Maureen O’Connell is former Executive VP, CFO and CAO at scholastic Inc. In these roles, O’Connell directed the administrative functions, including Finance, all Global Operations, Scholastic Technology Services, Human Resources and Strategic Planning as well as Business Development. She was reporting to Mr. Richard Robinson, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Scholastic Inc. She holds a B.S. in Accounting and Economics from New York University. O’Connell joined Scholastic in January, 2007 with her strong background and experience in the finance and operations field. At Scholastic, O’Connell used her skill and experience in the publishing and direct marketing fields. Ever since joining Scholastic Inc., O’Connell had been a key partner for all business units to improve alignment of support functions and enhance visibility to operating trends and the leading business indicators. She had improved the budgeting, forecasting and capital allocation processes of the company, which led to the development of pricing strategy across the business units. She centralized all the supply chains, purchasing and manufacturing activities across the company, improved the Scholastic distribution centres’ turn times and reduced inventory. O’Connell had been instrumental in strategically retiring some legacy systems while investing in new technologies that can best serve the Company’s transition to the increasingly important digital publishing, marketing and distribution of children’s books and educational materials. Previously, O’Connell served as CFO at Barnes & Noble from 2000 to 2002 before joining Gartner Inc., a leading technology research and advisory firm, where as CFO/CAO, she took up responsibilities of global administrative and financial functions and later on as President and COO, oversaw all business performances, including sales, marketing and operations. Prior to joining Scholastic, O’Connell served as CFO of Affinion Group, Inc., a direct marketing firm. O’Connell started her career as a public accountant and moved into the publishing industry as the Director of Accounting at Primedia. She went on to become the head of finance with operating responsibilities at Newfield Publications, a subsidiary which included the Weekly Reader continuity business and further on became CFO of subsidiary Newbridge Communications, which ran professional book clubs, including teacher clubs and supplemental educational publishing. After eight years at Newbridge Communications, she moved to Bertelsmann Music Group in the direct marketing field. She then became CFO of Publishers Clearing House.   Do check out here work on SlideShare, Vimeo and her personal Blog.