CFO of the Year Awards - Large Private Companies
CFO’s systems helped Apex’s rapid growth
Ted Hanson, Apex Systems Inc.

by Robert Powell
Virginia Business
July 2007

When Ted Hanson joined Apex Systems Inc. in 1998, the IT staffing firm had four offices and revenue of $12 million. Today, Glen Allen-based Apex has grown to 31 offices with 1,000 employees and revenue of more than $300 million.

Since 2001, in fact, the company’s revenue has risen 555 percent. It has been listed among the Inc. 500, named the top growth company in the Richmond Times-Dispatch’s Rising 25, recognized by Ernst & Young as “Entrepreneur of the Year” for Virginia and cited as one of the top 10 staffing companies in the country by Wall Street analysts.

Hanson, a certified public accountant, makes sure that Apex’s leaders stay focused, providing weekly profit margin reviews, customer segmentation information and other performance measurements. In a letter of recommendation for Hanson’s CFO of the Year nomination, L. Michael Gracik Jr. says Hanson is able to anticipate the systems and controls that the company has needed to continue its rapid growth. “In my view, his ability to anticipate these systems needs and have them implemented had a big factor in the growth of Apex.” Gracik is a principal at the accounting firm Keiter, Stephens, Hurst, Gary & Shreaves in Richmond.

Hanson isn’t an Apex founder, but he has been a confidant of founders Brian Callaghan, Win Sheridan and Jeff Veatch since the company’s beginning.

While still working at a telecommunications firm, Hanson helped them on evenings and weekends during Apex’s first two years of operation.

In addition to Apex’s finances, Hanson oversees the company’s legal, information systems, payroll and human resources functions. He also developed the firm’s employee ownership plan, which offers grants, stock options and stock appreciation rights to company workers.

Hanson’s talents “are a big part of why we have extended significant capital to help fund Apex System’s growth,” writes Chad J. Harcum, a commercial banking director of Wachovia in Richmond.