Picchi helped East West Manufacturing acquire first US-based plants.
Michael Picchi
Title: Chief financial officer
Company/organization name: East West Manufacturing
Length of service in current position: 2 years
Tenure at company: 2 years
Length of service in role: 13 years as CFO across four companies
Length of service in industry: 30 years in accounting/finance
Describe your key accomplishment within the past year: Helping East West acquire its first U.S.-based manufacturing assets: purchasing two manufacturing businesses in North Carolina. I co-led due diligence and worked with SunTrust to secure acquisition financing.
In less than two years, Michael Picchi has already made a positive impression and a measurable impact at East West Manufacturing, where he has been CFO since October 2017.
Described by his nominators as “practical and pragmatic” as well as “strategic and creative,” Picchi is the Medium Private Company CFO award winner in the 2019 CFO of the Year Awards sponsored by Atlanta Business Chronicle in partnership with the Association for Corporate Growth Atlanta.
Founded in 2001, East West is a global contract manufacturer of complex, precision components, electronics and motors, providing U.S.-based engineering and customer support. Picchi oversees a finance team of about 25, including five in the Atlanta corporate office as well as those working in four plant locations around the world.
“He’s really the quarterback of the team,” said Andy Reese, East West director of business development, who says Picchi has overseen a rapidly growing business “that once again posted 20 percent- plus organic growth and successfully closed two acquisitions, adding $50 million to the company’s top line.”
In his nomination, Reese wrote that Picchi embodies the perfect combination of financial acumen and the ability to make concepts understandable to everyone.
In the last year, Picchi served a key role in acquiring East West’s first U.S.-based manufacturing assets, a move toward achieving the company’s strategic goal of becoming more customer responsive by expanding its manufacturing capabilities that had been based primarily in Asia into targeted regions in the United States. He conducted the due diligence and led other activities during the process of buying a plant outside Raleigh-Durham and purchasing another North Carolina business that included two plants — one near Charlotte and another in San Juan, Costa Rica.
According to Picchi, “We’d like to build this company north of $400 million in revenue, and we’re on a really great trajectory to do that.” Half the growth, he said, is coming from organic sales — winning new business and expanding work with existing customers — and half is coming from the strategic acquisitions that add manufacturing growth inside the U.S.
Nancy Halwig, senior vice president at United Community Bank, has known Picchi professionally for a number of years. She says that Mike’s strengths lie not only in his attributes of being a great leader and collaborator, but in his humor and “can-do” attitude. In her 44-year career as a banker, she says she has rarely run across a CFO who is as likeable as Picchi and willing to do whatever is required — whether the task is high level or mundane — to get the job done without ego or complaint.
In addition to closing deals, Picchi, who has 30 years of accounting experience, says what gives him the most satisfaction is helping others develop professionally and maintaining those relationships. He is especially gratified that six people who have worked under him over the years and “seen my mistakes and what I’ve done well” have themselves become CFOs.
“I’m intrinsically motivated and get so much enjoyment out of watching people develop, giving them additional challenges, and then watching them go succeed after they work for me,” he said.
Outside of work, Picchi finds meaning in family and community. He and his wife Amanda have four children: a daughter, 26, who is a teacher; a son, 25, who Picchi says is a third-generation accountant; and two daughters in high school: one a junior, the other a freshman.
Through their church, Roswell United Methodist Church, the Picchis have participated in a number of mission projects, including rebuilding homes in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. A project with other couples from his church that raised money to build a school for an orphanage in Kenya holds a special place in the family’s hearts, said Picchi. He has so far traveled to Kenya three times, each time bringing one of his own children with him.
At East West, Picchi says he sees himself “as part of a really exceptional team — both at the company senior leadership level and as part of the finance people I work with.”