Thomas Ferguson on public company challenges
From Interview with Tom Ferguson, CEO of AZZ · · Titanium Economy
“Being a public company, we had to report quarterly earnings, which tied our hands in the short term, making it difficult to focus on disparate businesses running on different economic cycles.”
On , Thomas Ferguson, President, Chief Executive Officer & Director at AZZ INC, spoke about public company challenges during Interview with Tom Ferguson, CEO of AZZ on Titanium Economy.
About Thomas Ferguson
Thomas Ferguson, president and CEO of AZZ, has discussed the company's strategic pivot toward metal coatings. In a 2025 interview, he described the 2022 spin-off of AZZ's infrastructure segment into a joint venture with Fernweh Group to form Avail, and the subsequent acquisition of Precoat Metals. Ferguson said the company decided to focus on metal coatings because the previous diverse set of business units lacked scale and were difficult to explain to the market. He noted that the joint venture allowed AZZ to participate in the growth of those businesses while generating cash to focus on coatings. Ferguson also stated that the divestiture of the Electrical Protection Group (EPG) to Invent was a milestone that reflected the success of the strategy. In a 2024 interview, Ferguson discussed integrating his Christian faith into his leadership at AZZ. He said he sent an email to employees stating he is a Christian but that they are not required to be one to work at the company. Ferguson said his primary responsibility is to generate returns for shareholders, but also to create a culture where people care about each other. He added that he wants to have an impact for the kingdom and that his heart has changed toward serving people. In a 2010 interview, Ferguson criticized the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in *Citizens United v. FEC*, which allowed unlimited corporate spending in elections. He said the decision was "really scary" and that corporations are "not natural entities" and should not have the same rights as people. Ferguson argued that the ruling would allow corporations to spend large sums in local elections and that the "open corruption of the system" would become a real problem.