The CFO-CEO relationship is arguably the most important leadership dynamic of an organization. While the CFO is often tasked with being the skeptic to a passionate CEO, this can often turn into a power struggle where decision-making processes can be hindered by poor communication, siloed information and different views on organizational trajectory.
However, when managing multiple loosely-connected businesses, this relationship is paramount for success. For Mike Zielinski, who holds several CFO positions in different organizations including the minor league baseball teams Portland Pickles and the Lake County Captains, a marketing agency COlliDE, a sports and entertainment company 1845 Management and a lifestyle sports clothing brand Official League, his communication process with the ownership group requires more diligence than the average CFO-CEO relationship.
Alan Miller is the owner and/or president of the groups Zielinski oversees. When Zielinski initially reached out to Miller, he did so without any aspirations of being CFO of Miller’s organizations. But, after some exploration into sports ownership possibilities, Zielinski and Miller became business partners and now embody what a professional, open and productive communication process and relationship look like between a CFO and the CEO.
Stepping up to bat
“I worked in very traditional industries before I got here. I spent nearly eight years at Infinity Hydrocarbons, a first purchaser of crude oil,” said Zielinski. “I was CFO there, and it was a very traditional business.”
However, when COVID-19 arrived in 2020, Zielinski reconsidered where his career was heading. “When the pandemic hit, I got interested in sports from an investment perspective,” he said. “It was then that I began to learn about this whole niche banking and finance world around minor league sports. It was an area I found exciting and interesting, and as I began thinking about my retirement plans, I started talking to some bankers about the possibilities of me buying into a minor league sports team.”
After realizing that the time and knowledge commitment required to wholeheartedly invest in a sports team was not the best path forward for him, Zielinski became a partner in a sports ownership group, Top Tier Sports, that had non-controlling interests in sports-related companies.
“Baseball was a big passion of mine growing up. I even had an extremely short playing stint in college; but when the opportunity came to come on board and take over as CFO and work with Alan, it was like a rekindling of that romance between me and baseball.”
Mike Zielinski
CFO of two minor league baseball teams and other sports-inspired organizations
This ownership group introduced Zielinski to Miller for the first time. “One of our investments at Top Tier Sports is with a team called the Cleburne Railroaders, and that’s where I met Alan, who was one of the other owners of the team,” Zielinski said. “Alan and I became really good friends, and as I learned more about the sports industry, I realized how much I loved the thought of maybe aligning my personal interest in sports with my professional skill set.
“So, as I learned more about Alan’s concepts for his companies like Official League and the other sports-related stuff he was doing, I began working with him and helping out when I could.”
Zielinski said that pursuing a CFO position in an industry he was passionate about brought a new light to his perspective on finance and accounting. “Baseball was a big passion of mine growing up. I even had an extremely short playing stint in college; but when the opportunity came to come on board and take over as CFO and work with Alan, it was like a rekindling of that romance between me and baseball.
“After thirty years of being away from the game and building a career in finance and accounting, I was able to marry the two together in a way that allowed me to truly realize a passion for what my ‘company’ did every day.”
The makeup of a good CFO-CEO relationship
Zielinski credits himself as “fortunate” in his career regarding the quality of character and professionalism around the CEOs he has worked with throughout his career. According to him, it’s a sense of “mutual appreciation” for the work — something he credits Miller’s ability to have a strong sense of.
“Where I’ve seen problems, from my view and talking with people in my network, is when CEOs or other leaders dismiss the financial aspect of leadership and decision-making and just tell CFOs to go out and get the numbers and be bean counters,” he said. “I’ve had some opportunities in the past to potentially work for people that I have turned down because I could tell they weren’t looking for a strategic partner in the business.”
Effective and strategic partnerships depend on open communication within the C-suite. “I think it’s important for the CFO and CEO to be in constant communication,” Zielinski said. “I believe it’s imperative for all the leaders at a company, but especially the CFO and CEO, to be there when things are being decided around strategy for the business. Alan, like a lot of the others I have worked with, is good at that. His marketing experience and way of thinking have ways of approaching information or data that I never would, and I think it’s that type of collaboration that results in success.”
Time management and marketing
Although his passion for the work makes it more fun, Zielinski is running multiple companies with lots of moving pieces. According to him, it’s about being able to identify where efforts require his time and when there are times he can step away and focus on being available for the critically important strategic decision-making process.
“This job is really fun, but we still have the challenges of a normal business,” he said. “We have some headaches on the finance and accounting side of things from time to time, as any other company does, but the biggest challenge is probably around managing the activity of the teams and staying in the loop on important times and dates for each team.”
Being available to analyze both opportunities and data to empower decision-making around growth opportunities is essential. Most recently, as the Pickles have introduced the first cannabis beverage in professional sports, and the Lake County Captains’ viral Roto Rooter-inspired fan offering, these moments of limelight require the availability of leadership to assess.
“There’s always some type of big project going on in our organizations, especially when it comes to growth opportunities,” Zielinski said. “We’ve been very fortunate after launching Official League when we originally planned to bootstrap the company ourselves and just use some investors that we know to help source capital, but we decided to do a small private equity raise that’s been hugely successful for us. We’ve done some cool things lately with that brand, including the design for the MLB’s 2024 All-Star Futures Game lifestyle windbreakers along with custom jackets for the draft that the selected prospects received.”
On the marketing side of things, Zielinski calls himself a “sounding board” and relies heavily on Miller’s marketing expertise to drive what’s best for all of their organizations. “We are always looking for ways to help build a fun atmosphere and Alan’s creativity has helped master some of that.”
For these minor league teams, marketing and fan engagement drives growth. “Our teams have blown up replica whales in Portland and hosted ‘Karen’ and ‘emo’ nights in Lake County,” he said. “We push the envelope a bit, but it’s our brand. It makes things fun. As CFO, I help keep some ideas in check, but at the end of the day, Alan’s creativity is a huge asset to our brands.”
Passion for sports and the next generation
Data around CFO turnover rates has consistently indicated that finance chiefs are the most likely to leave in the C-suite; however, CFOs in professional sports tend to have considerably longer tenures.
According to Zielinski, he believes this is because of the passion it requires to be successful in this space and how rewarding it can be to provide value in an organization that aligns with a personal interest.
“I think a big part of it is having a passion for this industry; I haven’t met an executive in sports that doesn’t like sports,” he said. “There’s somewhat of an appeal factor to work in traditional industries like oil and gas and manufacturing, especially early on, but there are also a lot of opportunities in that industry as well. In sports, there are just not as many chances to grow into those positions for finance leaders.”
After traveling to Boston, Zielinski highlighted how some CFO roles, like Tim Zue’s, the CFO of his beloved Boston Red Sox, are some of the most desirable jobs out there for people like him.
“I think a big part of it is having a passion for this industry; I haven’t met an executive in sports that doesn’t like sports.”
Mike Zielinski
CFO of two minor league baseball teams and other sports-inspired organizations
“I was just in Fenway Park a couple of weeks ago; one of my daughters is interning at one of the big four firms in Boston and we went to a game. That’s my team,” he said. “My dad grew up outside of Boston, and if I ever had that gig, to be CFO of the Boston Red Sox, there’s just no way I’d ever leave that job.”
Zielinski knows from his experience that success in finance and accounting can open up doors to pursue life’s passions. “My daughter actually got assigned to a group where the Red Sox are a client, and I was extremely excited for her to potentially get the opportunity to work in sports because I know how rare it can be,” he said.
“I tell my daughters constantly now that they’re on track to pursue accounting just like both of their parents, that you can never go wrong with having an accounting foundation no matter what industry or role you pursue a career in. Accounting is the language of business.”
This story is part one of a two-part series chronicling Mike Zielinski’s CFO-CEO partnership with Alan Miller. Part two will be published tomorrow, July 26.
