BROADCASTS.com

b'

Eliran Glazer\\u2019s finance career journey began in the late 1990s at the Tel Aviv office of KPMG, where as a 20-something he spent 3 years auditing a portfolio of fast-growing software companies.\\xa0 \\xa0

As the year 2000 approached, Glazer was suddenly being recruited by an Israeli-American CFO who was seeking to fill a controller position\\u2014and the gray-haired CFO left little doubt that the role that he had in mind could potentially offer much more. \\xa0

Glazer tells us the that CFO\\u2019s pitch was expressed this way: \\u201cLook, I\\u2019m pretty certain that you know accounting well, but I can help you to develop a business view.\\u201d

When a formal job offer arrived from the publicly traded BackWeb Technologies, Glazer didn\\u2019t hesitate to accept\\u2014and it wasn\\u2019t long before he saw evidence of what the CFO had promised.

Comments Glazer: \\u201cHe began taking me to meetings with internal and external stakeholders by simply saying, \\u2018Come along and join me.\\u2019\\u201d \\xa0\\xa0\\xa0

In short order, Glazer received an invitation from the CFO to visit the company\\u2019s U.S. offices, where he was asked to sit it on a variety of finance and operational meetings. \\xa0

Still, Glazer was no doubt alarmed when 12 months into his controllership role he received word that his CFO mentor was planning to move on, having accepted a CFO position at a telecom company known as Schema.

\\u201cHe took me with him,\\u201d explains Glazer, who upon his arrival at Schema received a promotion to finance director.

Had the CFO\\u2019s involvement with Glazer\\u2019s career ended with this promotion, he still would have well merited the moniker of \\u201cgenerous mentor.\\u201d However, Schema\\u2019s CFO went one better.

Three years after appointing Glazer finance director, the CFO exited the company and afforded Glazer the opportunity to step into an interim CFO position.

\\u201cThey threw me deep into the water,\\u201d remarks Glazer, who notes that among the responsibilities that his new interim role brought to him was regular communications with Schema board members.

Nearly 20 years later, several additional CFO chapters in both the U.S. and Israel now separate seasoned CFO Glazer from his days of benefiting from mentorship at BackWeb and Schema.

Still younger than his former mentor was when he took Glazer under his wing, Glazer is now increasingly thoughtful about the mentor mind-set, which he says comes only from experience and gray hairs. \\xa0

Bringing his mentor back into view one last time, Glazer tells us: \\u201cHe was in his late 50s and really at that phase of life and career where he just didn\\u2019t feel threatened by anyone.\\u201d \\u2013Jack Sweeney