Having grown up in Cork, headquarters of Ireland's Ford Motor Company operations, James Sheehan was well aware of the opportunities a career with Ford could offer.
After graduating with a BComm from University College Cork, Sheehan worked briefly with Ford Credit in Dublin before moving to the company's operation in Essex as an investment analyst in 1992. Three years later he moved to the then Ford-owned Jaguar operation in Coventry as a finance coordinator in powertrain before joining Ford in Finland as finance director in 1996.
"Working and living in Finland was a fantastic experience," Sheehan says. "We built a great team there, and one of my cherished memories is of spontaneously singing I've Been a Wild Rover with 40 or so Finnish dealer principals on the streets of Geneva during the motor show.
“Since then I have worked in some of the most diverse business cultures that exist on three different continents. Being Irish seems to bring with it a natural ability to associate with, adapt to and understand these cultures very well, and to be successful in international business as a result.”
During his first 10 years with Ford,Sheehan held a number of senior finance roles including finance manager for European regional sales.
"This is where I learned to really question how one approaches business," he says. "To cut a long story short, I concluded that we could centralise the finance teams of 10 smaller markets into two teams in Germany, and this proved to be very successful.
“I then became finance manager for Ford’s first-ever vehicle platform. This was a very interesting and challenging assignment. I had to work with Germans, Americans, English, Japanese and Swedes to get sign-off as the platform formed the foundation not only for the first Ford Focus but also for the Volvo V40 and the Mazda 323.”
In 2001, Sheehan took the first step outside his financial comfort zone to assume on a sales and marketing role with responsibility for sales planning and volume analysis for Ford of Europe. “This role was probably where I crystallised my understanding of how a good team can be much more successful than a group of individuals,” he says.
In March 2005, he was appointed CFO at Ford's joint venture with transmission manufacturer Getrag.
"During my time there, Getrag Ford grew from three manufacturing plants to four and we also developed a whole new double clutch automatic transmission family," Sheehan says. "In this role, I also had my first exposure to China as we formed a joint venture with a Chinese company."
Two years later he moved on to became CFO of GetragAmericas, which was then establishing two new plants and an engineering centre in the US.
“This was a very rewarding time for my family and me and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in US. However, the business was badly hit by the financial crisis of 2008 and one of our main customers, Chrysler, went into Chapter 11.
"I was then given the task of restructuring the company before moving to Shanghai in 2011 to build up Getrag's organisation in the Asia-Pacific region. We only spent a little over 12 months in Shanghai, but I would urge anyone who gets the opportunity to work there to grab it with both hands."
In 2012, Sheehan was headhunted by Benteler, the family-owned German automotive supplier, as CFO. The company employs some 25,000 people and has annual revenues of around €6 billion.
As Benteler’s first CFO, Sheehan was allowed to mould the role as he saw fit. He took on responsibility for quality, supply chain management, IT, strategy, project management and compliance, as well as a separate business division that supplies automotive manufacturing equipment and glass processing machinery.
"The situation within Benteler Automotive was very challenging," he says, "and my first responsibility was to develop and successfully execute a restructuring programme. This was tough and had never been done at Benteler before, but we can now see the benefits and can fully focus on the opportunities for further profitably growth.
Sheehan was appointed COO of the Paderborn-based company in May this year.
“I think now more than ever that opportunities exist for Irish people to go abroad and pursue an international career,” he says. “The business world today – and not unique to automotive – is one of global projects with teams from across the world working together.
“These projects require constant communication, collaboration and co-ordination. The first two are definitely inherent traits that Irish people have. The third is a skill that can easily be learned.
“In the past, I would have encouraged those in search of a job abroad to target companies that could offer them an international career, and that is still a viable and safe option. But now I would also encourage them to broaden their perspective and focus on developing a skills set that can be globally applied. This can then take them to wherever in the world there are good opportunities.”
