520: Inside the Arena Makeover | Kevin Lind, CFO, Arena Pharmaceuticals

Up until about three years ago Kevin Lind would likely have been identified as yet another gifted private equity executive – capable of issuing business remedies from the tip of his tongue.

At least in the minds of his CFO peers, who are accustomed to listening to PE pundits routinely hand down such remedies for ailing businesses. For Lind the CFO office at Arena Pharmaceuticals is a game changer, where he no longer hands down remedies but serves as a finance leader – an individual tasked with summoning others forward and building trust across an organization even as he or she sometimes completes necessary layoffs.

“Good drugs can succeed in spite of bad management and bad management can fail despite good drugs,” explains Lind, who says the frequent mismatch led him to want to get “one step closer” to management decision making.  Lind would take that one step after receiving a call from Amit Munshi, CEO of Arena Pharmaceuticals.

At first, Lind was less than interested. Arena’s past struggles were not unknown to him – but Munshi encouraged Lind to take a close look at the company’s pipeline.  “From an investment point of view the pipeline was really interesting and there was a turnaround opportunity if we got the right management team together,” recalls Lind, who said knowing Arena was a turnaround – and not a standard CFO tour of duty – made it far more appealing.  – Jack Sweeney