BROADCASTS.com

When Mark George first joined Otis Elevator\u2019s accounting team back in the late 1980s, he found fixed asset accounting to be different from what he expected.

Says George: \u201dWe had to run around the company and put barcodes on any new piece of furniture that the company had purchased.\u201d What\u2019s more, George tells us, he roamed the corridors as a deputy in the accounts payable department, \u201cpunching A/P vouchers\u201d and acquiring any necessary signatures.

\u201cI was always thinking, \u2018How do I get away from doing this?,\u2019\u201d comments George, who notes that as a 20-something-year-old he sometimes felt like a \u201cfish out of water\u201d at Otis, which back then\u2014as it is now\u2014was part of the larger conglomerate patchwork that is United Technologies Corp.

\u201cI understood accounting to a certain degree, but I was definitely not an accountant,\u201d recalls George.

Less than enamored with the Otis accounting career ladder and potentially facing years of manual work, George began to speak up as he roamed the office and suggest changes to certain policies and processes that could eliminate the work that he personally disliked. He also began championing the adoption of new technologies that could automate manual tasks, despite the fact that such automation would more than likely put at risk his own position \u201cwith puncher in hand.\u201d

\u201cIf at some point if they fired me, I was young enough and na\xefve enough to think that I would just go and get another job, as if that would be just that easy,\u201d explains George, who adds that over time, his suggestions found wider support\u2014and as more tasks became automated, he found himself in greater demand, not less. \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

\u201cI would solve a problem, and they would give me more problems to solve,\u201d remembers George, who observes that he began to view his early years at Otis in a new light after returning to the United States from a stint as CFO of Otis\u2019s South Asia operations.

\u201cI had moved around the company quite a bit by then, and I considered why I had already reached a certain level while others who had joined Otis at the same time had languished,\u201d notes George, who credits his aversion to manual work with having opened the door to more opportunities in process improvement, beginning with a job in Otis\u2019s treasury department and then leading to stints in financial planning and corporate development.

\u201cEventually, due to some M&A work and my treasury background, I got some exposure to some international M&A roles overseas, and our regional headquarters then asked me to take a permanent role,\u201d says George, whose stint as Otis\u2019s South Asia\u2019s finance chief became the first of several CFO tenures within UT\u2014including a term as CFO of Otis itself.\xa0\u2013Jack Sweeney