AFP Honors Profile: Paul Rouse
July 16, 2007
AFP Staff Writers

Learn more about the 2007 AFP Honors, presented by PNC. RECENT NEWS ARTICLES BY TOPIC Bank Relationship Management Corporate Finance Financial Accounting & Reporting Payment Resources for Treasury Risk Management Sarbanes-Oxley Treasury Management Career Services

Paul Rouse, Vice President of Finance and Treasurer, Yellow Book USA, Inc.

As vice president of finance and treasurer, Paul Rouse is responsible for treasury, tax, credit, collections along with mergers and acquisitions.

Yellow Book USA is the #1 independent publisher of print and online Yellow Page directories nationwide. This year they expect to publish approximately 1,000 printed directories in 48 states with approximately 8,000 employees. He became a CTP for an interesting reason. "I've been around here a bit and we’ve done a lot of acquisitions over the years. We’ve also brought ourselves private and public. I noticed that the majority of the top bankers and treasury executives I met during this process were CTPs. I thought there might be something to this. So I decided to take a look for myself," Rouse said.

"It's helped me to get a greater understanding of the options available to treasurers particularly in dealing with financing deals, arranging short term and long term financing, investing excess cash, and finding ways to improve for back office efficiencies."

He's been around Yellow Book from its early days helping it grow from a small local publisher on Long Island, New York with approximately 200 employees to a national brand print and online publisher located in 48 states with over 8,000 employees. He has had the opportunity to investigate new business opportunities for the company, particularly online to help the company continue its growth.

AFP Conferences are a must for Rouse. "Since I’ve become a CTP, I’ve attended each conference," he said. He sees it as an incredible opportunity to network, to learn and it’s a very efficient and reasonable way to get CPE credits. The challenge for future finance professionals is that the world's changing said Rouse. "It's gone global. You need to adapt. One of the great things about AFP is it allows you to stay current with the changes going on."

Copyright © 2007 Association for Financial Professionals. All Rights Reserved.