Dennis McGrath was only recently married and a new home owner when he was invited to a Phillies game by the CFO of AC Manufacturing.

At the time, McGrath was working for Andersen as an auditor of a roster of growing companies, among which AC—a maker of industrial air-conditioning units—was perhaps not the most glamorous.

“At the end of the night, the CFO told me that he wanted to hire me and would pay me a lot more than I was then making,” recalls McGrath, who doesn’t hesitate to reveal what allowed AC’s offer to trump all other opportunities.

Says McGrath: “I went for the money.”

However, what distinguished McGrath’s AC career chapter was neither compensation nor, for that matter, a lengthy tenure (McGrath was controller for 22 months).

Adds McGrath: “It was not too long before the owner decided that he was going to sell the company and had a private equity group come in.”  

Still in his mid-20s, McGrath took a seat across the table from a seasoned group of private equity executives.

“For me, my career has just kind of been perpetuated from there in terms of deal-making,” explains McGrath, who has arguably occupied “the seat” from that day forward, guaranteeing  a CFO career chock full of M&A deal-making.  –Jack Sweeney