Originally published on January 17, 2023.
While here, Rafe Brown wrestled steers for the Rodeo Team, and had to be ready for anything. Today, he channels that reactive ability into a myriad of financial affairs as the CFO of Mimecast Ltd., a publicly-listed email security company with more than 40,000 customers worldwide. He says what he likes most about his job, in Lexington, Massachusetts, is how it is constantly evolving.
He oversees all financial aspects of the business, with more than $600 million in revenues and some 1,800 employees, is responsible for all SEC reporting, and leads all investor relations. Atop all that, he now faces new horizons as Permira, a UK-based private equity firm, is procuring the firm in a nearly $6 billion acquisition.
At SUU, he enjoyed his accounting classes, but had only a vague sense that he wanted to pursue a career in “business.” But he says success gave him a path forward and he gradually, happily, took that path into corporate life.
A Montana native, his horse-training grandparents in St. George drew him to southern Utah, and when looking at college choices, he says, all it took was to see that the then-SUSC had a rodeo team.
“Luckily,” he says, “SUU turned out to be a very good school and I grew up enough, eventually, to put my spurs aside and pursue my degree.”
He praises the institution for its nurturing environment allowing students to grow and to learn, and to ultimately find a career.
“The biggest thing I learned while at SUU was that with focus and effort I could compete academically. Learning how to learn was perhaps the most important lesson of my years at SUU,” he says.
Upon entering grad school at Brigham Young University, he was gratified to find that he and his fellow SUUans were every bit as prepared for its rigors as their counterparts, many from much larger universities, including BYU.
Tags: Alumni Accounting
