IDG News Service — Name: Charles F. Wagner, executive vice president, Finance & Administration, and CFO

Age: 43

Time with company: 8 months

Education: Boston College, undergraduate accounting degree; Harvard MBA

Company headquarters: Bedford, Massachusetts

Revenue: $530 million in 2010

Number of countries: 71

Number of employees total: 1,600

Number of employees the CFO oversees: almost 200

About the company: Progress Software (PRGS) sells business application infrastructure software. The company was founded in 1981 as Data Language by Joseph Alsop, Clyde Kessel, and Charles Ziering. Its names was changed in 1987. The company website is http://web.progress.com/en/index.html

1. Where did you start in finance and what experiences led you to the job you have today?

I started my career in the audit practice at Coopers & Lybrand. I was there for about five years and I really enjoyed it -- it was a great way to get a start but I didn't want to keep doing accounting and the way you get out of accounting is to get your MBA. So I did that. Then I went to Bain & Company. ... I wanted to make the move into a corporate environment, so I went to Millipore, which is a life science company, and I was head of strategy and M&A. It was an overall fantastic experience. It was growing, but we also put it through a pretty big change in business strategy. We changed the portfolio, we changed the business culture. We more than doubled in size between 2004 and 2009. I was at Millipore a total of about eight years. We had so much success at Millipore that the company was acquired by Merck in $7 billion deal last year.

I took some time off to concentrate on golf and surf lessons, but had the opportunity to come to work at Progress and came back to work in November.

2. Who was an influential boss for you and what lessons did they teach you about management and leadership?

I would say my most influential boss was the CEO of Millipore, Martin Madaus. I think what I learned from him, number one, was the power of communicating aspirations to a company, giving a glimpse of what the future can hold and getting people to rally around that aspiration. He also helped me to appreciate the balance between thoughtfulness and decisiveness -- being good at being considerate and reflective, but having a bias toward action.

3. What are the biggest challenges facing CFOs today?

It's really the increasing scope of the role. Traditionally, CFOs were looked upon for accounting, tax, treasury, management. I also have responsibility for strategy and M&A. Managing the breadth of [all] of that is probably the biggest challenge.

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