Sean Benfield
Director of Finance
CAREFUSION
Sean is a specialist in operational strategy and organizational change with over 15 years of progressive leadership experience at large and mid-cap companies. In his current role as Finance Director for CareFusion, he is responsible for global business transformation, focused on improving the quality, economics, and business partnership capabilities of the finance organization. Sean has built his career on a foundation of roles centered around controllership and compliance activities. He has a passion for the healthcare industry driven by his desire to help people and his intrigue for innovation and improvement.
Sean will be one of the distinguished speakers at the 7th Semi-Annual Life Science Financial Forum.
Why is the 7th Semi-Annual Life Science Financial Forums important to financial executives?
I’ve been a participant in the Life Science Financial Forums for the last three years. I’m always excited to attend these sessions because of the combination of topics, speakers, and participants that keep things interesting over the course of the sessions. As a finance leader, one of the best sources of current information is the knowledge of your peers and I’m always able to pull a few nuggets from these discussions that are related to what is happening in my world. I’m looking forward to participating in the 2015 sessions.
What initiatives are on the horizon at your organization for the financial department in 2015-2016?
In our company, we have to be smarter about the way that we operate, and finance transition is one of our highest priorities. Although that sounds very ambiguous, it boils down to centralizing activities, rationalizing the way that we work and looking for new technologies that will help to support the workflow and the control structure. This creates several operational challenges while we design and implement the new models but it will be well worth it in the long run.
How has the increase in consolidation/M&A affected the life science industry?
Mergers and acquisitions are so prevalent in today’s business world that it’s no surprise to see the healthcare industry impacted by these factors. Whether you’re a payor, provider, or supplier, the creation of new business opportunities through the consolidation of organizations has become a strategy for increasing an organization’s capabilities and their position on the patient care value chain. This is an incredibly exciting time to be a supplier in the middle of this scenario because we’re finding that the old adage ‘the sum of the parts is greater than the whole’ is definitely true.
