|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The city of Pleasanton welcomed Susan Hsieh to her first day as the new director of finance on Monday.
Hsieh, who has more than 20 years of experience in finance and operations management in private and public sectors, most recently with the city of San Leandro, will be leading the efforts to maintain the city’s fiscal standing.
“Pleasanton is an exceptionally well-managed city, and I am excited to join this well-regarded organization,” she said. “I look forward to working with the City Council and staff to serve the community.”
Hsieh succeeds Tina Olson, who left Pleasanton in March to become administrative services director with the neighboring city of Livermore.
Before coming to Pleasanton, Hsieh served as the finance director for the city of San Leandro since 2020 and before that held the same role with the city of Emeryville from 2016 to 2020. During both positions, she oversaw all aspects of the cities’ financial functions.
“We are pleased to have Susan join the city’s executive team. Her extensive public finance experience coupled with her private sector experience are welcomed and her collaborative approach will make her a great fit,” Pleasanton City Manager Gerry Beaudin said.
Early in her career, Hsieh worked for the city of Albany as an accounting supervisor and as an auditor for Grant Thornton, a national accounting firm, where she led audit engagements and conducted financial statement audits.
She also served as assistant finance director and assistant chief financial officer for the Association of Bay Area Governments, a regional planning agency that incorporates local governments in the nine Bay Area counties.
Hsieh earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in finance and management. She is a certified public accountant and holds professional certifications from University of California, Berkeley and Pepperdine University.
We are told by this article where she worked, but nothing about what she achieved, her accomplishments, or how she brought value to those businesses. I hope the interview by Pleasanton focused on those points, and not just on her pretty smile. Perhaps PW should ask more questions, dig deeper, be more informative, rather than just behave as an AD agency reporting the weather and movement of personnel.
Thanks for the inquiry, Jake. It is common practice to report the news of a major new hire of a public agency or private corporation with timeliness in mind. While we like to secure original interviews and we do as much research as we can, oftentimes it is also important for us to get the news out as efficiently as we can. In this case, the primary news is that the city filled a key administrative vacancy with a new hire. We continue to research additional background on the new finance director, but our initial story is fair, accurate and contextual in relation to the key news (and certainly beyond just “stenographer journalism”).
And we hope readers recognize that our news coverage is often ongoing, and an initial story with a timely news hook is a balancing act (but does not preclude us from doing future stories on the same topic). Readers are certainly fair to criticize our approach though, and we appreciate the feedback.
And, FWIW, it’s sunny and warm out today, but I’ll keep researching and checking with sources.