Clay Shultz
Clay Shultz is a finance leader and educator with over 25 years of experience helping organizations understand and drive value creation. He began his career in financial management consulting, including roles in Big 4 accounting, where he advised hundreds of organizations – from boutique professional services firms to multi-national enterprises – on operating model design, financial performance, and strategic value drivers.
He later served in various in-house finance leadership roles at Cargill – one of the world’s largest and most diverse companies, operating in more than 70 countries – across corporate financial planning and analysis, capital allocation, balance sheet management, and tax. In these roles, he developed a practical, enterprise-wide perspective on financial decision-making and value creation.
Clay is now a finance professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, where he develops the next generation of finance leaders. He is an Enneagram certified coach and brings an integrated perspective on leadership, decision-making, and organizational effectiveness. His work with organizations today focuses on optimizing the operating model and balance sheet investment, developing financial acumen with leaders, shared enterprise-wide financial language, identification of value creation opportunities, and return-based decision-making.