Dashboards light up next to a hum of prefabrication lines while trucks cycle through a busy delivery yard. Heather Ford, chief financial officer of Power Design, sees that orchestration as the outcome of clear strategy matched with disciplined execution across a company evolving from an electrical subcontractor into a multi-trade national builder.
Ford helped steer three transformative years marked by sharp growth in revenue and backlog plus rapid expansion of mechanical and plumbing divisions. Vertical integration became a competitive edge through CAD capabilities, prefabrication and an in-house delivery fleet that tightened schedules and strengthened quality. She elevated financial visibility by standing up separate profit and loss statements for each division so leadership could track ROI and profitability with precision.
Connection to the work keeps decisions grounded. Ford walks projects, meets field leaders and partners with community programs that strengthen the trades pipeline. She steps back regularly for long-range sessions that join operators and strategists around hard questions, then brings back practical ideas that energize teams. Mentorship, peer learning and celebrating wins keep momentum real.
Her entrepreneurial chapter stretches from a Big Six start to building and leading high-growth finance organizations. After choosing Power Design for its values and innovation culture, Ford expanded scope beyond accounting. She launched a strategy team for long-range modeling, market analysis and ROI-driven business cases then led cash management structures that sustain growth and secure bonding capacity. The work included airport campus expansion financing, $30 million in aircraft financing and the company’s first bank syndication for a $100 million working capital facility.
Diversification accelerated impact. Ford supported entry into student housing, hotels, assisted living, data centers, mixed-use developments and sports and entertainment facilities. She reduced reliance on third parties by stretching teams to build systems for new business models, then measured results so choices stayed rooted in data.
A Titan 100 Honoree, Ford influences regional business as a Tampa Bay Business Journal CFO of the year honoree and an Apogee Award recipient from Tampa Bay Business & Wealth. Her service extends beyond the office through leadership with Habitat for Humanity across multiple counties, where she provided strategic guidance during periods of revenue growth and increased home production.
The path forward balances ambition with endurance. Power Design will continue to grow organically, deepen share in core markets and scale multi-trade capabilities while creating career ladders that let people advance without leaving the company. Investments in automation, AI and data infrastructure will help scale operations without proportional headcount increases. Partnerships that attract tech-savvy young people to the trades will widen opportunity and sustain excellence.
Ford’s mantra: With the right vision and the right people anything is possible. She takes pride in the processes and teams that gave leaders confidence to scale, the culture that prizes ownership and the steady cadence of decisions that turned bold ideas into reliable performance across every level of the organization. That is how durable builders expand with integrity.
