Stephen Ward Email Address

Chief Financial Officer

Pratt Industries is a family owned international company based in Melbourne, Australia with U.S. headquarters outside Atlanta in Conyers, Georgia. Pratt is the world's largest privately held paper and packaging company with annual sales in excess of U.S. $2 billion. Pratt has over 60 locations world-wide involved in all facets of the paper industry from harvesting the urban forest by recycling used paper, to making paper through sheet feeding, finished corrugated boxes and point-of-purchase displays.

After a year in banking I joined the auditing profession for 6 years of experience with the company Coopers & Lybrand, my years provided a wonderful grounding and made me realize my future direction and career would be headed towards business management within a value adding organization / business, preferably manufacturing. After a short period at Bostik (UK based adhesive manufacturer) I began my career within the corrugated packaging industry in 1982 and besides some short periods outside have remained in the fast paced ever challenging industry.Experience in plant management as Director Finance Purchasing and MIS at 2 different plants, this period covered 16 years in South Africa.Migrating to Australia I spent a tear in the Brass Manufacturing industry before moving to a Corporate position, ran major projects as well as performed the role of Divisional Controller within one of its Divisions, Pipeline Supplies.Moved back into Corrugated Packaging with Visy in the role of Divisional Controller of its sheet plant Division.Relocated to the US as Divisional Controller of the expanding Corrugating Division and in October of 2014 promoted to VP Accounting a role which transitioned into CFO Pratt Industries.Gained experience in Finance, negotiation (purchasing and labor), mergers and acquisition including greenfield build, implemented IT systems from mainframe to present database systems (SAP). Implemented ISO as well as lean manufacturing programs. Managed Inventory, production services and scheduling teams.Managed people at all levels with success.Experience in South Africa, Australia and the USA.