Not unlike that of many of his CFO peers, Derrek Gafford’s career path has been shaped in part by geography—specifically, by having its origins in a city that was at once home to a state college, the corporate headquarters of a marquee company, and a Big Four accounting office populated with new college grads.

In Gafford’s case, the city was Boise; the college, Boise State; the marquee company, grocery giant Albertsons; and the Big Four accounting house, Deloitte

“I had worked my way through Boise State in an Albertsons grocery store, which actually paid for a lot of my education,” explains Gafford, who upon graduating with an accounting degree would end up nabbing a job with Deloitte’s Boise office.

“Originally, the only job that I had ever really wanted was to work in finance at Albertsons,” he continues, “and guess what company became the first account that Deloitte assigned me to?”

After about 2 years with Deloitte, Gafford joined Albertsons’ internal audit staff, from which he eventually advanced to oversee the company’s audit department while reporting directly to Albertsons’ CFO.

“As an internal auditor, I had traveled the country visiting stores and distribution centers, so I had gotten a feel for the various aspects of the business and how the company operated,” recalls Gafford.

However, after 6 years with Albertsons, Gafford began to consider different finance leadership roles beyond Boise’s city limits.

“The way things were headed,” he remembers, “it seemed like I was going to be a lifelong leader of internal audit—which is not where I wanted to be. There was this small, privately held grocery company in Seattle that was looking for a CFO, and the CEO and I got along, so we packed up and headed north.” –Jack Sweeney