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numbers. “I think people take their responsibility
seriously if you raise the bar for them,” he says.
Rowan believes that it is up to the CFO to be the
truth teller. If senior leadership or a board of directors
is making powerful arguments for a course that seems
dangerous or wrong, the CFO’s role is to “present
the information, the numbers, the data in a way that
portrays the realities of how the business is doing and
where it’s going.” He speaks of bringing people to “see
the story that is in the numbers,” and cites Jim Collins,
whose book
Good to Great
advocates “facing the brutal
reality” in order to make the hard decisions that ulti-
mately make good companies great.
Making Hard Choices
At a previous job, Rowan was running a startup in South
America (he has done three startups and three turn-
arounds in his career). is was the only job he has had
at which he was not successful and it clearly bothers him
that he was not able to save the business. It was a “mas-
sive startup where we raised $2.5 billion and hired 4,000
people in two years to build a communications system
in Brazil.” For many reasons, the company foundered,
requiring him to move to Brazil and in the role of CEO
lay o 1,500 of the workers. “It was by far the hardest
thing I’ve had to do professionally.”
In these times when most companies are not ap-
praised primarily for the products and services they
provide but as investment opportunities, CFOs fre-
quently have to argue for reduced headcount. So how
would he reconcile that reality with his understanding
of business as contributing to a be er society? Rowan
says that in his Brazil disaster, he came to realize that
it was the time for drastic action, without which the
company was going to go bankrupt, “so I viewed my
job there as saving 2,500 jobs as much as eliminating
1,500.” Additionally, he says, the layo s were handled
with sensitivity, and the workers who were let go were
o ered an outplacement service to try to get back into
the workforce. “We tried to be sensitive to the people
and to treat them with the dignity they deserved.”
When a company needs shoring up and hard choices
have to be made, he says, “that work is not fun, but
there is a sense of satisfaction at the end of the day
from doing what I believe is the
right thing.” He also nds solace
in “accomplishing signi cant
results with people I enjoy and
respect …Not doing it alone
[but] being connected with
other people as we have to
make the inevitable challenging
choices in these senior leader-
ship roles.”
Guiding and Mentoring Others
Early in Rowan’s career, he struggled to nd a sense of
what his life and his work meant. He admits that if he
hadn’t been able to come to an understanding of what he
was doing in life and why he was doing it, an understand-
ing that brought meaning to his work, he would have quit
corporate America. “It was too painful to me not to be
able to make those connections about purpose.”
He believes that a company has a role in helping
employees who are wrestling with the question of
what they should be doing and whether what they’re
doing really ma ers. Vonage has a mentoring pro-
gram, and Rowan has spoken at town hall meetings
and recently spoke to employees at a brown bag
lunch about “connecting our heads and our hearts.”
He enjoys investing in the younger generation, both
inside and outside the company.
“I don’t call these mentoring relationships but
holistic friendships,” he says, because mentoring
implies that it is a connection that goes in one direction
and “I get at least as much from those relationships as
the young people get from me.” Tied to this reluctance
is his belief that he is still learning about life and grow-
ing in understanding.
roughout his years of corporate life, Barry Rowan
has pursued answers to existential questions. One of
the most exciting realizations he has had is relevant for
all of us: that satisfaction and joy can be derived from
“using our careers to shape society [even as we are]
being shaped by our careers.” Connecting his work
boosting the value of an asset to his e orts ameliorating
the lives of people in poorer areas is a signi cant step,
but only one of many on his life’s journey.
✣
m
any people wrestle with
the question of finding
meaning in their work.
Some people do this at a young
age and resolve it; others do it in
middle age and change careers.
Barry Rowan took a “purposeful
pause” that lasted three years
and to date has written some
6,000 pages in a journal as he
tried to “learn his way through
life” and understand what pur-
pose he could find through work.
He ultimately realized that
if he flipped the question, and
looked at work from the inside
out, not the outside in, the an-
swer became evident. He realized
that we don’t gain meaning from
our jobs, we bring meaning to
our jobs. Instead of “we are what
we do,” the right way to look at
it, he saw, is: “What we do is an
expression of who we are.”
Out of this insight came “a
completely transformed way of
seeing our work.” In his new
view, the fundamental purpose
of business is to serve society,
which it does: Through respon-
sible value creation, by delivering
on the promises business makes
to its customers every day, by
creating an environment for
employees that enables them to
grow into the full expression of
themselves, and through being a
valued corporate citizen.
Now, he finds joy through his
work. He says, “If we know why
we’re doing what we’re doing, it
becomes a lot more fun.”
How Business
Serves Society
“
I THINK PEOPLE TAKE THEIR RESPONSIBILITY
SERIOUSLY IF YOU RAISE THE
BAR FOR THEM.
”