Ann Ziegler, '83: Bringing Law School Experience to the Top of the Corporate World
Ann Ziegler, ’83, serves as Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and an executive committee member at CDW, a $12 billion provider of integrated information technology solutions to more than 250,000 business and public-sector customers.
Before joining CDW in 2008, she was at Sara Lee for 15 years, with seven years before that at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. At Sara Lee, after a short time in the legal department she joined the corporate development department, where she rose within six years to become Senior Vice President, responsible for the company’s worldwide portfolio strategy and mergers and acquisitions, reporting directly to the company’s chairman and CEO. Among the many transactions for which she was responsible, she led the IPO and spinoff of Coach, Inc., and the $3 billion acquisition of Earthgrains.
Toward the end of her time in corporate development, she says, “I decided that I had been a deal junkie long enough, and I wanted a broader role. I let it be known that I wanted a CFO position.” She soon found herself in that role, as well as being Senior Vice President for Administration, at the company’s $3.5 billion bakery group, which was in need of a turnaround. Along with a new group CEO and other team members, in two years she helped triple profits, as well as making many other improvements that included hedging strategies that substantially reduced profit-and-loss volatility.
“I joke with Rich Noll, who was the new CEO of the bakery group, that he must have been surprised when he learned who his CFO was going to be,” she says. “There was a lot of new learning for me, and a lot of new challenges, not the least of which was that I was managing many people who had much greater subject area expertise than I did. I guess I can thank my Law School education for helping me with that. I will be the first to admit that I did not necessarily enjoy my time at the Law School, but I definitely learned not to be intimidated or snowed by people who are compelled to act like they are smarter than you. The Law School gave me the confidence—and quite a bit of practice—to effectively deal with this persona. I would sometimes tell myself, ‘You made it through the University of Chicago Law School. You have the backbone to do anything.’”
Noll clearly liked what he saw in her. He’s now the CEO of Hanesbrands, and she sits on the board of directors there. (She is also on the board of Groupon and served previously on the boards of Kemper, Delta Galil Industries, and Johnsonville Sausage.)Her last post at Sara Lee was three years as CFO and Senior Vice President for Administration at the company’s $4.7 billion food and beverage group, where she also helped achieve dramatic turnaround-level improvements.
Then on to CDW, early in 2008. The company was enjoying fast growth, and she was enthusiastic about the new challenges and opportunities. Then the recession hit. Revenues plummeted, and the company—which had been taken private the year before—was very highly leveraged. She found big savings; refinanced more than three billion dollars in debt; put a new, more diverse, leadership team in place in her department; improved crucial policies; and used a broad communication strategy to sustain morale. Coming out of the recession, CDW boomed, with double-digit gains in revenues and profits. In 2013, she led CDW’s very successful return to being publicly traded. “We’re an entrepreneurial, ‘can-do’ company,” she says, “so every day is an adventure. I have always said that if you’re too comfortable in your job, it’s time to find a new one. I love what I’m doing, and it’s still keeping me learning and growing.”
Her late husband, Mark Orloff, graduated from the Law School in 1982. Their daughters, Emma and Reba, are now in college.
“At the Law School, I learned a way of critical thinking and problem solving that has served me extremely well in my career,” she says. “While I haven’t practiced law for years, the critical thinking and problem solving skills I learned are important and relevant in almost any career.”