Former Waste Management CFO Devina Rankin was a little different from peers who knew from day one that they wanted to be a finance chief.

“I was never one who was that bold and direct about my ambition and candidly I think my dreams were a little too small,” she told CFO Dive in a recent interview.

She nonetheless rose up through the senior leadership ranks at the Houston-based waste collection and disposal giant, capping off decades in senior finance roles by serving roughly nine years as its CFO. In November, she handed the finance reins to her successor David Reed and continued to serve as an advisor to the company until departing last month. 

She checked off many traditional key accomplishments for finance leaders along her way up the corporate ladder, which led her to take finance reins at Waste Management in 2017: She got a bachelor’s degree in business and administration and accounting and a master’s in accounting at Texas A&M University, logged four years in auditing at Arthur Andersen before it went out of business following the Enron scandal, and ultimately, landed at Waste Management as a senior financial analyst. 

Grace rather than perfection

After about eight years in the accounting department at Waste Management, she felt her career had stalled. Rankin was growing and getting what she called “micro promotions” but ultimately, got to the point where she felt she was doing the same thing every day for too long.

That’s about when she recalled a pivotal moment in speaking with Cherie Rice, who was a mentor of hers in the treasury department. Rice, who was the company’s treasurer from about 2004 to 2012, opened Rankin’s eyes to the understanding that she wasn’t missing any particular skill when it came to advancing her career. 

“Recognizing that so much of it was about broadening my perspective rather than deep expertise, that was what changed for me,” Rankin said, noting that she was already known as a strong communicator who was responsible for writing up financial statements and contributing to the earnings call script process. “I didn’t need to go get an MBA. I had the credentials, I had the credibility, I just needed to trust myself to expand my horizons,” Rankin said. 

With women comprising less than 20% of CFOs at Fortune 500 and S&P 500 companies, Rankin wants to commit to mentoring other women aspiring to the role. She advises them to reject the kind of perfectionism that initially proved a barrier for her.

“My advice to women specifically really comes down to the words grace and perfection,” she said. “Women tend to extend grace to others in a way that is fundamentally different than the grace that we extend ourselves…Certainly, we need to prepare, but recognize when you’ve done enough.” 

Cash flow as source of truth

Moving over to the treasury department, first as assistant treasurer and ultimately VP and treasurer at Waste Management was a formative experience for Rankin. Long steeped in viewing the company’s performance from a more historical perspective in accounting, in treasury Rankin gained a fresh perspective on it that was more strategic. For what was really the first time, she had a forward-looking view and a new lens that took into consideration the views of shareholders and debt investors. 

In her treasury roles, she was responsible for balance sheet management and maintains today that the cash flow statement is arguably the company’s most important metric. “Cash flow tells the story of a business whether it’s a start up or a 100-year-old company,” Rankin said. “The cash flow of a business will help you understand whether or not it’s going to be a going concern and if it can’t self fund today, what’s its path of being able to do so?” 

Unlike the P&L, which companies will adjust for what they consider unusual items, you can’t adjust the cash flow statement. “Too many adjustments happen in the P&L that are non-cash or nonstandard. It just can be harder to interpret what’s happening in a business by looking at the P&L and that’s why I think the cash flow is so important,” Rankin said. 

Among the challenges of being a public finance leader, Rankin noted that they include managing the push from investors who always want more while you “stay true to your north star of not running a business for the next quarter but running it for the long term.” 

But she sees pros and cons to the Securities and Exchange Commission’s potential plan to eliminate quarterly reporting requirements for public companies and shift them to report only twice a year. While regular quarterly reports do take a lot of company time and push companies to focus on quarter-by-quarter approach, the move appears to be misaligned with the current pace of business. 

“We’re in an age where change happens really fast,” Rankin said. “I don’t think slowing down the regularity of the reports is in service to that accelerated pace of change.”  

Next chapter: the value of time

Rankin, who survived stage three uterine cancer, said her journey with the disease has taught her the value of time. It also helped her to determine she was at a point where she felt she had accomplished what she wanted to professionally and wanted more time to spend with family, and on philanthropy. In addition to mentoring women, she is also on the board of the National Marrow Donor Program, which helps treat patients with blood cancers and disorders. 

Looking ahead, Rankin, 50, and her wife of 26 years, want to spend more time with their parents and Rankin also wants to help her nephew launch his career. “It’s the most wide open chapter that I’ve ever had,” said Rankin. “The pages are blank and I can’t wait to write them.”