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A dozen years ago, if you had told Ryan Gwillim that within the next decade he would be named CFO of the Brunswick Corporation, he may have laughed. At the time, he was an associate with law firm Baker & McKenzie who was spending his days traveling the globe to advise legal clients as an M&A transaction guru.

However, over the next decade, Gwillim and Brunswick would together find a common groove as each embarked on a journey of transformation. For Brunswick\u2014a 155-year-old conglomerate\u2014the evolutionary arc would trigger a flurry of historic M&A activity that included the sale of its marquee bowling center business (2014) while at the same time advancing its steady stroke into marine products. For Gwillim, the transformation chapter would put an end to his vagabond existence while landing the seasoned M&A attorney inside Brunswick\u2019s corporate counsel office in 2012.

It would be little more than 5 years later, after a steady progression of internal M&A projects, that Gwillim would be asked by Brunswick\u2019s CFO to step into the role of vice president of investor relations. \xa0

\u201cFrom September 2017 to about the summer of 2019 was one of the most volatile times in Brunswick\u2019s history, and here I was, along with the management team, becoming the face of storytelling for the investment community,\u201d explains Gwillim, who characterizes the period as one when Brunswick once-and-for-all \u201cclosed the books on its conglomerate viewpoint.\u201d

Determined to focus investor attention on the company\u2019s promising future in marine technology products, Brunswick accelerated efforts to jettison businesses procured during its conglomerate years, such as a struggling fitness operation that had been undermining investor confidence in the company.

Along the way, Gwillim would become a primary driver of the Brunswick transformation as he helped to manage investor expectations as well as the financial levers that would allow the company to find its footing while opening its post-conglomerate chapter. \xa0\xa0

As it turned out, the beginning of Brunswick\u2019s post-conglomerate life coincided with the completion of the seasoned-M&A-attorney-turned-IR-executive\u2019s own transformation chapter. Appointed as Brunswick\u2019s vice president of finance and treasurer in 2019, Gwillim would be named Brunswick CFO only a year later. \xa0

\u201cWe are completely different from what we were 10 or 15 years ago,\u201d reports Gwillim, sharing a thought that one could argue applies to the CFO as well as to the company.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney