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  • Free Cash Flow Strategies and Business Leadership with Dan Gardner, CFO at DTOne

    Free Cash Flow Strategies and Business Leadership with Dan Gardner, CFO at DTOne
    Dec 7 2022

    This episode features an interview with Dan Gardner, CFO at DT One. DT One is a network of non cash micropayments and digital pre-pay partners.

    Dan is a strategic CFO. And over his 12 years as a fintech executive, he’s created programs for treasury & risk management. At DT One, he’s responsible for the global oversight of all finance, treasury, risk and compliance functions.

    On this episode, Dan describes how to build a great financial team, and how to use technology and finance together to drive your business. He describes the unique role of CFOs today, which includes empowering corporate teams, making the most of data, and managing risk.

    Quotes

    *“The numbers tell the story. It's deciphering that story that sometimes requires a tremendous amount of effort and work and testing.”

    *“Create that optimal team that can drive an agile, dynamic financial team. And a set of members that are not just keepers of the numbers, but real business partners.”

    *“The CFO is uniquely positioned to be able to span the environment and scan for opportunities. What might be perceived as potential threats can turn out to be opportunities. What could be strengths today could be weaknesses tomorrow. So it's that constant evaluation of what's going on on the landscape.”

    *“There's always the financial component of all these assessments of risk. That job just doesn't end. That is a 24/7 mandate that the CFO very much drives.”

    Time Stamps

    [2:45] Dan’s path to CFO

    [8:12] Cash Crossroads: Dan’s technology vision at DT One

    [14:47] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at DT One

    [17:44] Dan on keys to navigating the shifting financial landscape

    [22:23] Report from the Future: Dan on the next generation of finance leaders

    [24:51] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with Dan Gardner

    Sponsor

    The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

    Links

    Connect with Dan on LinkedIn

    Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

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    27 Min.
  • A CFO's Guide to Building Business Goals, Relationships, and Managing Risk with Ravi Narula, CFO of FinancialForce

    A CFO's Guide to Building Business Goals, Relationships, and Managing Risk with Ravi Narula, CFO of FinancialForce
    Nov 16 2022

    This episode features an interview with Ravi Narula, Chief Financial Officer of FinancialForce, a cloud-based applications platform that accelerates business growth with customer-centric ERP, Professional Services Automation (PSA), and Customer Success solutions.

    Ravi has over 20 years of CFO experience, and he’s helped turn several technology startups into large, mature, public companies.

    On this episode, Ravi describes the growing role of the CFO, company risk management, and the future of AI technology.

    Quotes

    *”These are tough, challenging economic environments right now. How do we plan for it? Having a clear line of sight to what our long-term goals are and then connecting our short term actions to long-term goals becomes very critical.”

    *”There's lots of things that CFOs have to focus on from a risk management perspective. And then governance plays a role. How do you empower the teams and the people while governing it from the corporate side? So there's a lot of balls up in the air, but more communication, more training, more standardization of policies helps a lot.”

    *”How do we justify technology adoption and get some real hard ROI and benefits out of it? It's important that we connect some of these actions and data we get. And not only at the time of decision making, but after implementation. [We should] do an annual assessment [to look at] what can we do differently to adopt this thing even more? And not only looking at technology that is live. How many users are using it? How well accepted within the organization?”

    Time Stamps

    [1:45] Ravi’s path to CFO

    [9:21] Cash Crossroads: Ravi’s technology vision at FinancialForce

    [15:51] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at FinancialForce

    [16:35] Risk management at FinancialForce

    [25:08] Report from the Future: Ravi on the next generation of finance leaders

    [28:39] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with Ravi Narula

    Sponsor

    The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

    Links

    Connect with Ravi on LinkedIn

    Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

    Follow Daniel on Twitter
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    35 Min.
  • The Holy Grail of Finance: Real Time Data, Sustainable Growth and a Solid Bottom Line with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr

    The Holy Grail of Finance: Real Time Data, Sustainable Growth and a Solid Bottom Line with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr
    Oct 26 2022

    This episode features an interview with Manish Sarin, CFO at Sprinklr, a cloud-based customer experience management company.

    Manish brings to the table more than 20 years working with high-growth technology and cybersecurity companies. Previously, he was CFO at Exabeam, EVP of Finance at ProofPoint, and led Software Strategy and Corporate Development at Hewlett-Packard.

    On this episode, Manish talks about collecting unstructured data from Twitter, Facebook and Reddit to grasp the public narrative around Sprinklr, using AI to predict what will happen in the quarter, and achieving the holy grail of finance, of real time data, sustainable growth, and a solid bottom line.

    Quotes

    *”We take all of this information, which is unstructured, could be Twitter feeds, could be posts, and we pull it together using a variety of AI models to get at what is the insight in terms of what groups of users are saying about our business. And so that gives me a sense for, at least in terms of my public narrative, what do I need to change or tweak or at least be aware of as we go and have our earnings calls?”

    *”I mentored under a public company CFO, and one of the things he would always tell me is, 'Don't be afraid to break glass.' And I've always taken that to heart, which is, rarely is there any other function in today's enterprise that has the level of insight on what's going on with the business, and therefore has a very defined point of view on what needs to happen going forward.”

    *”I would encourage people who are evaluating being a CFO that it is a very empowering role. And at no point should they feel like their voice is not gonna be heard because they have probably more insights on the business than even the people running sales or marketing or product. And to me, that is something that should be embraced [by] any new CFO. Very empowering role. Do not be worried about breaking glass. Go make sure your voice and opinion is heard.”

    *”We're growing much faster than a lot of the competitors in our space. That tells me there is enough total addressable market for us to go after. And you never wanna build your business to the vagaries of the market right now. So in other words, you should keep growing no matter what is happening on Wall Street. Of course, you don't want to overspend in an environment where spend is under increasing scrutiny. But I would also argue this wouldn't be the time to pull back on spend as long as you fundamentally believe you're in a high growth segment. So for us, it's been trying to find that balance between the two… we're now showing investors that we can actually achieve sustainably high levels of growth while being prudent on the bottom line.”

    Time Stamps

    [3:03] Manish’s path to CFO

    [6:54] How the CFO is a strategic partner to the business

    [11:23] Cash Crossroads: Manish's technology vision at Sprinklr

    [14:16] How Manish manages a data lake to structure Sprinklr's data

    [19:07] All about Sprinklr

    [22:42] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at Sprinklr

    [25:35] Risk management at Sprinklr

    [28:59] How Sprinklr uses AI

    [29:52] Report from the Future: Manish on the next generation of finance leaders

    [34:02] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with Manish Sarin

    Sponsor

    The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

    Links

    Connect with Manish on LinkedIn

    Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

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    38 Min.
  • How to Design a Growth Narrative with AI, Technology and Talent with Nitesh Sharan, CFO at SoundHound

    How to Design a Growth Narrative with AI, Technology and Talent with Nitesh Sharan, CFO at SoundHound
    Oct 12 2022

    This episode features an interview with Nitesh Sharan, CFO at Soundhound, the innovator in voice-enabled AI and conversational intelligence technologies.

    Nitesh has over 25 years of experience in financial leadership roles. He spent nearly 15 of those at Hewlett Packard where he rose to be Vice President and Assistant Treasurer. And prior to Soundhound, Nitesh served as Nike’s CFO of Global Operations an0d Technology.

    On this episode, Nitesh discusses the preparation for going public during the pandemic, how to protect your company’s finances during uncertain times, and how conversational voice AI will play a transformative role in everything from education to the food industry and more.

    Quotes

    *”One of the things that is a benefit of being a CFO is you have that agnostic view. You look at the numbers for what they are. You understand what drives growth and profitability. Presumably the CFO has a very acute sense of what investors are looking for, what shareholders are demanding and tying those things together in some kind of numeric, metric-based view. It’s very valuable to the company when they are deciding [whether to] invest and go to market, or invest in engineering or whatever capabilities they are trying to allocate resources against. So I think one of the most important things for CFOs is being able to understand the true variables that drive value in the company. and then going and allocating resources heavily against the ones that matter most. And making the harder decisions to move away from the ones that don't. And over time, those things change. And so just staying persistently in the details to understand how those things change is really important.”

    *”Different is good, and challenge is good. I reflect back on my career and say I grew the most in the most challenging times.”

    *”We see continuously, particularly in the tech industry, how independent players are able to succeed in different verticals against, in many cases, the big tech who have unlimited resources. Because with laser focused resources, attention, having everybody row in the same direction, there's a lot that can be done, even with a smaller wallet.”

    *”Even as we build our teams, we emphasize the person who can do more with less, and bring great tools. So whether it's in our planning software, leveraging some great planning tools out there, leveraging technology to make it more efficient to do our SEC filings or whether it's on the treasury side, to navigate, improvements in our cost of payments because we're managing international payment flows, and the foreign exchange friction can be significant if not done thoughtfully.”

    *”Invest in technology today. It helps you scale much more rapidly with the thinner team. And the output's much better.”

    *”We're solving long-term solutions for how humans interact with technology. And so we're staying committed to that long-term vision, and yet we're sharpening focus, if anything. And that's what great companies need to be doing, which is when the world pivots a certain way, stay true to the long term vision, but just get sharper, get greater attention on things that matter most and keep sharpening that pencil.”

    Time Stamps

    [2:17] Nitesh’s path to CFO

    [15:17] The future of conversational voice AI

    [18:03] Cash Crossroads: How SoundHound leverages technology to drive growth

    [27:10] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at SoundHound

    [35:31] How SoundHound went public during the pandemic

    [41:43] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with Nitesh Sharan

    Sponsor

    The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

    Links

    Connect with Nitesh on LinkedIn

    Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn

    Follow Daniel on Twitter
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    45 Min.
  • Untrapping Your Liquidity Through Data and Technology with David Quinn, CFO at BlueVine

    Untrapping Your Liquidity Through Data and Technology with David Quinn, CFO at BlueVine
    Aug 24 2022
    This episode features an interview with David Quinn, CFO at BlueVine. BlueVine provides small and medium-sized business owners with the working capital they need to run and grow their businesses. David has more than 25 years of global experience in banking and finance. Prior to BlueVine, David served as Commercial Bank Chief Financial Officer at Silicon Valley Bank. He also served as Executive Vice President and Consumer Bank Chief Financial Officer at Bank of the West. David has held senior leadership positions at Citibank, Morgan Stanley, and Lehman Brothers in the UK. On this episode, David discusses modernizing your technology to work for you, the benefits of using third party software instead of building in-house, and making your business unattractive to fraudsters.Quotes*”There's only so much the textbooks can teach you about finance. The rest is on the job learning. And it always makes me smile - you think people have got it all. They come out of their MBA. They have all of the education, but you have none of the tangible. Navigating an economy like this is really tricky.”*”From a finance perspective, we've really grown up historically by buying bits of technology and then retrofitting our data for that technology. And often, what I've seen is we don't maximize the full benefits. We buy something off the shelf. Best case, we configure our data. Worst case, we customize everything. And that makes it really, really difficult down the line when you are looking to do anything on top of it if you've heavily customized your system. There's a great opportunity to hit reset on that.”*”We don't build everything. You build where you think you have a competitive advantage. And for us, a lot of the data that we have specifically to our clients, we can use that to enhance and enrich it to go and deliver better services to them. But when it comes to things like treasury management, looking at daily deposits, inflows, outflows, how you bring that together in an asset liability management system. Looking at interest forecasting, for example, those are very specialist areas. That's not where we are focused. I would absolutely engage with third party software to manage that.”*”You just have to make yourself the least attractive for fraud from an external perspective. Internal is slightly different. And to do that, you need strong systems right across the board, strong data health checks, a strong understanding of where you have any gaps. And you need to be able to close them quickly. You need good QA testing, you need great product requirements. And I think importantly, you need to collaborate with other industry peers and share best practices. Fraud rings tend to bounce around the institutions. And so what you can learn from other institutions and put in place as protective measures quickly is important.”*”We have a significantly healthy balance sheet. But at the same time, you want to extend your runway as long as you can. Nobody really knows how long this emerging recession will last, how deep, how it's gonna bounce back. So you need to be prepared. You prepare for the worst, hope for the best. And so as we think about managing our liquidity and employment of technology, we focus on a few areas. One, we focus on how quickly our assets turn. So we're using it to understand what our pay down scenarios are, what our loss rates are, what the demand is on the front end. So getting a really good view of those is critical for us.”*”I think there is a broader role for CFOs outside of the financial services sector to be way more focused on getting value from the liquidity that they have trapped across all of their companies. But be them global or just international, how do you untrap that liquidity and maximize it? The data and technology combined together can help you do that.”Time Stamps[2:43] David’s path to CFO[11:44] Cash Crossroads: How BlueVine uses technology to track and unlock liquidity[12:25] How the CFO acts as a strategic partner to the business[16:57] Using data to make better business decisions[23:00] Is it better to buy software or build it in-house?[37:14] The Playbook: Finance Strategy at BlueVine[27:47] The BlueVine approach to risk management[38:04] Report from the Future: What the future CFO will need to find success[41:00] Quick Hits: Rapid fire questions with David QuinnSponsorThe Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.comLinksConnect with David on LinkedInConnect with Daniel on LinkedInFollow Daniel on Twitter
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    44 Min.
  • How To Optimize Your FX Risk Management Program and Stay Ahead of the Curve with Andy Gage, SVP of FX Sales and Advisory Services at Kyriba

    How To Optimize Your FX Risk Management Program and Stay Ahead of the Curve with Andy Gage, SVP of FX Sales and Advisory Services at Kyriba
    Aug 10 2022
    This is a special episode featuring Kyriba’s Senior Vice President of FX Sales and Advisory Services, Andy Gage.For nearly 20 years, Andy has been helping multinational companies automate and optimize their currency risk management programs. Prior to his current role, Andy served as VP of FX Risk Management Solutions at Kyriba.On this episode, Andy discusses how to harness automation and smart analytics to run an effective corporate risk management program, the effects of inflation on markets globally, and being better prepared for the next crisis.Quotes*“The FX job within the treasury and finance function is one of those odd jobs, because they know they've done their job when nobody is talking to them or asking them questions. That's when they've really done really well. So when I talk to some of my colleagues that I've worked with over the years, they say, ‘I had a great quarter. Nobody talked about FX in the last quarter earnings release.’ That's when they've done their job.” *”A tailwind can be just as complicated or problematic as a headwind, because it implies a lack of control on your risk management, or your ability to manage currency impacts.”*”When it comes to the earnings call, when it comes to the end of the quarter, when it comes to the board briefings, currencies is not a topic. Because it's been effectively neutralized. Now you may get questions, you know, because of, especially what's happening in the markets right now. But the proper response from a CFO or treasurer to those questions is, ‘We understand our exposure. We've taken appropriate steps to minimize the impact of the volatility in the markets. And, for all intents and purposes, it's really not having a material impact on our financial results. If you can articulate that to the board and the investors, that is the perfect response to that market situation that we're dealing with right now.” *”What's complicated right now is the recent surge in inflation. The reactions by central banks, such as the federal reserve here in the U.S., to increase interest rates, to try to knock the inflation down… I think everybody feels that in their own pocket books today. But when you increase the interest rates, what a lot of people don't appreciate and understand is the interest rates are directly impacting the cost of hedging. And so what we're seeing right now on top of that large increase in risk in volatility and pressure to earnings, treasury teams are faced with a very difficult challenge of keeping their FX budgets where the CFO set them, because the cost of hedging is increasing as well.” *”Just because you have an amazing accounting system like SAP or Oracle doesn't mean that the people are recording things correctly in those systems. And we see issues right there. If you don't have technology that streamlines this process, the spreadsheets that I've seen people use to calculate their foreign exchange exposure are literally some of the most complicated and risky. There's so many potential points of failure in those spreadsheets. And I've seen situations where we've audited a company spreadsheets, and they were trading currency in the wrong direction. So what they thought was reducing risk was actually adding risk.” *”If you step back and a CFO really looks at all of the financial risks that are under he or she's responsibility, currency risk is arguably the largest financial risk that they have to deal with. And now that you're seeing the succession of of currency crisis, fueled by macroeconomic and global events and various other crises, I think the risk management teams are getting a lot more focus and a lot more attention and a lot more enablement… I'm now seeing the CFOs saying, ‘Okay, we now need to invest in automating this because we'll see another one of these crises. And the unfortunate thing is we don't know when it's gonna hit us next.”Time Stamps*[4:46] Andy’s path to FX risk management*[9:06] Which kind of treasurer are you?*[12:25] What’s the difference between a head wind and a tail wind?*[18:59] The key litmus test of whether your risk management program is effective*[20:14] Understanding the current market*[22:27] How inflation impacts the cost of hedging*[26:05] Why is risk management one of the hardest jobs in finance?*[29:44] What an effective risk management team looks like*[33:42] The role of an FX risk manager*[40:43] Tools for managing FX risk*[44:36] Different strategies for managing risk and gaining confidenceSponsorThe Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.comLinksConnect with Andy on LinkedInFollow Andy on TwitterConnect with Daniel on LinkedInFollow Daniel on Twitter
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    50 Min.
  • Liquidity and Metrics that Matter to CFOs with Alex Song, Head of Finance and Capital Markets at Ramp

    Liquidity and Metrics that Matter to CFOs with Alex Song, Head of Finance and Capital Markets at Ramp
    Jul 28 2022
    This episode features an interview with Alex Song, Head of Finance and Capital Markets at Ramp, a finance automation platform offering corporate cards and expense management so companies save time and money with every click.Alex is a Stanford engineer with an MBA from Harvard who has more than 10 years of experience as a hedge fund investor in structured credit, special situations, specialty finance, and fintech. Prior to Ramp, Alex worked in private credit and structured credit investing at Sculptor Capital Management and as Vice President of Crayhill Capital Management.On this episode, Alex discusses how Ramp identified their target market, risk management as a credit card issuer, and what it takes to be an efficient allocator of both financial and human capital.Quotes*”There are certain days of the month where that cash flow gets very chunky and we could be moving north of a hundred million dollars of cash any given day. And what that means for us is it's very important to know where our cash is sitting, where our receivables are sitting, and what the various amounts are on a minute-b-minute basis or hour-by-hour basis. And if one of our investors or one of our lenders wants to see a financial report from us, we have to be very careful about, ‘Hey, this is the 8:11 report?’ versus, ‘Hey, this is the noon report?’ Because even in a span of minutes or hours, [that] number could swing by tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. And that has a huge impact on us. We're managing very high velocity warehouse funding facilities. And so our lenders need to know almost in real time what our financial situation looks like at any given moment.” *”If you are a very high growth startup and your operating metrics are still kind of lumpy, it probably doesn't make a ton of sense to make a five year plan because you don't even know what the company will look like in three months. So you're probably going to have slightly shorter metrics. For more mature companies with more established market share and customer base, you're much more concerned with net retention and churn. You're probably looking at a multi-quarter, multi-year sort of planning. The operating timeframe of the company over time should increase in length.”*”Regardless of what timeframe you're looking at, whether it's one month or one quarter or 10 years, at any given moment in time, if you run out of cash, it's over. There is some amount of just longevity planning. But if you're thinking about a concept like cash management, liquidity management, asset liability mismatch, duration mismatch on your balance sheet, that's something where any time you run into the red zone - and that will differ depending on business model, depending on who you are - anytime you're in the red zone, that's it. So you have to be very, very careful about managing instant in time, spot in time, point in time, balance sheet and liquidity as well.” *”At the end of the day, management teams are allocators of capital. It could be financial capital and it can also be human capital. And what you'll find is that all of the best generational businesses have historically been good capital allocators. And so taking that sort of financial KPI-based and financial metric-based view of ROI on invested capital is something that is going to make folks a lot more efficient and make finance teams a lot more strategic than before.”*”The relative value of money and the relative value of liquidity is higher now than it was a year ago, or even any point over the last five years. At least in recent history, we haven't really lived through a period of rising interest rates before. So liquidity is much more meaningful. It moves the P&L a lot more. And so it's a function that I think traditionally has been ignored, but now it's definitely more impactful.”Time Stamps*[11:05] Segment: Cash Crossroads, where Alex discusses his technology vision*[19:37] Segment: The Playbook, in which Alex talks about finance strategies and managing risk*[34:11] Segment: Report From the Future, where Alex considers the skills needed by future finance leaders*[37:30] Segment: Quick Hits, in which Daniel and Alex discuss cryptocurrencies and moreSponsorThe Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.comLinksConnect with Alex on LinkedInFollow Alex on TwitterConnect with Daniel on LinkedInFollow Daniel on Twitter
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    41 Min.
  • A Fresh Perspective on Owning the Number and Driving Growth with Sinohe Terrero, CFO at Envoy

    A Fresh Perspective on Owning the Number and Driving Growth with Sinohe Terrero, CFO at Envoy
    Jul 11 2022
    This episode features an interview with Sinohe Terrero, CFO at Envoy. Envoy is a workplace platform that solves the complexity of hybrid work. Sinohe has over 15 years of leadership experience. He stepped into his current role as Envoy’s CFO in 2020. Prior to Envoy, Sinohe served as CFO and COO of Quid Inc., a big data and analytics company. He has also worked at Indiegogo and Etsy. Sinohe holds an MBA in Finance from Baruch College in New York City.On this episode, Sinohe discusses his #1 indispensable tech tool, how he identified and filled gaps in his resume to land him his current role as CFO, and how just because you have money doesn’t mean you have liquidity.Quotes*“I consider myself blessed to have been put in situations that I think are unique for people that come from where I come from. I sit at these board meetings with all these very well known VCs and a lot of times you think, ‘Do I even belong here?’ And that goes back to the first time you're made a director or the first time that you're in a reputable company or the first time you wear a tie, honestly. I mean, you kind of feel like, ‘Hey, when is the other shoe gonna drop?’ Because it's not supposed to happen for me. So you have to mentally get over that hurdle to be like, ‘No, I do belong.”…”You wanna feel like, ‘I belong in this class. I prepared. Everything that I get here I deserve.’ So you have to have that mentality to constantly give a hundred percent.”*“I always raised my hand when I saw a problem. I was like, ‘Hey, you know what? We have a problem there I think I can help solve, or I think I can help improve it at that scale.’ And I was just never afraid to take the leap of faith. And quite frankly, faith in myself that if another human can solve this problem, I can probably solve it myself too. But it's like, you know, I'm not the smartest guy in the room. But one thing that I tell my son is no one can outwork me. And I know that, so I am gonna raise my hand.”*”I was at a startup before that ran out of money. And one of the things that I noticed when I was there was there were some gaps in my resume. Like,I felt like I could do things, but my resume didn't say that. And so at that moment, I had to say, ‘Okay, well, what am I gonna do? Because I don't wanna be overlooked again.’ And what I ended up doing was taking a pay cut and taking a lower ranking job to gain the skills that I needed so that I can say in my resume, I have seen and done that. And so that was sort of a pause moment to be like, my charm is not gonna get me where I need to go. I need to make sure that I make the right career decisions even if it means short term sacrifice… Quite frankly, I needed to be honest with myself, right? I think sometimes you need to be able to look and be humble. And be real. Like, ‘What are the things that are missing? What are my growth areas?’ And, ‘Am I just being overlooked and am I being the victim here or are there things that I need to work on?’ And clearly I identified that, I made the move and it paid off for me.”*“I think the CFO has evolved from closing the books and making sure taxes are paid, to really being a thought leader and strategic leader, particularly because you own data”...“You are at the Vanguard, you are in the front because you are part of that intimate sausage making process, even in the product development.”*”Back when I was at Etsy, if you raised a 10 million round at 200 million, you were crushing it. And so the rounds were smaller, the valuations were lower. And quite frankly, I think that led to a bit more efficiency. You had to grind it out a bit more. And now over the last couple of years that's really changed. Like the dollars that people are raising are just exponential and the valuations are astronomic. So that creates a different kind of pressure on the team, particularly on FP and A and how you think about it because you're dealing with less mature organizations that you have to continue to educate on the fact that just because you have a hundred million dollars in the bank does not mean we can have bouncy houses and unlimited Kombucha. You still have to be thoughtful about long-term planning.”*“Everyone has a little bit of PTSD, no matter how much money you have in the bank. Because you don't know when the next thing is gonna happen. And clearly the economy is showing the third COVID cousin when it comes to financial impact. And so I think it's changed. I think the space has changed. I think the amount of money people are raising has changed. And that has really changed how you gotta think about your organization on the finance side, and have really strict - not strict, but clear - guardrails, so that you're not just completely running off the map.”*“As a CFO, you're flying a plane. You have a bunch of different gauges and you're just looking to make sure none of them are going into the red. But not any one of those gauges ...
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    46 Min.