy and I’ve also found it to be very enjoyable.
Enriching business travels with the CEO to Ireland, France, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, and China have allowed me to visit museums and other places of interest, to talk with locals, and to observe other cultures. My direct supervisor, the CEO of E-Dak, fosters a set of values that reflects a confidence in, concern for, and desire for open communication with me and every ther employee. In offering us new challenges she gives her staff the opportunity to professionally evolve.
If an employee is faced with financial difficulty, she assists them with personal funds. All of this encourages a sense of nurturing and belonging. E-Dak employees share the same vision, work as a team, and care for each other like family. A common downside of family controlled companies is the tendency toward nepotism. Employees learn to become wary of an “untouchable” group of staff and feel they must continually consider the political implications in dealing with them.
I applaud the good natured intentions of a business owner to aid relatives, but at some stage in the growth of an enterprise, nepotism needs to be restricted. At E-Dak, if I were promoted to senior management position, I would have accounting launch a new measurement program which, if effectively implemented, can give managers objective feedback on employee performance and subsequently, cultivate a new management culture. In a position of greater authority I would continue to address this issue by emphasizing a clear body of employee standards and measurements.