PEDERSEN NAMED ONE OF THE 100 MOST INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE IN FINANCE
Treasurer Robert Pedersen, who last month was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance by Treasury & Risk magazine, now is featured on the magazine’s website.
Pedersen began his career at USPS as an investment officer in 1983 and was named treasurer in 2002.
His postal accomplishments include an award-winning cash consolidation project that was the first of its kind in the treasury profession, and saved USPS $3 million in cash management fees.
Through use of automation, Pedersen also drastically cut the number of people and amount of time needed to do research and reporting — taking work formerly done by 90 people over 90 days, as part of their overall function, and consolidating it into a group of three employees who could complete the work in 3 days.
He also has boosted USPS treasury efficiencies and cut costs by creating a centralized and standardized nationwide system of depository services. Pedersen’s system reduced the number of Postal Service depository banks to 15 banks, with the top five handling 73 percent of deposits. (As recently as the 1990s, the Postal Service used approximately 5,000 depository banks.) Pedersen also reduced the number of armored couriers from 13 to 8, with the top 4 covering 99 percent of USPS service needs.
The system, implemented in February 2009, also involved big changes for the organization — changes Pedersen says he knew would be tough to implement without the blessing of the rest of the organization.
Pedersen was undaunted by the challenge. In early 2007, his team gathered about 30 Postal Service executives from throughout USPS, presented the plan, and asked about any reservations or concerns.
“There was some really good healthy skepticism,” he said. “But from my standpoint, I welcomed that.”
Pedersen credits the meeting with helping him develop a system that “met everybody’s needs.”
