Bonus Replay: Building an Early Warning System | Patrick McClymont, CFO, Hagerty

About this episode

Patrick McClymont discusses the importance of building an early warning system in finance and adapting communication styles in different business environments.

Patrick McClymont still remembers the moment at IMAX when the numbers began moving in the wrong direction. Hired to help drive external growth through acquisitions and partnerships, he instead found himself sitting with CEO Rich Gelfond building what he calls an “early warning system.” Together, they agreed to monitor the next three film titles and “hold ourselves accountable” to a short-term scorecard, McClymont tells us. If the numbers shifted further, strategy would have to shift with them. That experience reinforced a lesson McClymont carried from his earlier years at Goldman Sachs and into multiple CFO roles: “the numbers don’t lie,” he tells us. Before Goldman, he worked in real estate development, where he learned to “boil it down to the numbers” and find clarity quickly. At Goldman, advising transportation giants including UPS and major airlines exposed him to CEOs and CFOs navigating large-scale operational complexity. When he joined Sotheby’s as CFO, however, McClymont discovered that financial fluency alone was not enough. The art specialists running major parts of the business “didn’t think about the world the way that Goldman Sachs people do,” he tells us. Rather…

People in this episode

Guest: Patrick McClymont

Topics covered

• early warning system
• financial strategy
• customer economics
• profitability
• communication style

Keywords

• CFO
• acquisitions
• partnerships
• financial fluency
• operational complexity

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: IMAX, Goldman Sachs, UPS, Sotheby’s, Hagerty

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