When in Rome: Renaissance man Eugene Roman sets the standard for excellence at Bell Canada. (Profile).

Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was CMA Eugene Roman.

As chief information officer of giant Bell Canada, Roman has built a career over two decades that at once combines the elements of technology, Finance and IT.

When the business units at Bell need help defining and implementing their e-business infrastructures, they come to Roman. He oversees 1,200 direct staff and 2,500 out-sourced employees, working with CGI -- a strategic partner. Add in thousands of servers, from desktops to mainframes, and you have a $1.2 billion annual operation.

And aspiring CMAs with a mind to joining the senior management track would do well to take more than a page from Roman's book.

"I have used my CMA training in every aspect of my career, from effective budgeting to results management and performance management," he says. "There is a tremendous opportunity to apply that knowledge and training."

The business discipline inherent in CMA training is essential for a large organization like Bell, and emphasizes "proper management controls," says Roman, who has served in his current role for 14 months. "For a lot of IT professionals, management is a black art. What we've done is brought a heightened financial rigour to the process."

That bodes well for the more than 500 projects delivered by Roman's division in fiscal 2001 -- all were delivered under budget.

"Traditionally, we always overran the budget -- and IT is notorious for overrun budgets," he says. "But this year we under-ran it, through good management control, management of costs, and looking at our costs from a different perspective. There is a lot of stuff that is taught in the CMA program that we apply right here. And we do a lot of what I call 'Management 101,' an area that many IT shops have difficulty with."

Before being appointed to his current position, Roman served Bell as vice-president of development for eight months, and as VP of infrastructure (on loan to Bell from Nortel Networks) to assist in getting the corporation ready for Y2K.

Applying financial planning and management accounting skills to a technical milieu has been Roman's forte for 20 years. A 1981 graduate of the University of Toronto's MBA program, he immediately went to work for Nortel, entering its three-year advanced management program. Shortly after, he began work on his CMA studies, earning his designation in 1987.

"I was doing everything under the sun," he says. "As I progressed through Nortel -- six jobs in three years -- I managed R&D shops, focused on finance and technology, and moved back and forth a number of times between technology, IT and finance."

Figuring significantly in the arena of rapidly-evolving technologies is change management, "one of the things we've been able to successfully grapple with. We have to ask the questions 'how do you handle change management and how do you take people through change? How does leadership work and how do you maintain the financial line of sight?' All of the best things you learn as a management accountant, we've been able to apply."

Setting goals for the long term is essential; with a receptive, well-informed team of professionals in place, who have a good vision of an organization's direction, there will be a positive response to an activity-based management (ABM) thrust that defines the essentials of a project from start to finish, says Roman.

"It's a two-way street. We talk about what ABM is about, we revisit our contracts, and we find ways to do things for less cost, in some cases converting suppliers into partners."

That kind of approach demands a mindset that engenders, in an executive like Roman, a person who is "what I call one third CMA, one third IT guy, and one third psychologist, because we know that the complexities of a changing workplace demand a sensitivity to the psychology of your team."

Also essential is a sense of creativity that, coupled with professional skills, is synthesized into the creation of a "renaissance professional" within the corporate framework.

"As a renaissance person, I like all aspects of my work: technology, finance and IT. I've been a hardcore IT person for the last eight or nine years, but the budgeting skills are still there. With a renaissance approach, you can move easily from idea to idea. And you always employ good baseline judgement."

That judgement has kept Roman on the upward career path since he began managing people in 1984. Operating as a vice-president for the last 10 years and now an officer within Bell, he says the reliability of managers in finding ways to be creative while bringing projects in under budget will keep upper management interested; those in charge will in turn create new opportunities for renaissance professionals.

Credibility often comes down to "a reliability in financial numbers," says Roman. "My groups have always delivered to the numbers. We work to the goal of a budget being met, but not overstepped. It starts with good planning and execution, and considers trade-offs and risk analysis. If there are problems, we find out how to recover and make it work. That's part and parcel of the package."

Roman has had 22 jobs in the past 21 years, has worked in Asia, Europe and South America with Nortel's Finance Groups, In formation Systems, R&D and corporate office, and says the renaissance factor is critical to long-term success.

"Having a diverse background helps you in terms of working in a diverse world," he says. "I look for people who are both a scientist and an artist at once. A CMA will take a bachelor or a master's degree and round that out with complementary training and experience. That is the renaissance effect."

And effective CMAs will learn everything they can to do the best job possible, "from management processes to hardcore financial management. With the CMA, there is a standardization and certification process that establishes credibility and a capability. It means more in terms of your usefulness to your corporation and your career. For example, if I can understand the numbers in 10 minutes because of my training, that's money in my corporation's pocket."

He pauses to look back at his early work with Nortel, "which had some complex financial systems. I came in to work on that and found I had a knack for technology. But it was the financial skills that gave me the opening. I was then able to take on the technology side. Now, any kind of system you run, I can run it for you."

And that's a big challenge in a 45,000-employee corporation that, among its many services, provides advanced voice, data and image communications to more than eight million business and residential customers across Canada through 13.6 million access lines, and services approximately four million wireless service customers.

In addition to his CIG role, Roman is on the board of several BCE companies and serves as an advisor for Queen's University's MBA and Science and Technology program.

Toronto-born, Roman resides in his hometown after having lived and worked in Montreal and Ottawa during his tenure with Nortel. His wife Renata is a self-employed physiotherapist. Children William, 14, and Krystina, 16, also benefit from family discussions on finance and management.

"We talk about how numbers in business work," says Roman. "Children absorb so much, and the fact that they are part of a whole Internet generation that combines business and the Web is fascinating."

As in Rome, if you're in management and finance, you might do well to do as Roman does.

John Cooper ([e-mail]) is a Whitby, Ont.based freelance writer.