Dalton defines success as being part of a great team

Louisville, Ky.-based Zeon Chemicals LP Chief Financial Officer LaStacia Dalton was named Plastics News CFO of the Year at the 2019 Financial Summit, held May 20-21 in Chicago.

"When I sit and think about my greatest achievement, it's hard for me to say because when I think of success, I think of it more of a people standpoint and a relationship standpoint. The people that I work with, that's why I come here every day — because of the people, the employees," Dalton said during a May 1 phone interview.

When Dalton first started at the University of Kentucky, her original plan was not in finance. She was a political science major and wanted to go to law school. But things changed course when she took an accounting class and loved it.

Dalton held an accounting internship with Kentucky Utilities, graduated with a bachelor's degree in accounting and worked for KU full time following graduation. She also graduated from the University of Louisville with a Master of Business Administration.

She worked for Ware Energy then went back to KU as it was merging with Louisville Gas and Electric.

In 2006, Dalton left to become corporate controller of Zeon Chemicals, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zeon Corp. of Tokyo that produces specialty elastomers. She became CFO in 2012.

Dalton said her responsibilities as CFO have expanded every year. Information technology came under her umbrella in 2013, human resources in 2015 and purchasing in 2016.

"A day in the life of LaStacia is more or less doing a little bit of everything," Dalton said, adding that typical responsibilities include looking at sales, checking the news and foreign currency, holding one-on-one meetings with direct reports and the executive management committee, and planning objectives and strategies.

Over the last few years, Dalton and her team have centralized accounting functions to the corporate location, which streamlined operations and allowed for more efficient use of resource while lowering costs; implemented a timekeeping system across all locations; employed a performance management system; employed a new budgeting system; implemented an expense reporting system including mobile capabilities; carried out an accounts payable automated and paperless invoice approval process; and deployed data analytics across the business Microsoft Power BI.

Jason Langford, Zeon Chemicals marketing communications associate, nominated Dalton for CFO of the Year.

"She equips her managers for success by exposing them to top-level, organizational strategy, allowing them to define and execute aligned strategies for their individual departments," Langford said in Dalton's nomination submission. "She has made many key improvements in financial areas, including consolidation and centralization of functions such as payroll, timekeeping, accounts payable and fixed asset accounting to Zeon Corp. These strategic improvements have allowed her accounting team to streamline processes in the accounting and finance area while appropriately managing resources."

Among accomplishments Langford named include Dalton "made successful strategic decisions regarding company pension plans and retirement programs as well as health care benefits" and led the company to compliance with the Japanese version of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, known as JSOX.

Dalton has also reorganized and rebranded the company's charity committee, Zeon Helping Hands, which she leads and sponsors. A different department chooses the annual charity for fundraising each year, and this year's organization is Shirley's Way, which helps pay for necessities such as mortgage payments, car payments, rent and utility bills to those who are battling cancer.

For the year ahead, Dalton said, Zeon Chemicals has "a lot of exciting things going on from a training perspective."

"We are putting in some new employee development plans for our employees, some new leadership development opportunities for employees, which we are really excited about. We think that is going to be really good [and] some new possible system improvements later in the year," she said.

With human resources now under her responsibilities umbrella, Dalton said, the well-being of the employees has become her No. 1 priority.

"When I go to bed at night, what makes me lose sleep are my employees," Dalton said. "I want them to come to work every day and I want them to be here and go home at night saying, 'I love working at Zeon and this is where I want to be.' To me, that is the most important thing to me."