Cfo Thought Leader

We seldom hear a finance leader tell us that they took a pass on a promotion early in their careers, so when CFO Ozan Pamir told us that as a 25-year-old associate he had turned down a vice president position with Echelon Wealth Partners, a Canadian investment banking firm that he had been with for only 2 years, we felt obliged to ask: “Why?” “I’d like to think that I’m a relatively self-aware person, and at the time I just did not feel ready—I thought that I had a little more room to grow and things to learn,” says Pamir, who had joined the banking firm as an IV analyst and was promoted in short order to associate—at which time he began managing other analysts.   “A year later, they offered me a vice president role again, and I accepted it at that time,” continues Pamir, who believes that the extra year as a “senior associate” served him well. “It gave me more time to learn how to better manage the analysts and how to take on responsibility when it came to managing certain deals,” explains Pamir, who notes t