Friday, October 3, 2008

The Mover

Acme Packet CFO Minihane counts people more than money

By Amy Castor, Special to Mass High Tech

Peter Minihane may have launched his career crunching numbers, but he built his career around people. “The most valuable assets of any company can’t be found on a balance sheet,” he said. “They are the ones that go home every night and return every morning.”

The new CFO and treasurer of Acme Packet Inc. in Burlington credits his successful career to the relationships he’s cultivated along the way. During his 35 years in the Boston high-tech community, Minihane, 59, has stayed in touch with people from all his past jobs.

During a recent trip to Maryland, for example, he stopped to have dinner with 15 employees of Visual Networks Inc., where he served as CFO in the late ’90s.

How he wound up in finance was somewhat of a fluke. It was during the Vietnam War years. “I liked basketball, reading. I was always good with numbers, but I didn’t have a passion for any particular thing,” he said. “I was heading for the Army when an ex-girlfriend filled out a college application for me.”

After getting a degree in finance, Minihane took a job at a public accounting firm in Boston “pushing numbers around on a piece of paper,” which he found boring. Then one evening a few years later, over a sandwich and beer, a friend started “waving the Data General flag.”

Data General Corp. was big news at the time, a fast growing company with lots of opportunity. “I thought it would be a good career move,” Minihane said. Apparently it was. He stayed nine years, getting a master’s in taxation and a CPA license along the way.

During his next position at Microcom, which lasted 12 years, Minihane “naturally progressed” to the CFO level. His next big career move was to Visual Networks in Maryland.

Born and raised in Somerville, Minihane chose to keep his home in Massachusetts, even during the seven years he worked for Visual Networks. “The truth was, I commuted all those years. Every Monday morning down to Rockville, and every Friday back to Winchester,” he said.

In the last decade, Minihane has found another way to connect with people and share his knowledge of the high-tech industry. He teaches an evening course at Boston College on finance and accounting in high-growth technology companies. “It’s just kind of this deal I got roped into and ended up enjoying,” he said, adding that it also gives him an opportunity to tap into all the people he knows as guest speakers for the class.

Amy Castor is a freelance writer in Amherst.