Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer, Aerovironment
Search every verified Kevin Mcdonnell interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote β each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Kevin McDonnell, senior vice president and chief financial officer at AeroVironment, appeared on two podcasts in 2023 and 2024. In a December 2024 episode focused on property investing, McDonnell discussed the concept of "no money down" property purchases, which he described as "buying property without money that you've earned in a job." He stated that "most people can't do property with their own money" and attributed the availability of such strategies to governments having "printed trillions of pounds in the last few years, especially during the lockdown." In a September 2023 podcast on business risk, McDonnell said that "at the end of the day you can only create value for any organization or even for yourself if you take risk." He described different risk profiles for companies, stating that for startups "the biggest risk is running out of money," while for mature companies "competition and environment are the biggest risks." McDonnell also discussed a risk he took at a previous company by overhauling its pricing scheme, which he said "tripled the company's profitability while keeping customers happy." He emphasized that organizations should "focus on the things that are going to get to their long-term objectives and not try to do everything that's a good idea."
“The concept of no money down is buying property without money that you've earned in a job.”
“A lot of people on social media especially go 'you can't do no money down' β and the irony is that they can't do their own money down; most people can't do property with their own money so then they think I can't do property.”
“If you stop looking internally and look externally... the reality is governments of the world printed trillions of pounds in the last few years, especially during the lockdown.”
“At the end of the day you can only create value for any organization or even for yourself if you take risk. The key is to understand what the risks are and understand what the rewards are and balance the risks with rewards so you can make good decisions.”
In this episode, we chat with Kevin McDonnell, CFO at AeroVironment, about effectively managing risk to drive growth and createΒ ...
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