Creating a Collaborative Culture of Curious People Who Are Committed to Public Service.

• Author: Ludwig, Katie
• Position: FINANCE: METRO, OREGON

Metro, a regional government agency serving northwestern Oregon, has developed a collaborative structure and culture that helped the organization navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects, while continuing to focus on delivering better outcomes through compromise and problem-solving.

Metro serves about 1.7 million people in Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington counties. Brian Kennedy, Metro's chief financial officer, explained that the organization was created in the 1980s through the merger of a council of governments focused on land use and transportation planning and a solid waste service district. Since this merger, the organization has grown to accommodate other operations including the Oregon Convention Center, parks and nature systems across the region, the Oregon Zoo, the Portland Expo Center, and several performing arts centers in the City of Portland.

"We exist to do a lot of things that don't fit easily into other governments' niches," Kennedy said, adding that Metro recently issued a $653 million bond to fund affordable housing construction in the region, and in 2020, voters passed a personal and business income tax to raise about $250 million a year to fight chronic homelessness.

Metro has a centralized finance operation, providing budget, accounting, financial reporting, procurement, and risk management services to the entire agency. "No organization has Finance just because they think it's a super-awesome thing to have or they love producing financial statements," explained Kennedy. "We exist to make the rest of the organization work. Part of my vision for our team is that we're at the table for every big decision that gets made, and I don't want to force that. I want to be invited to those tables. I think we have the best data in the organization. We have visibility into the entire organization. We have some of the best tools for helping to evaluate decisions. The way we get invited to those tables is by being good partners."

"Early in my career, I worked for some finance departments that very much enjoyed telling everyone 'no' and being the mean parent in the relationship. What I saw is that we didn't get involved in decisions; we didn't get invited into conversations. We were always finding out about things after the fact," Kennedy said. "I really want us to have a different path, so we have finance managers who are embedded in each of our departments. Part of what we want them to do is earn the trust of the directors and the departments they're supporting, so when somebody says, 'I have a big problem to solve,' the first person they think about inviting to that conversation is their finance manager. I want them to be one of their most trusted advisors. That's how we try to enshrine good financial decision-making throughout the organization."

Craig Stroud is the executive director of the Oregon Convention Center. "We strive for excellence in daily operations and in making decisions that are strategic for the future. We need the right disciplines at the table to make and enact decisions, and that comes through collaboration," he said. "I don't have a team that's expert in finance, but Metro has an...