Leveraging over 30 years of experience in finance, Mike manages the financial actions of the company in support of its strategic initiatives and growth plan.
As Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mike focuses heavily on cash flow planning, ensuring that Raistone is careful with its spending so that it can maintain a robust financial position. He is particularly pleased that, as of mid-2023, Raistone has generated cash equivalent to the total equity invested in the company, and that the company is well-funded as we tackle the challenges of the business heading into 2024.
Along with overseeing day-to-day financial responsibilities such as paying wages and vendors, reporting on the company’s financial position for management and the shareholders, and managing the broader finance team, he also likes to get into the details of Raistone’s financial forecasting.
“Raistone has a large financial model that incorporates our major programs and growth initiatives, upon which we build out the financial plan for the next five years,” Mike shares. “This plan covers what we expect and can afford to do, and serves as the foundation for discussion of strategic opportunities with the board and potential business partners.”
After starting out as an engineer in Canada, he shifted his focus to finance through his studies at the London Business School. While in the program, Mike worked on a project for automotive finance which led to a position in General Motor’s finance department. This ultimately brought Mike to Wall Street, where he led the automotive equity research team at Prudential Securities.
Later in his career, while Treasurer of Turner Construction, Mike met future Raistone CEO Dave Skirzenski who was employed at a working capital fintech. A Supply Chain Finance program for subcontractors had never been done before in construction, and together they implemented a groundbreaking Supply Chain Finance solution for Turner Construction and the construction industry. This was Mike’s springboard into Raistone.
“When I joined Raistone in early 2019 there were only a handful of employees, so it was crucial that everyone pitched in on tasks that were not in their job description,” he says. “Even now with over 115 employees, I am thrilled that this attitude persists — our people are always willing to do whatever has to be done to solve problems, get things accomplished and grow the business.”
One of Mike’s non-conventional CFO roles at Raistone is leading the construction initiative. He notes that the construction industry is always starved for cash. A construction company can be a profitable business, but still run out of cash and go bankrupt due to the timing of payments. This is where Raistone can help.
“Raistone recognizes the cash flow pressure that the construction industry faces. With our proprietary risk scoring and working capital solutions, we’ve found ways to alleviate this issue for subcontractors. The general contractors benefit by reducing their risk while attracting more bids to their projects which in turn makes the project pricing more competitive,” he shares.
When Mike is not working as the Raistone CFO, he loves driving his convertible and staying active. He is an enthusiastic cyclist, plays ice hockey with his son, enjoys dinghy sailing and plays tennis with his wife.
