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Of all of the places future CFOs could have been employed in the late 1990s, the printing division of RR Donnelley might seem to have been among the least likely.

However, it\u2019s important to note that this period predated the wide deployment of EDGAR, the database system that electronically automates the collection, validation, and acceptance of financial documents by the government\u2019s SEC division.  

Hence the printing division of marketing communications giant RR Donnelley remained one of the country\u2019s largest hubs of activity surrounding the creation, printing, and submittal of financial documents.

\u201cFor time-sensitive documents, there would be a deadline to be met each afternoon in order to enable documents to be flown and then hand-couriered to the SEC\u2019s offices,\u201d recalls Celeste Ackert, who tells us that in order to better accommodate any clients who might drop by, the office space that she occupied with others featured a half-door whose bottom was closed and top always open.

For Ackert, who had become an eagle-eyed project manager inside Donnelley\u2019s printing bullpen, the endless flow of financial documents served to satisfy a growing operations appetite before morphing into a portal from which to observe future career possibilities.

\u201cI would be flipping through these SEC documents and thinking to myself, \u2018You know what?\u2014perhaps I\u2019d like to see myself in a prospectus someday,\u2019\u201d remarks Ackert, who after 6 years of serving Donnelley clients segued into a series of corporate finance jobs first by leveraging her printing operations expertise and subsequently by climbing the ranks as an FP&A all-star.

Before leaving Donnelley, Ackert\u2014much to her credit\u2014decided to balance her \u201cprospectus ambitions\u201d with some added ballast for the journey ahead: an MBA degree.

Comments Ackert: \u201cI wasn\u2019t really certain how I was going to get there, but these two things equipped me with some fire.\u201d \u2013Jack Sweeney