Like many CFOs, one company more than others dominates James Denena’s finance career building years. Denena spent more than ten years at Applied Materials of Santa Clara, California where an executive development program encouraged him to move around inside the chip maker’s sprawling finance organization. While Denena filled traditional FP&A and treasury roles, he also actively sought out different operational roles that could provide him with a more wide-eyed view of the manufacturing side of the business.

However, it was his involvement in the expansion of a corporate development function that Denena today singles out as having perhaps made the greatest contribution to his CFO mind set. “I was one of the early team members that actually built the function out,” recalls Denena, who says the newly minted team quickly became involved in M&A activities and was soon being sought out as an adviser on different strategic decisions across the company.

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