Michael Riccio has always been a “big picture” kind of guy, and as CFO of Panasonic Corp. of North America — the first non-Japanese executive to hold that position — he gets to satisfy his thirst for knowledge every day.

“We used to provide products, but increasingly we’re focusing on end-to-end business, solar, and other solutions,” says Riccio, who’s been with the Newark-based company — a key component of the Fortune Global 100 firm Panasonic Corporation — since 1986.

“In this phase I’m acting as a change-management leader, reorienting Panasonic from its former vertical product alignment to a horizontal development scope that’s appropriate for the new direction of the company.”

The most exciting part of being a CFO is getting involved in every aspect of the business, he adds.

“As a member of the management team here, I’ve been engaged in a wide variety of financial, operational, and strategic activities, including our 2013 move from Secaucus to Newark. Every day is a fresh one here.”

A Bergen County resident who earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Rutgers–Newark, Riccio served as the company’s vice president and controller before being promoted to CFO in February 2013. Early on, though, he set his eyes on that spot.

“Two of my uncles were CPAs at the then-Big Eight accounting firms — they later went on to become controllers at other firms — and they had a lot of influence on me,” he recalls. “I could see that they both enjoyed their work and were challenged by it, so I formally declared for an accounting major in my junior year at Rutgers.”

But Riccio has a competitive streak, and devised a long-range plan to one day become a CFO. It involved a series of stepping-stones.

The first was to get past the CPA exam, which he nailed right after earning his BA; the second was to get a position at a CPA firm, so he could get solid experience in the business world. The third involved getting an MBA, which he accomplished while holding down a full-time job.

“I was picky about joining a CPA firm,” he says. “I had a chance to join a Big Eight firm, but I was concerned about getting pigeonholed into a set of narrow responsibilities. On the other hand, a small firm wouldn’t give me the national and international exposure I wanted.”

Riccio found a perfect match with J.H. Cohn, a Roseland-based accounting-consulting firm, now known as CohnReznick, which is currently ranked as the 11th largest CPA firm in the United States, according to Accounting Today.

“I was involved, on a hands-on basis, in audit, tax, SEC filings, manufacturing, and other matters, like service and distribution companies, that helped me to develop an end-to-end view of business processes.”

He left J.H. Cohn in 1983 to join Sealed Air Corp. — the Elmwood Park, NJ–based manufacturer of Bubble Wrap cushioning and other products — as corporate accounting manager. It turned out to be a key stepping-stone to Panasonic.

“Sealed Air solidified my exposure to manufacturing,” he recalls. “It also reinforced my project development and project leadership skills.”

Riccio’s perspective evolved as he became a high-level insider at Sealed Air and then at Panasonic. His responsibilities were more hands-on as he helped to develop and implement strategies.

“Today at Panasonic that approach is part of my close relationship with our CEO, Joseph M. Taylor,” says Riccio. “He sets the strategic direction for the region, based on the parent company directives, and then I’m responsible for ensuring that the systems, infrastructure, and funding are there.”

It’s clear that Riccio, who enjoys challenges, has met and overcome more than his share during his brief tenure as CFO.

Relocation Strategies

One recent assignment involved Panasonic Corporation of North America’s decision to relocate from its longtime Secaucus site to a more modern, ecologically friendly, 337,000-square-foot headquarters in Newark that houses executive, administrative, sales, and support staff. But the assignment turned out to involve a lot more than just a move.

Part of the task was logistical: taking charge of site selection and interfacing with contractors who would build the structure, which was designed to meet Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification for new construction, and LEED platinum certification for its interior.

But the move itself — of some 1,000 employees and contractors — was part of a broader assignment involving a “change management” project: aligning the global goals of Panasonic’s consumer, industrial, and service business units with the company’s regional goals and objectives.

“I have to admit that when our CEO handed me the assignment, I thought that it wasn’t exactly a traditional responsibility for a CFO,” Riccio says. “It was a wide-ranging responsibility. The design of the new building reflected the new philosophy — fewer offices, so there would be fewer barriers between departments, and more interaction between employees.”

Riccio was in on the ground floor of the makeover, approving the project plans and other documents that laid out the human resource and physical asset management planning; and he also drew on his extensive managerial experience to bring together the experts who could manage the makeover at a micro level.

“I relied on experts, but exercised oversight,” explains Riccio. “We drew up budgets and timelines, and held meetings at least twice a week to … [keep tabs on spending] and resolve any discrepancies early on. At the same time, I had to be careful about ‘scope creep,’ or the desire to expand certain projects beyond a reasonable limit. In those cases, saying ‘no’ could be as important as saying ‘yes.’?” He also had to work with key stakeholders to get buy-in from Panasonic’s business units.

“Everyone understood that we were going to an open environment, and I worked with team leaders to iron out the details with everyone involved,” recalls Riccio. “It involved a different way of looking at your business unit.”

The new paradigm involves merging a global view with a local one, he says.

“My role involves drawing on expert input and integrating the various views, in part utilizing the multifaceted experience I gained during my stint at the CPA firm where I worked with different stakeholders, and at Sealed Air where I helped to manage disparate projects and budgets.”

The idea, according to Riccio, is to align outcomes. A far-reaching overhaul like this could easily get mired in delays and cost overruns. But that’s not the way Panasonic does things. “All of the necessary departments pulled together and we brought it off — on time and under budget,” he adds.

The success of this project, like many others, “is largely the result of building a cohesive team,” Riccio says, characterizing the task as one of many responsibilities of today’s CFO. “You have to consider the basics of hiring, training, and motivating people to make things happen in a timely, accurate manner. But you also have to hold them accountable to established goals and objectives, and doing that means you have to lead by example while communicating your vision.”

At some companies, top management may have an idea and a plan to implement it, but by the time it filters down, the message may get scrambled beyond recognition, resulting in costly delays and do-overs. Riccio avoids this kind of trouble by sticking to some basic principles.

“It’s part of being a trusted partner,” he says. “My objectives cascade to the leadership team and to its members, so we’re all moving in the same direction, while engaging in coordinated action to reach our goals and objectives.

But doing that successfully depends on communicating effectively. I’ve found that if you start with the overarching goal and then break it down into smaller tasks, it’s easier for the individual team members to understand what needs to be done, and where their position in the ‘accountability tree’ is.”

Eye on the Ball

After the move, it was time to forge ahead on the change-management project, which is a work-in-progress. Like a juggler, he’s always got one more ball to keep in the air.

“My ongoing responsibilities include reporting to the CEO and the management committee about our financial and operational progress, including revenue, profits, and cash,” Riccio says. “Along with that, I’m also responsible for supporting the business, which encompasses finance, but increasingly includes Information Services (IS) and other segments, so I’m always interacting with a variety of departments. It keeps things fresh.”

It also keeps Riccio on his toes.

“Before I was appointed as CFO, I was involved in some major IS projects, so I was able to get some hands-on experience,” he notes. “That came in handy when I became CFO, since IS now reports to me. … I have to be conversant with the concepts and issues. Also, I meet with department heads on a regular basis in order to minimize surprises — we don’t have silos of responsibilities here. That puts me in a position to support all of the departments and encourage them to work in a cohesive manner.”

But today, with increasing regulatory oversight, CFOs like Riccio have to balance that support with an understanding of corporate governance issues.

“It’s almost like golfing, where all the players have to understand where the fairway ends and when you’re getting close to moving out of bounds,” he says. “Although the company has checks and balances in place to ensure compliance with corporate governance standards, the board of directors has entrusted the CEO and me with this responsibility; and in connection with that we’re visited on a periodic basis by the internal auditors.”

Riccio is excited about Panasonic’s plans for the future, and his involvement in those plans. “It’s no secret that in addition to streamlining the organizational process, we’re also engaged in another significant transformation: moving from a consumer electronics orientation to one that is more focused on other products and services,” he says.

Panasonic announced late in 2013 that it was ending its production of plasma television sets, while signing a deal to supply nearly 2 billion lithium-ion battery cells during the next four years to Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturer.

“The first phase of that transformation involved moving from a TV-centric model to one that offers more consumer products,” he says; segments like appliances, beauty care, and home security. “Then in phase two, we’ve been growing our business-to-business solutions,” which include the Tesla batteries and in-flight entertainment systems.

Riccio’s also getting deeply involved in new-business development efforts as Panasonic continues to move in a new direction, evolving into its third stage of change: B2B solutions, where the company offers design and other services to clients, in addition to products. “I’m still tying together everyone’s efforts,” he reports. “Corporate direction continues to be reinforced by CEO Joseph Taylor, and I’m charged with implementing that direction, cascading the responsibilities and ensuring that the systems and resources are there so we can continue to develop new solutions for new markets.”

For Riccio, it’s one more stepping-stone

Sometimes the role of CFO is less about instituting reforms than identifying when something is working, and then getting out of the way. Robert Landry, who took on the position of CFO for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. last October, has learned the value of both approaches over his 26 years in the pharma/biopharmaceutical industry, holding a variety of finance positions. As he has settled into his latest role — his first as CFO of a publicly traded company — Landry sums up his strategy as: “Be an enabler, not a blocker.

“We never know where the next great piece of science or technology is coming from — someone could walk in one day and say, ‘We just did this intriguing study within our discovery group, but I don’t have the budget for further experiments,’ so it’s my job to enable these scientists to move forward with the studies,” says Landry. “We have to be flexible enough to have the resources to pursue the unexpected and unbudgeted opportunity.”

Landry’s belief in the importance of clearing the way for innovation and ensuring that he is there to support the innovators is an especially good fit for his new company. Since CEO Leonard Schleifer, M.D., Ph.D., founded Regeneron in 1988 with Chief Scientific Officer George Yancopoulos, M.D., Ph.D., opening the labs, the company has been researching, developing, and manufacturing medicines from its labs just over the Tappan Zee Bridge in Tarrytown, NY. Despite a number of near-successes, the company posted losses for its first two decades in business, but its leaders continued to believe in the work they were doing by applying science to the successful pursuit of new medicines and, in the process, building a vibrant enterprise.

Then, in 2011, the company received approval from the FDA to sell EYLEA, a treatment for wet age-related macular degeneration — a major cause of blindness in the elderly. At a time when many analysts thought the days of blockbuster pharmaceutical products had passed, EYLEA generated $838 million of U.S. sales in 2012, in its first full year on the market, and forecasts for 2014’s U.S. sales soar to $1.7 to $1.8 billion as additional uses for the drug may receive FDA approval.

“Len and George are really brilliant and have assembled a group of the most talented scientists in the world who are working within this shop,” says Landry. “What they’ve created here is just a juggernaut of research and development and product candidates that come out of our research labs and go into clinical development. It’s unlike anything I had previously witnessed.”

Keeping It Creative

Landry describes himself as being “very fortunate to work at one of the most innovative companies in the world.” Brilliance and inventiveness extend into the company culture. Far from the conventional lab that comes to mind when one hears “pharma company,” the Regeneron offices have the creative energy and work hard/play hard approach of a Silicon Valley startup (visit bit.ly/RegeneronVideo for a sense of the company’s attitude). This style helped to land Regeneron at the No. 4 spot on Forbes’ Innovative Companies list last year. Additionally, for two years in a row the readers of Science magazine have voted Regeneron the best biopharmaceutical company in the world to work for.

And, this is the culture and approach that Landry wants to help foster as CFO. He has introduced to his new team several concepts that he learned at Pfizer, like “enabling functions,” that he believes to be especially apt for Regeneron.

He was at Pfizer, Inc., for almost four years, most recently as senior vice president and treasurer, after two years as senior vice president of finance for a major division of the pharmaceutical giant. Prior to that, Landry served as CFO of Wyeth Australia & New Zealand before moving into the role of treasurer for all of Wyeth.

While Landry is now the decision maker on financial areas of the business, he emphasizes to his team that in many ways they provide a “client-services function” for the executives of other departments in the organization, from R&D to business development to legal.

“All these departments have great functional skills, and I don’t want them wasting their time on finance matters,” says Landry. “To the extent that our finance team can come in and support them on all finance-related matters, regardless the department, the better off the company will be. We say ‘use us.’ They’re our clients.”

Helping him in his transition to his new role is Murray A. Goldberg, who had served as Regeneron’s CFO for 19 of its 25 years in business. He became senior vice president of administration last year to make way for Landry, and now, as Goldberg prepares for his retirement at the end of 2014, provides guidance.

Goldberg maintained a lean, cost-conscious, organization over the bear years and that’s a focus Landry intends to continue.

“Murray is the one who managed Regeneron when cash-burn really mattered — whether they would have enough funds to survive the following year,” says Landry.

Focus on Facts

Regeneron, a company of 2,400 people, offers some distinct advantages for a self-proclaimed “facts-based guy,” compared to the 78,000-person giant Pfizer, where as treasurer, in 2013, Landry had very little connection to R&D.

This much smaller organization means Landry has more direct contact with every part of the business. Executive meetings are much more likely to include scientific discussions of how things are going in the lab and clinic as compared to how the financial performance is doing versus the budget.

“It allows you to get to the ground floor quicker, understand things quicker, eliminate a lot of bureaucracy,” says Landry. “With a lot fewer layers, you can speak to the subject matter experts and make decisions a lot quicker, without a lot of passing it along the daisy chain.”

This appreciation for the value of data was shaped by one experience in particular at Wyeth. In 2007, shortly after being named treasurer of that company, certain securities in its investment portfolio purchased prior to Landry’s tenure — AAA-rated subprime mortgage securities purchased by some of Wyeth’s external money managers — began showing unrealized losses.

“For the next 18 months, my team and I spent an inordinate amount of time familiarizing ourselves with every aspect of these securities in an attempt to maximize their market value and minimize impairments,” says Landry. “This included understanding the paydown structure of the securities and which specific tranche of the security Wyeth owned, which impacted when or if we would be paid and the default rates. As you could expect, there were numerous updates to the Audit Committee, CFO, and external auditors.”

This experience taught Landry many things beyond the nuances of subprime mortgage securities.

“My two most significant learnings were: 1) always trust, but verify, by asking lots of questions, and 2) don’t enter into transactions unless you have a complete understanding of what could go wrong,” says Landry. They are lessons that are quite easy to apply at a company as lean and transparent as Regeneron.

They are also lessons that Landry believes to be vital to the biopharmaceutical sector, more generally. The industry has been enjoying a period of fast growth and easy access to funding, with investors seemingly insatiable for new IPOs and follow-ups. But Landry knows this is the time for a CFO to move wisely and ensure the organization remains well positioned.

Landry is confident that by applying what he has previously learned at major biopharma companies, while ensuring Regeneron’s innovators have the resources they need to build on the company’s enormous success so far, the organization will be positioned for continued growth.

A Wealth of Experience

It’s unusual for a large publicly traded company to hire a CFO who has not already served in that role. But Regeneron did just that with Robert Landry.

“I am convinced that my success stems from the breadth of opportunities I have been afforded, obviously coupled with working hard, day in and day out,” says Landry, who has worked in finance since graduating from the University of Notre Dame about 27 years ago.

“[But] taking on new challenges … created stress, as you are frequently asked to operate outside your comfort level.” Adding to that, Landry relocated his family several times throughout his career.

As a Group CFO of Pfizer’s Diversified Businesses, he worked on its recent organizational transition. This segment included four operating business units, which included the former nutrition business, animal health business, Capsugel, which made gelatin caps for drugs, and the consumer health business.

In the two years he was there, Landry “worked around the clock splitting off and divesting three out of the four businesses,” selling Capsugel to KKR and the nutrition business to Nestlé. The animal health division split off from Pfizer and is now traded on the NYSE under the ticker Zoetis.

Each of these was a mammoth transaction, and he had the responsibilities of being the transactional finance lead for them all in a very short period of time — and for the most part, concurrently.

Now he believes that becoming the CFO of a public company seemed to be the natural next step. Having operated within treasury, controllership, internal audit, and FP&A, stepping into a position that oversees it all “simply made sense.”

Moving Into the C-suite

“The most exciting part of being a CFO is being on the inside of all C-suite discussions, whether they are board related, strategy related, or simply reviewing the monthly and quarterly results,” says Robert Landry, six months into his role as chief financial officer of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc.

“I am very fortunate to work at one of the most innovative companies in the world. Couple that with a company that has grown exponentially over the last 18 months in a very energetic and evolving industry, biopharmaceuticals, and you have the recipe for daily excitement.”

Of course, moving into the C-suite is not all fun and excitement. With the new role comes much greater responsibility, with Landry now the ultimate decision maker on the organization’s most crucial finance questions.

At his previous companies, including Pfizer and Wyeth, Landry would provide research and recommendations to the CFOs to help them decide the best direction. At Regeneron, for all financial issues, the buck stops at Landry.

“Now that I am CFO, the decision-making role is reversed, whereby I receive the facts of the case and am expected to make the decision,” he says. “It’s strange being on the other side of the table, and it certainly carries more burden and stress.”

But it’s a burden he’s eager to accept each day to help the company meet its potential.