Straddling The Great Divide

Scott Kaplan holds down two jobs, carries two titles, answers to two bosses, but has only one employer and receives only one paycheck. What explains this somewhat unconventional arrangement? Kaplan works for the corporate treasury at Prudential Financial Inc. and one of his bosses–the primary one–is Chuck Chaplin. Prudential’s treasurer since 1995, Chaplin was in charge of implementing a new vision of how treasury could play a strategic role after Prudential went public in 2001, and that vision meant that Kaplan as well as many of his counterparts would have to wear two hats.

Initially hired as treasury’s co-head of corporate finance, Kaplan was later assigned by Chaplin to serve as the internal treasurer for Prudential’s domestic insurance and retirement business segment as well. That has meant that Kaplan has to report to Bernie Jacob, vice president of finance (and de facto CFO) of Prudential’s individual life and annuities business, and work shoulder-to-shoulder with executives whose sole job it is to make the individual life and annuities business segment a thriving contributor to Prudential’s top and bottom lines. At the same time, with his corporate hat on, Kaplan must ensure that the operational executives play by rules that Chaplin has established to protect cash flow. Certainly, that makes the job far more challenging, but Chaplin sees the angst as part of a vital evolution of treasury.