Expanding Horizons Through Immersion: Finance in a New Light
When you hear the word “finance,” what is the first image that comes to mind? If you’re anything like me, you probably imagine a scene from your favorite Wall Street movie—bankers in sleek suits crunching numbers in a top floor board room. You probably don’t picture a 460,000 square foot production plant for pipe tool manufacturing in Elyria, Ohio.
This is exactly why our Finance Career and Industry Immersion Academy (CIIA) took a class trip this month to Ridgid Tool Company. The goal? To challenge our preconceived notions of a career in finance, opening our eyes to the breadth and depth of opportunities in the field.
During our visit, we had an opportunity to tour the Ridgid facility and connect with members of the leadership team including the Group President, Vice President of Finance, Director of Financial Planning & Analysis, and Plant Controller. These team members shared their career journeys and offered compelling insights on the role finance and strategy plays day-to-day, continuously adapting to challenges such as COVID, supply chain fluctuations, tariffs, mergers and acquisitions, and the variability of macro and micro economic factors.
The visit shed light on two messages that have been reiterated throughout our time at the Fisher MBA program and Finance CIIA. First, financial fluency is a universal skill in the field of business. Across every industry and in every firm, the financial health of the organization impacts its ability to succeed and add value. Second, the MBA program's approach to business is genuinely holistic. While this was positioned as a “finance trip,” I realized knowledge from other courses was deepening my understanding of the business and enhancing my experience. Walking around the plant floor, concepts like system layout, lead time, bottlenecks, and utilization of equipment – topics we discussed in our operations management class - clicked into place with new clarity.
I left Ridgid with a deeper appreciation for the way finance connects to strategy and operations, and with a renewed sense of excitement for the months ahead. Just one month into the program, it’s clear that Fisher is helping us to think more holistically, connect dots across disciplines, and discover new opportunities where we might not expect to find them.
