Squirrel!
Lessons Learned from a Career of Distractions, Diversions, and Endless Opportunities
Dave Walton
President & CEO
Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation
Talk Overview
Everyone leads busy work lives in the equipment finance industry, and we often spend our energy on improving our technical, relational, etc. skills. Leaders must balance an external accountability to colleagues, customers, etc. and a continuous improvement mindset while avoiding the pitfalls of becoming too inwardly focused within their own job functions.
Why Select this Talk?
This Talk will examine the four divisions and foundations of leadership, including the importance of self-care and trust. Great leaders recognize and actualize these leadership facets without getting lost in the weeds of day-to-day office mechanics.
How You Learn
We will discuss the intersection of growth on a personal and professional level. We will leverage a real-life case study and personal examples to test our framework. The Talk will be highly interactive.
Takeaways
The power of focus is essential to high performing teams – practice required!
Being good at your job and being a good person go hand-in-hand in the workforce.
It is essential to know your ‘what’ and your ‘why’ when applying yourself to your work.
Leadership is built on a foundation of trust.
Dave Walton
Dave Walton is a vice president of Caterpillar Inc. and President and Chief Executive Officer of Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation. He has administrative responsibility for the Financial Products Division, which is comprised of Cat Financial and Cat Financial Insurance Services.
Dave joined Cat Financial in 1989 after four years with an Illinois bank. During his first ten years with the company, he held various credit, portfolio management, and sales positions in the United States. He became Corporate Portfolio Manager in 1999, where he was responsible for managing the corporate finance portfolio through policy, reporting and analysis. In 2001, he was named U.S. Southern Region Manager in Dallas, responsible for field operations from Texas to Florida. In 2003, Dave served as Managing Director of Northern Europe. Based in the UK, he was responsible for Cat Financial's operations in the UK, Ireland, Nordic countries and the Netherlands.
From 2005 to 2011, Dave was Cat Financial Vice President based in Singapore with administrative responsibility for Cat Financial’s nine Asia-Pacific offices, including Singapore, Japan, China and Australia. In 2006, he was also asked to form and lead Cat Financial’s global mining finance organization, Cat Mining Finance, which has equipment and project finance offices in Zurich, Melbourne and Nashville. From 2012 to 2017, he was based in Peoria, Illinois, with responsibility for U.S. Sales, Canada Sales and Operations, Corporate Accounts and the Cat Financial Commercial Account product, while retaining his previous mining responsibilities.
Dave holds a bachelor's degree in Accounting from Indiana University and an MBA from Keller Graduate School in Chicago. He serves on the board of the United Way of Metropolitan Nashville, FM Global and the Equipment Leasing & Finance Association (ELFA).