Man Utd’s Chief Strategy Officer leaves

Chairman Steve said:
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:lol:
 
The Original said:
His job exactly, From LinkedIn:

Head of Corporate FinanceHead of Corporate Finance
Manchester UnitedManchester UnitedMay 2012 - Present · 10 yrs 1 moMay 2012 - Present · 10 yrs 1 moLondon, United KingdomLondon, United Kingdom

    • I’m involved in a wide range of activities including capital structure planning, corporate development projects, strategy, corporate actions and investor relations activity (including as interim CFO for 2years).
      Key Achievements
      • Part of the team that successfully listed Manchester United on the NYSE.
      • Executed a number of refinancing transactions – incl. bank term loans; Private Notes and a Revolving Credit Facility reducing interest costs on c.$600m by 4.5%; and extending maturities out 10-12 years
      • Devised and implemented an innovative hedge accounting strategy to minimised P&L FX volatility.
      • Restructured the Group holding structure to improve the operational visibility, financial flexibility and tax efficiency of the Media and Retail businesses.
      • Member of the ECA/UEFA taskforce that successfully negotiated material improvements to UEFA’s commercial and media rights vis a vis Clubs for the 2018-21 cycle.
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As an engineer and project manager, I have no fecking idea what I just read. But from what I read that he’s the important person who structured or created strategy, and then develop it, and set a goal where the club should be in business model.

This is what I’m seeing, he’s either leaving because he gets a new job or may be following where Ed is going to work. Or Arnold believes that he’s one of important person who influenced Glazers to turn Manchester United into more business model club, so he wants him gone for the club to be focussing more on football.
 
I met him at an investor conference around 5 years ago, spent some time talking to him and CFO Cliff Baty. At the time his role was certainly just as the Head of Corporate Finance, don't know if he was promoted to Chief Strategy Officer later.

From what I could tell at the time he just seemed like the right-hand man to the CFO, every corporation has one. Is responsible for keeping the overall financial projections and then making any other projections based on any financial actions taken, in the case of a football club then certainly the transfers of players are a recurring one. Probably gets involved in other finance things like debt refinancing, dealing with financial regulators, etc. plus with a team of more junior analysts/accountants that report to him.

But that's far from being a shot caller or really having influence on how things go, even the CFO seemed to me at the time like he didn't really run the show and it was mainly on Woodward to decide strategic direction. So if Hemen is leaving and the CFO is staying, I doubt it is because he is paying any price for the club's underperformance as he's far from the person you'd blame.
 
MTF said:
I met him at an investor conference around 5 years ago, spent some time talking to him and CFO Cliff Baty. At the time his role was certainly just as the Head of Corporate Finance, don't know if he was promoted to Chief Strategy Officer later.

From what I could tell at the time he just seemed like the right-hand man to the CFO, every corporation has one. Is responsible for keeping the overall financial projections and then making any other projections based on any financial actions taken, in the case of a football club then certainly the transfers of players are a recurring one. Probably gets involved in other finance things like debt refinancing, dealing with financial regulators, etc. plus with a team of more junior analysts/accountants that report to him.

But that's far from being a shot caller or really having influence on how things go, even the CFO seemed to me at the time like he didn't really run the show and it was mainly on Woodward to decide strategic direction. So if Hemen is leaving and the CFO is staying, I doubt it is because he is paying any price for the club's underperformance as he's far from the person you'd blame.
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This is 100% spot on...

Hemen's role has always just been traditional corp fin. He worked for Bolingbroke as the senior most financial person, until Michael left and then he was the "de facto" CFO but was never qualified for that role.

Once Baty joined he just ran finance. Recently he was given the strategy title...it wasn't really a thing other than in title only.

Everyone is blowing his contributions (good or bad) way out of proportion. Any other company this wouldn't even be a story...
 
To a commercial enterprise, this is a key figure who has to source funding from somewhere and look after existing warchest, and most important of all, please major shareholders.

To a football club, no matter listed or not, this is a dead weight, million pound a year dead weight.
 
Head of Strategy / Chief Strategy Officer at most corporations is a fancy sounding title with no real power. I wouldn't read much into this.
 
Sad news. He was my favourite from the Woodward era. I named my second Elden Ring character after him
 
Don't think he had much to do with the footballing side of things, contrary to what his role seems to suggest. Also looks like he wanted to leave.
 
The Original said:
My guess is its all just a spillover from Woodward leaving and Arnold possibly bringing in his own people amd methods. Leave before you get pushed out type of situation
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This is probably the truth. Where i used to work some top managers used to leave and months later we would find out they had 2 choices resign or sack.
 
Considering our financial and commercial side is generally great in a period when our sporting side isn't, I'm not sure getting rid of the finance guys is something to cheer about
 
Rory 7 said:
Is it just me or is the total clear out of these guys signs of an impending sale (of the club)? Its just me isn't it?
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No, if they were putting up for sale, they would be cutting people from the bottom to the playing staff to make the club look more sexy to buyers.

The club would be literally spending on bare minimum on costs.
 
Ish said:
:drool: I’m going to send you my CV through for this gig!

On a more serious note - we have a lot of chiefs at United!
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:lol:

I was thinking about this actually - if there any interesting roles opening up at the club, would/should I apply…
 
I’m just waiting for the all important one now….Glazers have left Man Utd.
 
choccy77 said:
No, if they were putting up for sale, they would be cutting people from the bottom to the playing staff to make the club look more sexy to buyers.

The club would be literally spending on bare minimum on costs.
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Erm. Have you seen what’s happening to the squad?
 
Rory 7 said:
Erm. Have you seen what’s happening to the squad?
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Squad is just a small part of a larger organisation, it would be cutting costs in every department of the business.

The squad isn't being cut by choice, the contracts are up and they are refusing to re-sign / move on .................except Phil Jones
 
choccy77 said:
Squad is just a small part of a larger organisation, it would be cutting costs in every department of the business.

The squad isn't being cut by choice, the contracts are up and they are refusing to re-sign / move on .................except Phil Jones
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I dunno. I think they’ve already cut costs throughout virtually every other dept in the club. Right down to match-day staff.
 
Rory 7 said:
I dunno. I think they’ve already cut costs throughout virtually every other dept in the club. Right down to match-day staff.
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Trust me, if they were selling up, even the Old Trafford mice would be on the chopping board
 
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