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Nancy E. Cooper

Focusing on Execution

Editors’ Note

Nancy Cooper has nearly 30 years of finance experience, most recently serving as Chief Financial Officer for IMS Health Incorporated, the world’s leading provider of market intelligence to the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. In 1998, she served as a partner responsible for finance and administration at General Atlantic Partners, a private equity firm focused on software and services investments. From 1976 to 1998, Cooper held positions of increasing responsibility at IBM, including CFO of the Global Industries Division, Assistant Corporate Controller, and Controller and Treasurer of IBM Credit Corporation. She holds a BA degree in economics and political science from Bucknell University and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration.

Company Brief

Founded in 1976, CA (www.ca.com) is one of the world’s largest IT management software providers, with its global headquarters in the United States and 150 offices in more than 45 countries. The company’s more than 5,800 developers create and deliver IT management software for the majority of Fortune 1,000 companies, as well as government organizations, educational institutions, and thousands of other companies in diverse industries worldwide.

You have been a Chief Financial Officer for much of your career. How has the role changed over the years?

Over the last 30 years, the role of the CFO has changed a great deal. When I started out, it was more oriented toward accounting. Now, it’s about integrating an enormous amount of complex information in order to enable better decision making. Intrinsically, the role of the CFO is to help inform decision making from a financial bias. So everything you do, whether it’s to do with treasury, tax, financial planning, or accounting, you do with that objective.

How closely do you get involved with the different business unit leaders?

I am very involved with all of the business units. If you’re not close to your business units, you will inevitably miss the nuances of performance. I aim to get very close, in order to understand the key metrics that show whether a performance is good or bad. These metrics vary around the world, and from business unit to business unit. It’s very important for me to understand those differences, so I travel to the different geographies and I spend a lot of time on our products. Determining the direction of the company is a key element of my job.

When you joined CA in August 2006, the company had gone through some challenging times. What excited you about the opportunity, and has it been what you expected?

I’ve known [CA President and CEO] John Swainson for quite a long period of time, and I knew he had a proven track record. That attracted me. I also looked at the space CA was going after – enterprise IT management – and I recognized it to be a profoundly good space with great opportunity. So even though the company had had its problems and needed a lot of streamlining of processes and changes, we had an opportunity that was good enough to go after, and we had cash that allowed us to go after that opportunity.

Since then, we exceeded our outlook for 2006 and today there is a real sense that the company has changed, and people including employees believe that we can do this. We’re now focusing on execution, and we’re putting the past behind us.

You mentioned John Swainson’s leadership. Generally speaking, does there need to be collaboration between the CEO and the CFO in order for a company to succeed?

Absolutely. The roles of the CFO and the CEO are very close. The CEO determines the strategy, and where the company is heading, and the CFO makes sure the company makes the right trade-offs to get there.

In your market, the products and services offered by companies sound very similar. Is it hard to differentiate in this space?

No, you can definitely differentiate in our market. Everybody has their strengths and weaknesses. The nice thing about CA is that we don’t have a hardware component. That’s a good thing, because it means we can concentrate on software and not have to be concerned about a hardware sale. We support everybody. There are always going to be niche players with whom we have to compete. But we definitely have the products, solutions, and strategy to win in the marketplace.

Yours is a global business. How important is it for you to have similar messaging around the world? Do you aim to have seamless branding from one market to the next?

As a software company, we consider our product to be the same all around the world. Granted, we have to make it accessible in different languages, but the product itself is the same. This is a great leverage point for the company in terms of branding. One of the changes we have made recently is to bring consistency to the brand and how it’s used. We now consider our brand to be one of our strengths.

Do you feel the company has been successful in attracting and retaining the talent you need to succeed? Is there a good understanding about the opportunities that exist in your industry?

Let’s put it this way: A large portion of our cost structure is people. Ultimately, it’s our people who are going to make the difference between us making it or not. So employee development is critical for our company. Granted, the last couple of years were challenging because the company was going through constant changes. But, once we began turning things around, employees became proud of their company again. Employees now believe we will accomplish what we say we’re going to accomplish, and we’re supporting that with various development programs. That is working pretty well.

Your role demands a great deal of commitment, of both time and energy. How do you find the right work/life balance?

If you’re going to have a job like this, you’re going to work really hard. So you really have to like what you’re doing, and you have to like the people you’re working with. I find technology to be tremendously useful, as it gives me a lot of flexibility.