An Anxious Accountant's Journey to the Top [Special Content]
Energy Gang
Wood Mackenzie
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2020
⏱️ 13 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This is an original, branded podcast from GTM Creative Strategies, produced in collaboration with CohnReznick.
In 2004, Ted Gunther started a new job at a big accounting firm. He led the team overseeing transactions in newly-deregulated electricity markets.
On his first day, he met the "Green Book," a thick, complicated book that sets standards for derivatives, hedging strategies and contracts structures.
“I still remember it vividly. [...] I remember the partner at the time putting that book on my desk and asking me to go ahead and read this and I just looked at it and I thought to myself, ‘Wow, that's going to be a lot to read.’
Ted used The Green Book to become an expert in complicated energy markets.
As his career blossomed, he started grappling with another complicated problem: anxiety.
It started to grip Ted during meetings. “The heart's really beating fast. You know you have something to say but you have a hard time just getting it out and saying it.”
But he wasn’t going to let anxiety hold him back. Ted got help, moved past it, and became a partner at CohnReznick.
Today, he leads CohnReznick's renewable energy industry practice, and helps utilities and other energy companies execute all kinds of transactions, from long-term contracts to hedging strategies to tax structures.
In this special episode: how Ted is using the lessons from overcoming anxiety to help clients and colleagues grow.
CohnReznick serves a wide range of industries from tech to government to entertainment. It’s a leader in cutting-edge fields like renewable energy and cannabis. To learn more about how people like Ted can help you work through some of the most complicated transactions in energy, visit CohnReznick.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an original branded podcast from GTM Creative Strategies produced in collaboration with Cone Resnick. |
| 0:07.0 | There's this well-known book in accounting circles. It's called The Green Book. |
| 0:18.0 | It sets standards for things like derivatives, hedging strategies, contract structures, and no surprise for an accounting manual, it's written in excruciatingly complicated detail. |
| 0:28.0 | Here's a sample of the table of contents. |
| 0:31.0 | Page 174, hedging interest rate risk for the forecast of 5, continuing the shortcut method after a purchase business combination. |
| 0:45.3 | Page 109, modified co-insurance arrangements and debt instruments that incorporate credit risk exposures |
| 0:51.6 | that are unrelated or only partially related to the creditworthiness of the obligor under those instruments. |
| 0:57.0 | It goes on like this for hundreds of pages. |
| 1:00.0 | In 2004, Ted Gunther started a new job at a big accounting firm. |
| 1:05.2 | He led the team overseeing transactions and newly deregulated electricity markets. |
| 1:09.5 | And on his first day, he met the Green Book. |
| 1:11.9 | Yeah, I still remember it vividly to the day because the book was actually green. |
| 1:16.0 | It was about 500 pages. |
| 1:18.0 | I remember the partner at the time, you know, putting that book on my desk and asking me to go ahead and read this. |
| 1:25.2 | And I just looked at it and I thought to myself, wow, it's going to be a lot to read. |
| 1:29.0 | Ted read the book. |
| 1:30.1 | He read it over and over. |
| 1:32.4 | This was before you could easily get it on the internet, |
| 1:34.0 | so he would actually carry it with him in his car |
| 1:36.0 | every time he left the office. |
| 1:38.0 | Yeah, my teammates used to laugh at me because, |
| 1:41.0 | they called it my road, FASB. |
... |
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