Moderna CFO on the power of selective greatness

Coworking is a weekly segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

Jamey Mock knows a thing or two about taking risks. As CFO of Moderna, the biotech company that quickly became a pandemic-era wunderkind and lifeline, risk management is as essential to the daily workflow as answering emails or chugging coffee.

And his past experiences don’t hurt either. Previously, he served as senior VP and CFO of life sciences and diagnostics company PerkinElmer after spending nearly 20 years in various financial oversight roles at General Electric.

Here, he tells CFO Brew why the risk of becoming a master of one has the potential for payoff.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You’re in a unique position, having only worked at a few companies, or three, primarily. How did you use some of your previous roles to prepare for the CFO seat?

GE was only one company; there’s always subcultures but it was primarily one culture. I did get different experiences [though]. I was able to go to an aviation business or an oil and gas business. In my first seven years, I actually had 19 jobs. There’s rotations: Either six-month rotations or four-month rotations for literally seven years straight. And then I bounced around different jobs [at GE]. You just get comfortable being uncomfortable.

But even when I left GE, there were areas that I was still weak at, as it pertained to finance. Treasury I wasn’t great at. I wasn’t great at tax…I’d never really done investor relations. But I had a lot of different experiences. The advice I give to a lot of people is [to] at least be great at something. That happened to be financial planning and analysis for me. You can always carry that, and talk through that lens.

And know that when you first get a CFO job, one company might need more treasury experience because they’re raising debt or going public or whatever. I was clearly not the candidate for that—but PerkinElmer didn’t need that. PerkinElmer needed an operational CFO that understood financial planning and analysis and knew how to drive profitability improvements and growth improvements through the company.

That’s what I was good at, and I had enough exposure to these other areas that they had comfort [knowing] that “He’s been around and he kind of gets it a little bit. He might not be an expert at it, but we’ll give him a chance.”

So, get lots of different experiences so that you’re familiar with everything, but be great at something. And that company, when you get the chance [to become CFO], hopefully needs that particular skill set that you’re great at.

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