Ryan Murphy

Financial Projects Controller

As our company grows, it is important to have leaders in place to make sure business policies and procedures are followed. As financial controller, Ryan Murphy helps oversee our day-to-day financial operations as well as guide strategic decision-making while supporting company strategy.

Client service drives our success. For Ryan’s team in finance, that service can take a variety of forms, such as contract reviews, reporting and analysis and project-level forecasting, as well as delivering trainings to the business, researching and implementing new accounting standards, onboarding new entities into our systems, and assisting with proposals. Delivering amazing client service internally helps support our goal of providing amazing client service externally.

Ryan and his team play an integral role in maintaining the quality and nature of our service offerings to see that they evolve and grow to meet our company’s changing needs. The support they provide our project teams, regional offices and global practices will continue to be vital to Burns & McDonnell.

What inspired you to pursue your career?

My high school did not offer an accounting course, so when I took my first course in college, I was drawn to the fundamentals of running a business and the structure it provided. I knew I could be successful in a variety of industries with an accounting degree. In my career as an accountant, I've been fortunate to work for a variety of clients across several industries and have had the pleasure of meeting many wonderful people.

How do you and your team make the world a better place?

As employee-owners, we recognize the need to give back to each other and to our families — from birthdays to wedding showers to baby showers, we grow together and support each other. In our community, we give back with our time, talent and treasure supporting organizations like United Way, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Children's Mercy Kansas City and Lead to Read, just to name a few.

What excites you most when you look at the future of infrastructure?

The world will always need the solutions Burns & McDonnell creates. We will always need power, water, transportation, food, energy and more. The challenge for us is whether we can continue to deliver these solutions better than our competitors. With a resume that is over 125 years old, a history of anticipating changes in our industries and the technologies that serve them, and a track record of successful growth, I am going to continue to bet on Burns & McDonnell. There's never been a better time to be an employee-owner here.

What superpower would you choose and why?

I'm more of a Batman guy, but he has cool toys and not superpowers, so I will go with flying. Though that’s not as cool as the Batmobile.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what three things would you want with you?

An iPhone for music and podcasts and, yes, this desert island is near a cell tower.
Water.
A survival knife. There is a really good chance I would end up injuring myself with it versus actually using it to, you know, survive, but that's still my third choice.