2008 40 Under Forty: Tim Mammen
Tim Mammen
Age: 39
Title: Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Company: IPG Photonics
Company location: Oxford
Residence: Providence, RI
Career highlights:
I am the CFO of IPG Photonics Corp. where I run the worldwide finance and am the main interface with the investment community. I got here with a lot of luck and a little application by way of Kenya (born), England (university), Scotland (chartered accountancy) and, for a brief period, trading sunflower seed and grain out of the Ukraine.
Biggest professional success:
Probably, either, qualifying to be a chartered accountancy (the Scottish CPA equivalent) and gaining admission to the Institute of Chartered Accountancy of Scotland (the oldest accountancy institute in the world) at the first attempt, or guiding IPG Photonics through the difficult days of 2003 when we almost ran out of cash. One of the successful plans we implemented was for our executives to opt to forgo salary in lieu of options. For those who participated, that investment has paid off handsomely. We saved over a million dollars in cash at a time when our total available liquidity was very limited. Going public was a doddle after that!
Dream job:
If I’m dreaming then I am camping in Tsavo, Kenya and therefore running camping safaris in East and Southern Africa.
Businessperson you admire most:
I admire business people who respect the people who work for them, delegate to them and give those employees the freedom to try to succeed and, if they fail, treat such failure as a learning experience.
I also admire those business people who understand and do not forget that the wheel turns and you do not, in my opinion, push the strengths of your current position to the limits, for what you gain now will be lost many times over in the future.
There are several inspirational people like this I have had the luck of working for.
Favorite movie:
Two: “The Big Blue” and “The Gods Must Be Crazy.”
If you were stuck on a desert island what book would you want to have with you?
“The Complete Works of Shakespeare,” in part, because much of it I have yet to read and, for the remainder, because in those works you find everything: poetry, philosophy, love, politics, strife, humor, life and a surfeit of new vocabulary to learn.
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