Matt Flood Aims as High as the Cloud

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Some twenty years ago, Matt Flood read an article about how to be a successful chief information officer that contained a piece of advice he still follows to this day: learn the business better than you know IT.

“Ever since then, I’ve wanted to know how the business was running. From finance and supply chain to warehousing and manufacturing, I really wanted to understand the whole business,” Flood says. “Now, I pride myself in the fact that I probably do know the business better than I know IT.”

Currently, the business in question is Prestige Consumer Healthcare, a leader in over-the-counter healthcare products. As vice president of IT, Flood is steering Prestige toward a major cloud migration that will enable the company to reach new heights. At the same time, he continues to grow his own knowledge through his commitment to continuous learning, while also carving out time to build relationships with and create opportunities for the people around him.

Flood’s educational journey began in earnest at St. John’s University, where he started out as a business student. “In my second year, I changed my major to computer science. I knew it was an area that was really going to explode over the years,” he says. “That was a major decision-making milestone for me, leaving the business degree for computer science. It changed my life.”

Degree in hand, Flood entered the workforce as a computer programmer at chemical company W.R. Grace. His role there prompted him to return to school, to broaden his expertise and deepen his connection to the business. “I went back within nine months and achieved an MBA in international finance,” he explains. “I was working in the finance division at the time, and I figured that to really know the business, I needed to understand the finance aspect. That degree opened a lot of doors for me.”

“From finance and supply chain to warehousing and manufacturing, I really wanted to understand the whole business. Now, I pride myself in the fact that I probably do know the business better than I know IT.”

Matt Flood

Indeed, Flood went on to gain diverse programming and IT experience in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry at Purdue Pharma and Taro Pharmaceutical Industries. He was leading an IT staff of forty-five as SVP and CIO at Taro by the time he made the jump to Prestige in late 2011.

“It was a small company, but they were ready to grow,” he says of joining Prestige. “We were moving to a new facility, and I knew the infrastructures were going to have to be rebuilt. We were going to put in a new ERP [enterprise resource planning] system, and I convinced them to do SAP [systems applications and products], which ended up being a great move for us.”

Despite the significant up-front expense, the ERP and SAP implementation has paid dividends over the past decade, and the relationship between Flood and his partners is just as strong.

“Consistently focused on innovation excellence and education, Matt Flood helped Prestige Consumer Healthcare become an intelligent enterprise by upgrading their SAP environment,” says John McGrath, principal and managing director at Answerthink. “Answerthink is proud to be their chosen SAP partner, providing solutions that meet Prestige’s business needs today, and in the future.”

Now, Flood has his eye on the next stage of Prestige’s IT evolution: a cloud migration. “Our manufacturing site already has quite a few cloud applications, but we’re looking at ways to take advantage of the cloud on the network side as well, to reduce costs and resource overhead and be a little nimbler,” he says. “When you move to the cloud, you become a leaner organization from an infrastructure standpoint. It’s a much better value for our spend.”

To navigate this major project, Flood is turning to his colleagues on the business side for user input and to his internal team and external partners for on-the-ground support. He has built out the IT team during his tenure at Prestige, but it remains small, meaning he balances his days between long-term strategic planning and hands-on project work. In both settings, he practices an open and honest style of communication that encourages his team members to connect with him on matters professional and personal alike.

“I’m not just a strong technical leader; I’m trying to make this a good place to work, where people can be happy,” Flood says. “IT folks want to learn new technologies. If they’re stagnant, they get bored, so we have to create opportunities for them. I’m always asking my team what they want to learn and where they want to get involved, and then I try to fulfill those needs.”

“When you move to the cloud, you become a leaner organization from an infrastructure standpoint. It’s a much better value for our spend.”

Matt Flood

Flood’s growth-minded approach to leadership mirrors his own trajectory as a learner. Since completing his formal education, he has kept his knowledge up to date by pursuing certifications and attending trainings, seminars, and conferences in the field.

“As I moved up the ranks in IT, I had really good managers and I learned from them,” he says. “I’ve learned a lot from my counterparts in other companies and from other folks in the business, too. People tend to be pretty open because we’re all learning from each other.”

Flood has always emphasized education within his own household as well. “My father made me promise to have both of my children graduate college, without any loans, and I delivered on that promise,” he says. “I wanted my wife and my children to have a good life, and I actually wanted my children to have a better life than I did. I’ve worked hard my whole life for my family.”

Flood has worked just as hard striving to enhance the ways he aligns with and serves the business at Prestige. “The IT team has helped deliver solutions, so the business has pretty good faith in us,” he says. “My job is to make sure the company continues to be successful, and by upgrading our ERP and moving it to the cloud, we’re going to set the company up for many years to come.”

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