The Modern CFO (Nth Round)
Explore every episode of The Modern CFO
| Pub. Date | Title | Duration | |
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| 06 Dec 2023 | Investing in Innovation: CFO Will Heyburn on Taking BLADE to New Heights | 00:35:11 | |
From investor to public company CFO, BLADE's Will Heyburn shares his path to the selective role of leading a finance team from the private markets through an IPO and beyond. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Will unpacks BLADE's unique evolution from passenger transportation to a leading medical organ transport provider and why they continue to focus on direct communication, data-driven decision-making, and building a customer-centric culture. Will and host Andrew Seski discuss the intricate balance between risk management, client satisfaction, and staying adaptable, especially as a technology platform within the aviation industry. Listen in for more secrets to BLADE's success and valuable lessons for aspiring CFOs navigating the future of technology within their own companies. Want to give BLADLE a try? Listeners can use Will's promo code* available towards the end of the episode! *Terms and conditions may apply
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| 07 Dec 2022 | Unlocking Private Markets for Everyday Investors with Fundrise CFO Alison Staloch | 00:39:26 | |
Private assets have traditionally been accessible only to large institutional investors and venture capitalists But that’s quickly changing, thanks to investment platforms like Fundrise. Fundrise is an online real estate investment platform with over 300,000 active users. Through Fundrise, everyday investors can access real estate markets and deals that they normally would not have been able to invest in on their own. In today’s episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski speaks with Fundrise CFO Alison Staloch about the democratization of private markets, alternative asset management, investor communications and transparency, and more. Show Links
Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today's episode highlights one of my favorite topics again: thoughtful democratization and access to alternative investments. I know you've heard me discuss secondaries and venture funds with Aman and Andrea, regulating accreditation and the history of Reg CF with Woodie, even angel investing with Oslene. But today, I'm thrilled to take another approach at this topic, which is so important and so critical at this time, with Alison Staloch, the CFO of Fundrise. Alison, thank you so much for being here. [00:00:43] Alison Staloch: Thanks for having me, Andrew. Super excited for the conversation. [00:00:45] Andrew Seski: So could you give us a quick overview of Fundrise? I know it's actually the largest direct-to-investor real estate platform in the US today. Is that right? [00:00:54] Alison Staloch: Yeah, that's right. So Fundrise is a FinTech company with a mission, a really broad mission, of building a better financial system for individuals. But today, that means alternative asset management, primarily focused in real estate, really with the idea of giving everyday people access to the private markets that they were historically excluded from whether due to lack of scale, lack of wealth. And in that mission, we've built a capital-raising machine founded in regulatory excellence that allows us to scale thousands of individuals' investments to then utilize capital deployment technology to compete for alternative assets with the Blackstones and Starwoods. And with the launch of our venture capital fund and now with the Sequoias of the world, we have about three and a quarter billion in equity AUM offered exclusively through diversified portfolios. And our goal right now is to disrupt the private markets by using technology and new approaches on old industries to give outsized returns back to investors. [00:01:52] Andrew Seski: So I really like this approach and we're gonna go into the nuances of risk/reward investment profile for the differences between institutional investing and retail. But I'd like to go back in time first because you are a relatively recent CFO and in this industry. So I know you cut your teeth in the world of finance at KPMG, so Big Four experience. I want to take a minute to discuss your early career. And I think that sometimes people think that Big Four audit or accounting background is a qualification for a direct route to a CFO position, but you also worked at the SEC. So I want to kind of balance some of these, the regulatory knowledge that you have and some of the experiences that you had that are gonna make you and continue to allow you to be a really successful impact engine at Fundrise. [00:02:41] Alison Staloch: Yeah, so I joined Fundrise as CFO last year, so 18 months in the making. I've been a CFO for a whole 18 months. Like you said, prior to that, I was in audit, I was at the SEC. I was in a policy-oriented regulatory role as the chief accountant for the Division of Investment Management, which is the division that regulates registered investment companies and registered investment advisors and sets policy for them. And I think that that background has been particularly important for Fundrise. We have kind of a business built on regulatory discipline and that's been a huge differentiator for us, really has set us apart. I always joke like, oh, we literally chose to play in like, all of the securities laws, not just like one of them. And whether that's Regulation A+ or the 40 Acts, I think the structure that we've built requires a ton of regulatory compliance and discipline for a company of our size and for really kind of a startup to deal with. And we've focused on that regulatory excellence within the organization since the beginning, innovating within the regulatory requirements. I think within Regulation A+ we're, I think we're the biggest user and the most successful operator in that regulation. [00:03:53] And so, that comfort with the compliance and the regulatory discipline was one reason that I felt comfortable moving to Fundrise from the SEC. But obviously, my background is heavily, heavily accounting. And when you think about finance, it's obviously much broader than that. I think it makes sense for Fundrise and where we are. But certainly as we look to the future, we'll want to focus on hiring finance team members with different backgrounds that complement my background. [00:04:23] Andrew Seski: Yeah, it almost seems like we're teasing out your definition of a modern CFO, so we could really, we could start there as well. I think that we get an overwhelming amount of guests who just argue that CFOs, the new breadth of responsibilities has really changed, especially today, whether it's, like you just mentioned, hiring, human resources, being a leader that attracts other team members from more diverse backgrounds and keeping them engaged. The retention I think is a huge issue right now in the churn of employment. So, really curious as to what you think. Even though it's been 18 months, these have been a pretty volatile and unique 18 months to take on this leadership position. So, really curious to hear it from your perspective. [00:05:05] Alison Staloch: Yeah, so I think there's two things I'd mention. Maybe one more kind of like a mantra or approach to being a CFO today. And second, what I think is really important for a mission-oriented business like Fundrise to consider when hiring a CFO. So the first one, I think it's that you have to be constantly evolving. The CFO role is constantly changing, but what I mea... | |||
| 10 Apr 2024 | Building Evergreen Success: Insights from Dallas Clement, President, and CFO of Cox Enterprises | 00:34:04 | |
Join Dallas Clement, President and Chief Financial Officer of legendary Cox Enterprises, as he shares invaluable insights into his career journey, financial leadership, and how Cox's foundational values have been a beacon of success for 125+ years. With over three decades of experience, Dallas emphasizes the importance of balancing culture, learning, and growth in any financial professional’s career trajectory. He also delves into Cox's ethos of embracing risk and innovation, even if it means competing with themselves, to stay ahead of technology and trends. We were thrilled to have host Andrew Seski on-site at the wonderful Cox campus in Atlanta to record this episode, and we are grateful for Dallas’ contribution to the CFO conversation. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on leadership, strategic vision, and the enduring legacy of Cox Enterprises. Show Links
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| 01 Feb 2024 | Creating a Better Internet with Mozilla CFO Eric Muhlheim | 00:34:01 | |
"Am I continuing to learn? Am I continuing to create value?” These questions act as pillars for Eric Muhlheim, propelling his expansive career from studying mathematics to leading finance teams at one of the most dynamic tech organizations today. In our first episode of 2024, Eric and host of The Modern CFO, Andrew Seski, explore Eric's formative experiences at Morgan Stanley, his impactful tenure at Disney, and his transition into the world of tech leading him to his current role at Mozilla. Eric shares insights into Mozilla's unique corporate structure, its mission-driven approach, and the challenges and opportunities presented by the AI revolution. Listen in as Eric and Andrew discuss the importance of strategic implementation, the critical role of maintaining a strong, mission-aligned balance sheet, and Eric's personal approaches to leadership and relationship-building in the corporate world. Show Links
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| 01 Apr 2021 | How Mandeep Basra uses micro-lending at RentMoola to change the banking game | 00:29:07 | |
CFO Mandeep Basra joined RentMoola right as COVID-19 was declared a worldwide pandemic. Little did he know that the company would be quickly pivoting to help landlords and tenants by offering remote payment options and micro-lending assistance. This digital innovation is just what Mandeep thinks the world needs in order to serve sophisticated digital customers as well as support under-banked populations around the world.
Key Takeaways 3:30 - Keeping tenants safe During the pandemic, RentMoola worked with property managers to keep tenants safe by offering fully digital rent paying solutions. “It was interesting to see our customers thinking about their employees and wanting to keep them safe. A lot of our property managers who have tenants that were paying by cash or check, they wanted to stop that because they didn't know how the virus was going to spread with paper and whatnot. So what we saw was an increase with our property managers and our marketing team, working together to market our solution to their tenants. And saying how to keep us safe, keep yourself safe. What we're going to do is we're not going to accept any checks anymore for the time being, we're not gonna accept cash payments. What we're going to do is we're going to utilize this tool that we have in place with RentMoola and make sure that you're able to pay your rent without the risk of getting sick.” 7:29 - Micro-financing for renters No one should have to decide between paying rent or feeding their family. RentMoola solved this with a system of micro-financing. “There's right now, I believe there is 70 some-odd billion dollars in backrent that is outstanding right now for tenants, for apartment buildings and whatnot, condos. And what we've done, we've partnered with a few companies out there and we're offering kind of like a rent now and pay later solution. Where it's kind of like micro lending, micro financing, you can call it at 0% interest. So the tenants don't have to face any financial hardship in these times. And the property manager still gets paid. And there's no additional interest right now. It's a decision that people have to make. Do I feed my family? Or do I pay my rent is basically the state of the economy right now. So we're finding those kind of solutions to help our user base.” 9:15 - FinTech at the forefront Mandeep thinks that FinTech will explode over the next year, as legacy banks struggle to meet growing user needs. “I think 2021, you know, for the next couple of years, FinTech is going to be the forefront in business. There's a lot of solutions out there. You know, obviously RentMoola is one of them and the banks, they have legacy systems. They can't support the current user base right now...my gut feel is within the next 12 to 18 months, these banks with their legacy system, they can't really develop and move forward. So there's, there's going to be a lot of synergies between the legacy banking systems and solutions like ours, where the banks will need to, or will be forced to work with companies like companies like ours.” 17:25 - Data is your crystal ball While no one can predict the future, looking carefully at data can help uncover important trends. “I think probably from my side, the data is key. Is analyzing data. You know, so we can always see, like you said, if we had a crystal ball, a magic wand, we can predict it. You know, we can see what's going on a month from now and we can be ready for it. But we can prepare ourselves the best we can with the data that we have. So, you know, in the data right now, I'm not speaking about balance sheets and income statements and cash flow statements. It's actually you know, the trends that we see in our payment processing. And you know, we do dig down deeper. What do we see a certain customer of ours, what their tenants are doing and how that changes over time? Is it just a cycle? Is it just going month over month? Or is it, you know, seasonal? And that's the stuff that we need to get a handle on. And so we can kind of predict a future. For example, if we see in the summertime, you know, short-term rentals is very high typically. And then all of a sudden, we see a decrease. We need to figure out why that decrease is happening.” 21:12 - Big bank partnerships Soon, big banks will begin partnering with small FinTech companies to bring sophisticated offerings to their existing customers. “Like I mentioned earlier, I think there's gonna be a frenzy of M&A activity with banks, partnerships with big banks. I think it's going to be key there, and there's a lot of companies out there that are doing great things, obviously RentMoola included, that banks can benefit from, as well as platforms like ours. So, and I'm just using examples, like building the deck as an example, partnering with a bank, we can offer bill payment, utility payments, bill payments, to our user base. Cell phone bills or whatever other kinds of bills. On the flip side, their banks can offer rental payments. Which they cannot do right now, because basically they're not an aggregator. They'll do one payment here and there for people, but using platforms like ours, partnering with platforms like ours, it's kind of like a win-win situation. They already have the user base and they're just offering, whether it's a white label or a referral, partnership, with RentMoola.” 23:34 - The RentMoola advantage To explain the benefits of RentMoola, Mandeep described how you can spend weeks pursuing financing through a bank, versus 90 seconds on an app. “Let's go with micro-financing as an example. Right now you have to go into a bank, you have to make an appointment, that appointment can take days. And then you have to provide them with all your, your IRS tax returns, your W2's and whatnot. And we're looking at a week to two week process for a thousand dollars, $2,000 a loan to get you through to next pay period or whatever. But with technology like ours, it's all done through the app. You can apply for your micro-financing and you get a response back within 90 seconds. You have the funds deposited in your account within a couple of minutes, and it's at 0% financing. Whereas in the banks, they'll charge you 5-8% for that. Or on the flip side, if you're not going to go to the bank, you're going to a payday lender. And for those who don't know how challenging it is to be in a situation where a payday lender is your option, I can vouch that RentMoola’s no interest payment structure is a far more wise route.” 25:37 - Profiting from processing If RentMoola is helping people out and charging 0% interest in these challenging times, how do they make money? The answer is the elegant solution of payment processing fees. “So the way, high level, without getting in details and stuff, the way RentMoola makes money. And you know, this is all available online. So it's nothing that is secret here, is basically interchange fees, processing fees is where we make a bul... | |||
| 18 Sep 2023 | How to Measure What Matters for Durable Growth with ThoughtSpot’s Mohit Daswani | 00:48:39 | |
In a world where data reigns supreme, today's leaders need to balance the quantitative with the qualitative to lead, create, and inspire the next generation of CFOs. In his role as CFO at ThoughtSpot, Mohit Daswani leverages his extensive background gained from notable positions at JPMorgan, PayPal, and Square. He passionately champions the company's mission to forge a future grounded in data-driven decision-making. Having had the privilege of learning from industry luminaries such as Bob Swan, Sarah Friar, and John Rainey throughout his career, Mohit envisions an even more profound influence achieved through the power of machine learning Listen in as Mohit discusses three core principles shaping his role with host Andrew Seski: building a fact-driven culture, learning from his mentor’s invaluable influence, and discovering the strategic role of a CFO in leveraging data to shape business decisions. He also touches on a commonly underestimated aspect of modern life–the need for genuine human connection. Show Links
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| 21 Nov 2022 | Cryptocurrency's Road to Resilience with Brett Royer of Fidelity Digital Assets | 00:42:24 | |
Crypto investors have seen their fair share of sudden market meltdowns this year. This week, all eyes were on FTX, formerly one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency derivative exchange platforms. This latest turmoil has sent shockwaves throughout the industry. Yet historically, cryptocurrencies have rebounded following each crisis. What doesn’t wipe out the blockchain becomes a hard lesson for crypto ventures, turning them into fortified iterations of themselves. For Brett Royer, CFO of Fidelity Digital Assets, the recent unraveling of FTX underscored hard lessons that are not unique to crypto. An expert in high-level financial planning, Brett says those lessons point to fundamental business principles that have long existed. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Brett talks with host Andrew Seski about decentralized finance, the role of trust within the increasingly digital world of finance, how he thinks about risk, and more. Show Links
Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. I'm thrilled for the episode today because we are joined by Brett Royer, who's head of finance at Fidelity Digital Assets. Brett, thank you so much for being here today. [00:00:19] Brett Royer: Andrew, thank you for having me. [00:00:21] Andrew Seski: So, we're going to dive right in. The world of crypto and the world of digital assets has evolved in a unique way, down to literally the hour, especially this week. So, I want to kick off not just on the current event side, but we're going to have plenty of time to go through those current events, I want to start today actually with your career and then kind of the history of Fidelity Digital Assets, which I know spans back farther than most institutional groups had even considered labs themselves. So, we'd love to kick off with maybe some of your educational background, sort of the rise to this position, and then we'll segue in and out of how Fidelity Digital Assets is positioned today and what you're thinking about today. So, we have a lot to cover. [00:01:08] Brett Royer: Yeah, sure. Great. So, I'll start with a little bit of career history. Prior to business school, I'd say one of my more substantial roles was working in the Merrill Lynch Private Banking and Investment Group. So, there I was working with a former Chicago Board of Trade trader who had sold a business, a trading business, for a substantial sum, thought he was going to retire and ride off into the sunset. I spent some time doing some personal things and then realized that he got bored. And so, went back into business as a wealth manager and he ran his own proprietary trading strategy for a lot of the clients that he served. And so, I joined his team as sort of a mini fund analyst of sorts that supported the portfolio analysis and trading decisions behind the proprietary strategy that he used on behalf of his clients. And so, that was a really great experience. I think there, I kind of developed my first set of background and skills in capital markets, gained a pretty good understanding of how the markets work, traded in some illiquid securities and got a sense for what that was like. And had a pretty interest, I was there at a relatively interesting time. [00:02:33] So, I was probably in my second or third year, I can't remember exactly which, when things started to go wrong in Wall Street in financial services, right? So, the history is Lehman goes bankrupt and then Bear Stearns comes about as close as you can get to bankruptcy. And then I remember distinctly going into the weekend, Merrill Lynch was next up as a potential firm that was looking at having liquidity challenges and potentially could go under. And I'm sitting there as a junior analyst and just sort of watching this from an interested perspective, but also from the perspective of like, my job was on the line. But at that point in time, I didn't have as much to lose. Obviously pretty early in my career. But nonetheless, I think it was a strenuous time for everybody. And I distinctly remember sort of being glued to the TV all weekend just waiting to see what would happen. And then, sure enough, Bank of America, acquires Merrill Lynch on Sunday and I was really lucky to have a team that supported me, and I was able to maintain my role throughout then. But learned a lot of hard lessons around what bear markets feel like and look like. And I think that's in part educated some of what I've seen and felt in crypto markets as well. And I think just giving me a little bit of perspective on not getting too lost in the moment, either up or down, right, and having an understanding that these things tend to be cyclical, right? And there are going to be ups and downs and you don't want to get too over indexed on either side of the equation while you're in the moment, which is really hard. [00:04:08] But from there, I decided I didn't want to be a financial advisor. I think that would've been the next move if I stayed there. And that group worked with $10 billion clients and above. And so particularly difficult prospecting or particularly difficult segment to prospect in a serious way if you're a 25-year-old. So decided anyway that I wanted to be on more of an analytical track and more of a CFO track anyway, so made sense to go back to business school and sort of pivot. And so, I went to the University of North Carolina, got my MBA there. And around that time, Fidelity had just started recruiting at the University of North Carolina for a financial leadership rotational program. And I'm from Massachusetts originally, so familiar with Fidelity. Really wanted the chance to get back to the Northeast and so jumped at the opportunity to join a program that is tagging itself as developing the next future CFOs of Fidelity business units. [00:05:05] So did that. And the idea is you get broad exposure to the firm in relatively short order, right? You do six-month rotations in four different parts of the firm. And then you graduate, and you come out and Fidelity really has a sort of continuous career rotational program aspect to it, even after you're out of that traditional rotational program as well. So after I graduated, I spent the majority of my time, five years or so, in a role in our Fidelity institutional business. So, it's a really interesting business for Fidelity. They provide custody for registered investment advisors and then clearing for correspondent broker-dealers as well. And I worked on the broker-dealer side of the business. And up until 2008 or so, Fidelity was the clearing provider for a couple of large firms, JPMorgan and Bank of America. And around that time, they lost both in a year as a result of JP Morgan buying Bear Stearns and then Merrill, Bank of America buying Merrill Lynch. And so, both had self-clearing capabilities that sort of made them take away the need for a clearing pr... | |||
| 20 Dec 2022 | How Brex Empowers Finance Teams to Address their Hierarchy of Needs | 00:31:27 | |
So much of the purchasing for tech startups and small businesses is online. Yet they often struggle to pay for the services and platforms they need because they don’t have business credit cards. This problem is especially acute for startups that lack credit as they’re more likely to have a hard time securing financing from banks than startups with good credit scores. FinTech giant Brex seeks to address this problem by supplying startups with the banking stack they need to scale. In today’s episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski talks with Brex COO & CFO Michael Tannenbaum about how Brex empowers startups, the global nature of startups, how he thinks about growth in different market cycles, and more. Show Links
Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Michael Tannenbaum, CFO of Brex. Michael, thank you so much for being here. [00:00:21] Michael Tannenbaum: Thank you for having me. [00:00:23] Andrew Seski: So, today, I'm excited to talk about a myriad of topics, including leadership, rise to the CFO, what excited you about Brex. So, we've got a ton to cover today and I kind of want go back in time to leaving undergrad and kind of your first roles. It's always interesting to hear kind of how people cut their teeth, whether it's in finance. We've had a number of CFOs who actually went into, you know, service first and others who started in, you know, the typical Big Four. So, I'd love to go kind of hear about your early career and, you know, walk us through the rise to your position today. [00:00:58] Michael Tannenbaum: Sure. Thank you for having me. I actually wanted to be an economist when I was in college. But my thesis advisor at school thought that academia would be not a good fit because I was too commercial and I enjoyed working a lot and, you know, in that profession, not that they don't work a lot, but, you know, you have summers off and there's a lot of lifestyle benefits to being part of university and he didn't think that those would resonate with me as much. So, he had pointed me into investment banking, which obviously was something I was aware of. And my research was heavily on like housing markets and mortgage. And I went into the Financial Institutions Group at JPMorgan in investment banking. So, banks, insurance, mortgages, all those kind of companies. And it was an interesting time 'cause I graduated from college during the GFC and, you know, banks were going under or being bought and sold. And so, I started in regulated financial services, M&A. And then I worked in a private equity company out in San Francisco where I focused largely on financial services also. And then, I went to a company called SoFi, which is now a public company, and I joined there relatively early, about 75th employee. And I kind of worked my way up through that company, starting in the capital markets team, and then took on additional roles, ran the mortgage business, which was kind of a nice round trip from my undergrad. And then, I was the chief revenue officer there. I met Henrique and Pedro at Brex. They were just coming up with an idea at the time. They were, I think 20 years old, and I was 29 or so, maybe 28. And they compelled me to come and join them as the first employee of Brex. So, that's how I got here. And I started as a CFO, and I always say this, but since it's a podcast about CFOs, I think it's even more relevant. My dad, who's also a CFO, always said to me when I joined, you know, "You're the CFO of a three-person company. It's kind of like being the CFO of nothing. So, you can call yourself chief if you want but." So. [00:03:05] Andrew Seski: Before we go back into Brex, I'm kind of curious. Do you think that sitting across the other side of the table on the investment side was informative or, you know, gave you some perspective as to what it's like to be, you know, more of an operator on the private company side? [00:03:18] Michael Tannenbaum: I think when you're just starting in your career, you look at the senior-most people that you see, at least I did. So, for me, that would be like the heads of the groups that I worked for or some of the senior people and the clients. And you ask yourself like, do I want to be that person, you know? Is that a role model for me? And I think, for me, I definitely gravitated more towards, I was always excited by, you know, the banker that had gone and became a CFO. I think that was a path that I wanted pretty quickly. And I, you know, as I mentioned, I kind of grew up with that, so it seemed very natural and attractive to me. [00:03:57] Andrew Seski: So, for everyone who doesn't know, I mean, I know I remember earlier days of learning about Brex, but, you know, now, I think you've got an incredible brand and it's very well known. But for those who are just learning about Brex for the first time, can you give us a bit of a summary of what was exciting to you first to make the leap to be that early? [00:04:15] Michael Tannenbaum: I think like a lot of good companies, you know, you start in a very specific niche and then expand out. There's a lot of, I didn't go to business school, but there's a lot of, you know, academic textbooks about business that talk about that, you know, crossing the chasm, etc. concept. And I think Brex when I joined it was really focused on startups and this need in the market for a credit solution and really a payment solution for startups. So much of the purchasing for technology companies is online, right? You can't buy Google Ads, for example, or Amazon Web Services without a credit card. They don't give small companies net 30 payment terms. You just have to pay on card. But at the same time, you have all these, you know, certainly at least 50% foreign entrepreneurs that are trying to start tech companies with a couple million dollars in the bank and can't get a credit card. And so, that was like a very hair on fire problem for that segment. And we really doubled down. And that was the Brex that I joined. [00:05:17] But the promise that I signed up for was always that credit card and expense management together would be more powerful than them separate, meaning that, you know, at SoFi when I was responsible for determining who got credit cards for example and expense management reporting as part of being the VP of Finance, it was such a challenge to wrangle everybody and get these receipts and ensure that there was spending controls. And so, with the broader promise that I think Brex has now realized, which is that you can combine expense management software and corporate card payment services in a way that is more powerful than either of them separate has proven to be true. And I think that's where, you know, Brex has moved and really defined this catego... | |||
| 14 Jul 2021 | How Oslene Carrington is Expanding the Global Angel Investment Community with a New Network Focused on Prosperity in the Caribbean | 00:37:14 | |
Invest in people. Easy, right? While more money than ever is being deployed around the world into new ventures, Oslene Carrington is leveraging her own entrepreneurial experience to ensure entrepreneurs in Guyana and the Caribbean have access to financing as well. Oslene is not one to wait around for change to occur. She decided she would create her own community of angel investors. By expertly explaining the risks of financing innovation abroad, especially at the angel stage, some of that risk is mitigated by tapping an angel network with first-hand experience within these unique cultures and landscapes. With the Caribbean Diaspora Angel Investor Network Trust and !nnovate Guyana, Oslene is accelerating the trends of access and democratization of private markets with a veteran approach.
Key Takeaways 3:45 - Fostering and funding great ideas from home Oslene traveled home to Guyana and witnessed some innovative business presentations. When she realized those great ideas would need greater support to develop, she started a program to award capital to the most viable ones. “I happened to be at home in Guyana at one point visiting five years ago and was at the university there where I have friends and saw some really amazing things happening in terms of innovation. Like a lot of universities, they have these annual presentations of student research conferences...I had experienced doing startup programs and finding funding for them, and commercial relationships with the private sector and with the academic environment and so on and so forth. And so it just clicked for me very easily to create something. And so what was born from that is something called the Guyana Innovation Prize, which is like an MIT prize or any of these other university-based prizes where I go find money. I find capital. Either initially as donations, we started out and in many ways still are a philanthropic endeavor, and find capital and match those up with great ideas. And so annually, we have a competition and the funding is awarded to the best commercializable ideas.”5:53 - The angel of the Caribbean Oslene’s second major venture was founding the Caribbean Diaspora Angel Investor Network (CDAIN), an angel investor network that takes the concept of funding great ideas in the Caribbean further, this time backed by corporate sponsors and government grants. “That brought me to my second business idea, which is the Caribbean Diaspora Angel Investor Network, or CDAIN. Because, you know, again, we would find the funding. We have corporate sponsors now, you know a USA government grant. But [the] point is, now we're able to take these ideas and go to the next stage. So you can sort of say that the initial support is pre-seed. And that what we then do is, you know, you can sort of categorize pre-seed and stages. Maybe there's a pre-seed A, and a pre-seed B round, or whatever you want to call it. I mean, we can pretty much make up anything we want in this space, because it is still pretty much angel. And so now through the network, we're able to bring those products along further and get them ready for [an investment], or actually get them invested.”9:55 - Invest in solutions aimed at solving big problems In Oslene’s eyes, community members are best positioned to know exactly what they need. Investing in ideas that meet fundamental needs feels much less risky than other investing endeavors. “The idea of a community coming together to find opportunities that we're all familiar with, or that we can connect to in some way, because it's either from places that we know, or it's addressing problems that we know happens, quote-unquote, back home, that's kind of how it all came together. To your question about risk, I mean, we don't see these things as risky. Because we know what the challenges are. We know what the needs are...It's amazing what people consider risky. Like I would never put my money, for example, in penny stocks. I would never put my money in yet another IoT solution when most people in America and in the world are not living in quote-unquote smart homes. Like I would never do that. And I'm not saying that stuff isn’t smart, I'm not saying that it's bad investing to do that. I'm just saying there are so many other problems in the world that are fundamental. And there are a lot of smart people in other places that have solutions for these problems. And if the capital met up with that, there'd be a lot of very, very wealthy people. And it's the basis of that, that I said, well, why not us? Why couldn't it be us? Who we're not only pooling our money to solve the problems, but potentially experiencing a wealth boom.”12:23 - Solving for the southern hemisphere Seven billion people live in the southern hemisphere, where primary concerns revolve around agriculture more than tech. Problem-solving in one agricultural area, for example, has immediate potential to expand to other, similar areas. “I know about my particular area of the world and the sector, which happens to be ag-tech, agro-processing, and ag science. Right. Because the part of the world we're talking about is heavily agricultural. But so are a lot of other places in the world. And so we feel like we're not just solving for a country or a few countries in this region. We're talking about any place in the world that's heavily agricultural and tropical. Well, guess what? That's the vast majority of the world, right? Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, the Caribbean. The Southern half of the world is as populated as the Northern part of the world, and the Southern part of the world is tropical. So we're talking about half of the 7 billion people in the world and solving for them. So this isn't risky. We're not talking about is somebody going to buy this IoT solution versus this other one, is somebody gonna buy this electric car versus the other one? That is real risk. Solving for problems that affect billions of people is not risk.”14:33 - Establishing trust outweighs the data When a community already knows what needs to be done, they don’t immediately worry about what the data says. Building trust and the narrative becomes the focal point. “The risk aversion is a different kind. It has to do with trust. And it's not about data. So, you know, how do you bring data to the picture to establish a level of trust? So the fact is, if I say to you, Andrew, I've got this great offering, this great opportunity. Probably because you don't know the region or the area, you're probably going to look at all the numbers. Probably try to do some additional research outside of what I share with you to see whether what I say is in fact the truth, or if I've missed anything, or if there's more, assuming you're interested. When we're talking to people who already know what the problems are, now it's well, I want to be sure that I'm not going to ... | |||
| 10 Dec 2021 | How Gemini's Jared Shaw is Solving the Cryptocurrency Distribution Problem | 00:30:58 | |
Jared Shaw didn’t take the traditional path to the financial world. When his classmates were starting prestigious internships, he joined the military and gained valuable leadership skills. Today, Jared is focused on solving problems: specifically, solving the distribution problem in the world of cryptocurrency. As the Head Of Finance at Gemini, Jared is deeply embedded in the frontier of crypto and digital assets. Gemini’s goal is simple yet ambitious: create a platform so secure and accessible that everyone will feel comfortable adopting it, no matter their age or background. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Jared explains how he fell down the crypto rabbit hole, what’s so different about Gemini’s approach, and why every company needs a digital asset strategy. Show Links
Key Takeaways
When Jared joined Ernst and Young’s San Francisco Bay Area consulting division, he began to encounter startups who were disrupting the traditional financial services industry. “I was helping financial services firms stay out of trouble. Banks, broker-dealers, insurance asset managers were all coming out of the financial crisis. Everyone was dealing with regulatory pressure, and so there was a lot of work helping them stay out of trouble. I started doing that in the San Francisco Bay Area, and shortly thereafter in the 2014-2015 timeframe FinTech really started to emerge. And being in the Bay Area, I was geographically fortunate to be able to focus on that sector and help EY build out its FinTech practice and approach. That was tremendous. Being able to just run around Silicon Valley and meet with all these great emerging startups that were really trying to disrupt the traditional financial services industry. And that's what got me first thinking about how can I work in a financial career, but maybe a little bit differently than the traditional path? And then that largely turned into cryptocurrency emerging in 2017. And in 2018, I did a large consulting engagement for a couple of crypto firms. And then, as everyone who gets involved in crypto, I fell down the rabbit hole and knew this is what I wanted to do with my career.”8:00 - Learn to navigate ups and downs Whether you work in a new environment like the crypto space, a startup, or a large company, you need to be prepared to ride the wave of disruptive technology. “We've grown 2x in our headcount over the last year. And with that, we're still all wearing many hats. And so the day-to-day is just all over the place. What I think that means is an ability to be able to handle a volatile changing environment. Certainly working in cryptocurrency, all of the things happening in digital assets somewhat dulls one’s senses to massive amounts of change, or things being really great one quarter and not so good the next quarter. I think an ability to be able to navigate through those ups and downs is something that we learned really, really well at Gemini and in the crypto industry more broadly. And so having that mindset of focusing on being consistent, of looking towards the future in a measured way. Being able to stomach the ups and downs in the short term is something that's critical for anyone within a startup environment. And probably I would suspect important for someone who is the CFO of a large company or operating a large company, because innovative, disruptive technologies are only going to impact those industries more and more.”10:10 - Taming the wild west of crypto Gemini’s founders, the Winklevoss twins, are focused on a path that will make crypto accessible to and trusted by a mass audience. “The genesis of the company was very focused on Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, our co-founders’, early experience investing in Bitcoin. Which was as they would put it the wild west, very uncertain, unsecure. Large hacks like Mt. Gox historically made the experience really difficult for the average person. Their vision was trying to make this experience much more approachable for the average consumer. That first started out with the institutions, obviously building weapons-grade security and safety of an environment for buying, selling, storing cryptocurrency. That is the core. And Cameron and Tyler had the vision that ultimately there needs to be regulation, there needs to be rules around this. Because that will bring broader mass adoption. It really focuses on security and trust, and that's something that Gemini has built its brand around, and we will continue to build a brand around.”13:10 - Solving crypto’s distribution problem The next frontier of crypto is taking it beyond the hands of users who are digitally native and placing it in the hands of older generations. “I think cryptocurrency has a distribution problem. It is very accessible to individuals who are digital natives, who understand having value stored on the internet and who have grown up that way. But there is a vast amount of individuals and wealth out there that are not digital native, and individuals who hear about cryptocurrency but have never had the desire or trust that a digital native person has. So perfect example, you mentioned Andrew before we started that your dad was an RIA wealth manager. I'm sure your dad has a number of customers that ask him all the time ‘What about Bitcoin? What about Ether? Or my child tells me I should buy some Dogecoin.’ Your dad's customers are going to do whatever he tells them. They're not going to go outside for a Gemini account or some other platform and get involved in cryptocurrency. And so that distribution of being able to get folks like your dad’s customers into cryptocurrency is what we think is really the next frontier.”14:37 - The genius of a crypto credit card Gemini’s newest project is a credit card with crypto rewards, where users can instantly select tokens to collect. “Everyone swipes a credit card. And if we can attach the experience of cryptocurrency to something that you do every day, that is a fascinating new entry point for individuals. Even if someone did sign up for a Gemini account, they still didn't have to think about, okay, which token do I want to buy? And now do I buy it today or do I buy it tomorrow? There's a lot of nervousness around that. But if you're just collecting or being awarded cryptocurrency every time you swipe a credit card, that's fantastic. The great thing about the card is it's instant. So you earn up to 3% on purchases. You can pick any of the tokens we offer on our platform. And once you swipe, the next minute that crypto hits your account and it's available for you. You don't have to wait for the end of the month for your statement period, or whatever. It's yours. So you really get a chance to interact with it right away, which is we think is a really compelling offer.”20:50 - Don’t chase shiny objects Gemini’s staying power comes from the fact that they are laser-focused on their vision of secure, accessible cryptocurrency. “Gemini is very fortunate in the sense that we have founders who have a very long-term vision, and have invested in this sector not only person... | |||
| 08 Jun 2023 | Navigating the Evolving World of CFO Leadership with Dan Ellis of Townsend Search Group | 00:35:52 | |
For Townsend Search Group, executive search is a highly personalized process—one that requires looking at the market, the competitor environment, and the culture of the client’s organization, and then drawing up a tailored strategy for them. The goal isn’t just to find candidates. Rather, Townsend aims to place change-making leaders that fulfill long-term goals, influence strategic plans, and impact decision making across client organizations. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Dan Ellis, Managing Director at Townsend Search Group, dives into the challenges, strategies, and invaluable lessons for aspiring CFOs and those seeking effective financial leadership. With over a decade’s experience in public accounting and consulting, Dan Explores the diverse personalities, drive, and discipline that define these financial leaders. From the vital role of athletics in shaping their work ethic to the crucial balance between work and personal life, gain valuable insights into what it takes to excel in the competitive world of CFOs.
[00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, we're joined by Dan Ellis, managing director of Townsend Search Group, a search group based in Michigan, my home state. And for just over a decade, Dan shared his career experience in public accounting and consulting and today is connecting private equity groups or portfolio companies with the best talent there is. Dan, thank you so much for joining us today. [00:00:35] Dan Ellis: Andrew, thank you. Happy to be here and excited to chat about some topics about the modern CFO. [00:00:43] Andrew Seski: So one of the reasons I'm so excited that you're on the podcast is that we get all of these incredible insights from CFOs in their fields. And while they're all diverse, I think your perspective should be really unique and valuable to them. It's a somewhat opaque world and I know that market dynamics have severely shifted in the last few years and even last few months. Before we dive into the whole world of CFO placements and Townsend as a search group, I'd love to go back in time and learn a little bit about how you initially became interested in accounting and maybe even earlier days outside of undergrad. [00:01:20] Dan Ellis: Yeah, sure. I appreciate that. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My father and grandfather purchased a manufacturing company that they grew and successfully operated. So I always wanted to be a business owner and I saw accounting as a path into that. So went to Western Michigan University, got my accounting degree. After that, spent eight years in public accounting and consulting as a CPA. Towards the tail end of that, I got into M&A advisory, due diligence, transaction support. And really liked that environment, but didn't see myself being a partner in a public accounting firm. I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial where you could eat what you kill. And so I was introduced to my colleague and partner Peter Bridges at Townsend Search Group. And just came into the executive search and recruiting world with a network previously in private equity and consulting and was able to learn the operations and the process of executive recruiting and eventually become very good at executing searches, which ultimately led into more to business development and opportunities like this to meet you. [00:02:31] So our specialty at Townsend has really become working with middle-market companies, lower middle-market companies that are privately owned, most often private equity sponsored. So we do a lot of work in the private equity community, not only at the firm level or within the funds and working with the investment teams, the operating teams. We spend a significant amount of our time working within the portfolio companies, placing accounting, finance, operational executives, and leaders. So I think today, we'll spend most of the time on CFOs. And just to set the context, a lot of our focus is in the middle market with privately owned businesses. [00:03:13] Andrew Seski: Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks for that. Yeah, I think in my mind when you're going out and engaging with a search firm maybe for the first time, you may have some hesitations and I'm curious as to when and how maybe CFO should begin the process of engaging with the search firm. I feel like the marketplace, maybe the tenure has shortened a bit in a typical amount of turnover in the C-suite in general right now. I'm curious as to when it would be most strategic to engage with search firms, understand the marketplace better, or if you should essentially always have a good pulse on the market. [00:03:51] Dan Ellis: I think it's always important to have a good pulse on the market. And this comes into a little bit of how do you develop into a CFO. And I think earlier in a career as a candidate, as an aspiring CFO, being in contact with the recruiter can really help you be more strategic with developing your skill set to be a CFO. So we can understand your background and experiences and where you want to get and try to align your interests with companies or CFOs that are looking to hire someone in those functional areas. So making sure that you're deliberate and strategic with your career development is something that a recruiter can help counsel or advise. We can give you data points on what the market holds in terms of compensation and really just help make sure that you're aware of what's out there in the market. [00:04:45] Now, if you're a sitting CFO and you're building a team, being in contact with us is very valuable because we're constantly in the market talking with folks. We know what they're making. We know what they're looking for. If we can understand the vision that a CFO is trying to drive in a business, the strategy they're trying to execute, we can find candidates or we may know candidates that align with that strategy and that vision, and therefore it creates a win-win in the fact that we're getting the candidate the technical and the experiences that they need to develop their skillset to be a CFO, but we're also helping that sitting CFO build out their team and drive what they're looking for. So hopefully, that's helpful. [00:05:34] Andrew Seski: Definitely. I mean, so you've been with Townsend for about a decade now. And the world has changed a lot and we've been through a number of economic market cycles and then the last few years have been extremely interesting. I'm curious as to how that impacts — maybe equity becomes more important in a cash-restricted business that needs to ramp up and scale. I'm curious what a search firm market environment is, like what the cycles are in the marketplace for you, maybe what the lag is, and then what it is like in our curre... | |||
| 14 Jun 2022 | Revenue Leadership Strategy in a Digital World with P. Cory Hogan of Lob | 00:38:30 | |
Navigating today’s digital world is daunting, especially for businesses. There’s no shortage of tactics to leverage–emails, blogs, videos, webinars, podcasts, ads–and a seemingly endless supply of apps and platforms to execute those initiatives. So, how do you break through the noise and get your company noticed? For Cory Hogan, CRO of Lob, the key is revenue leadership. Whether you’re helping build a community for your employees or offering potential customers a personalized ad experience, your job as a leader is to meet people where they are. And taking a unique approach might just help push your brand over the top. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Cory explains how Lob is connecting the digital world with the physical one, what it takes to provide the right environment for hybrid employees, and the strategy of today’s CROs. Show Links
Key Takeaways 7:15 – Cultivating an entrepreneurial, organizational spirit
10:45 – Personalize your marketing 13:18 – The strategy of a modern CRO
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| 16 Mar 2021 | How Luc Jodet of Arianee embraces the future of finance through NFTs and blockchain technology | 00:34:28 | |
In 2013 Luc Jodet first heard of Bitcoin, and dismissed it as uninteresting. Fast forward to 2018 and Luc found himself co-founding Arianee, a company that is quickly becoming one of the most successful businesses in the blockchain world. Today, Arianee helps provide luxury brands with non-fungible tokens, or digital passports certifying the authenticity and ownership of high-value, one-of-a-kind products. We chatted about Luc’s journey to the blockchain world, how the technology works, and the type of projects Arianee hopes to spearhead in the future.
2:34 - Creating digital identities There are three main reasons to create digital identities for physical products. “The idea is to create a digital identity for physical products. And we started with products of high value, in particular in the luxury industry. And there's really three reasons you're creating those digital identities. The first one is really it's a proof of authenticity, meaning it's a way to figure out that your product is actually real because it was created by, the passport was generated by the brand. The second one is a proof of property, it's a proof of ownership that is. Because it's really transferrable from one owner to the other. And the third one is really the history of the product. Because every time something happens to your product you can record, you can notarize a new event in the NFT or in the passport of the product. So it's really like a digital passport for your product.”4:07 - A decentralized CFO For Luc, the role of CFO is expanded from the classic definition into one that encompasses the realm of decentralized finance. “Classically the work of the CFO is to manage. Then I'll do the bookkeeping and manage the books, measure treasury, have financing manage some of the, especially in the early startup managed a lot of the regulatory risks and in general deal with the corporate structure and how to manage this...Now we have an additional layer. Because of our blockchain and crypto infrastructure our architecture is that we have to deal with those crypto incentives and the life of a token. So the entire protocol is actually completely decentralized.”6:41- Educating the world’s brands Several years ago, much of Arianee’s work was focused on crypto education. Today, executives are actively reaching out. “It's really like a financial innovation, the entire blockchain and crypto sphere. So a lot of our work is educating the different brands that we work with. And over the last, I mean the first two and a half years we were educating. But there was no craze, or no actual really strong interest...10 days ago when Elon Musk and Tesla announced that he had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin, all of a sudden I have a lot of corporate executives and directors who I speak with who actually now are actively asking me.”11:52 - Embracing Ethereum Bitcoin didn’t interest Luc, but Ethereum got his attention. Why? Because it added the element of a decentralized computer. “The real thing that got me to change my mind was when Ethereum was introduced in 2015. Because the theme was really the idea of creating more than just a ‘digital gold’ kind of like a store of value. It was actually building a decentralized computer. The idea being that I could actually write some code, push it on Ethereum and it would exist as long as Ethereum keeps on running. And there was no way to censor it. That was to me, fascinating.”14:53 - The definition of a non-fungible token When you trade one-dollar bill or even one Bitcoin with a friend, the exchange is equal. But an NFT represents a physical product that’s one-of-a-kind. “When I take one Bitcoin and another Bitcoin, they're interchangeable. It's the same thing. Or if I take one Ether and another Ether, it doesn't matter if I have this Ether or this Ether. It's always going to be the same. I don't have any preference. It's the same thing as a dollar bill in a way. If you gave me this dollar bill and another dollar bill, it doesn't make a difference. It still has the same utilities, same value. A non-fungible token is the idea that actually one of those tokens is not exchangeable, is not the same as another token. So technically for us, for instance we work with Breitling and create a passport for every one of their watches. Every one of their watches has a serial number. So every one of their digital passports is unique, because it has a different serial number linked to the non-fungible token.”16:42 - The practical advantages of NFTs Having a digital passport for your item isn’t just cool. It also allows you to insure or resell your item with ease. “We really see in the longer-term vision is the idea that a digital identity for every product actually enables an ecosystem of services. So what do I mean by this is the fact that you can prove that you own a real product, so you can prove that you own a Breitling watch for instance, you can then imagine having access to a lot of different services such as one-click insurance. Today, if you need to get insurance on a watch, you actually need to provide two or three documents…It's all paper-based. What we're doing is actually replacing it by a digital identity, a digital record.”19:05 - Luxury resale is booming Arianee has been particularly successful because of the rapidly growing luxury resale market. “The resell market, secondhand market for luxury products is worth about $21 billion per year. And it's booming. It's growing really rapidly. But actually three quarters of it is linked to the watch industry. So reselling your watch is something that is, or your luxury watch, is something that's extremely developed. It's actually the product that in the luxury industry is the most resold. And what we're building here is really something that helps or fortifies that market.”21:31 - Why blockchain won’t rule the world Some people say blockchain is the future of everything - but Luc disagrees. “You hear it sometimes, like ‘everything will be on a blockchain one day.’ I don't think so. And the reason why is because actually blockchains are slower than regular classical databases. And even though it's going to, scalability and all improvements are going to make it a little bit less clunky compared to what they are today, they will always be slower than a regular database...So regular databases will always be necessary.”23:19 - True proof of ownership A digital passport is the same as having a physical certificate of authenticity. Although it’s digital, no one but you has the power to delete or remove it. “When you're on a centralized database, you don't really ... | |||
| 03 Mar 2021 | Kevin Appleby on the challenges facing new CFOs | 00:53:48 | |
Kevin Appleby helps run GrowCFO, a community and development resource for finance professionals. A PwC alum-turned instructor, Kevin realized that what CFOs really needed was a support system. He joined me on The Modern CFO podcast to talk about the challenges facing CFOs today, the importance of seeking out mentors, and how to embrace imposter syndrome by conducting thoughtful self-assessment.
Key Takeaways Kevin’s journey: from CPA to the classroom Kevin’s experience runs the gamut from CPA work to the chemical industry to working as a consultant for PwC. Ultimately he ended up in the classroom. When COVID hit, GrowCFO was the perfect segue. “I became a management consultant and ended up working for PwC, mainly doing finance transformation projects, my client would typically be the finance director, the VP finance, or the CFO and often working with his team trying to find information for the project. And I found over time there are lots of stuff that I knew the answer to, but the client's own finance team didn't. I ended up spending time in the classroom teaching a lot of that stuff.” Creating a dedicated CFO network Almost every industry has numerous networking and educational resources. Kevin saw that the CFO world was an exception. “There's nothing really out there for CFOs, senior finance people to communicate with each other and to help each other solve problems. There's plenty of space here to go to the big advisory firms, but nothing really here to allow CFOs to cooperate with each other and share learning.” Helping CFOs break through the glass ceiling A major challenge young CFOs face is breaking into the C-suite. GrowCFO helps prepare aspiring CFOs to succeed in the application process and beyond. “What we found was there's a big glass ceiling. It's very difficult to break through into the C-suite...95% of the roles out there are looking for experienced CFOs, right? How do you ever get through that? So we put together the Future CFO program. We've got it accredited for 40 hours of CPD, continuing professional development, and it takes you on a nine module or a nine-step journey between being a very good, very accomplished head finance professional through to landing your first CFO job, how to move into that job. And it finishes with creating the plan for your first hundred days in your new CFO role.” CFOs are asked to do it all New CFOs are often in for a rude shock. The breadth and amount of work expected can be staggering. “Why does GrowCFO exist? One of the things that we're very definitely seeing Andrew is that the kind of breadth of skills that a CFO needs to have these days is huge. And there's no way that any one person can be expected to be rounded at absolutely everything. I think communication is one of those interesting ones that you've got a guy who's used to being in the back office, used to be behind his favorite Excel spreadsheet, he's used to running the finance team, become CFO. Suddenly, he's going to talk to customers, to suppliers, to investors, to shareholders, countless other stakeholders. He's gotta be the right hand man to the CEO. Now suddenly he's got a whole new world to play in.”Promoting inclusion and diversity Strong CFOs are often tactful and inclusive. Today, that means doing a quick check of your assumptions before communicating. “The equity house looks for people like themselves. You as the CFO you're constantly thinking of communicating to yourself...one of my regular weekly tasks in GrowCFO is to write the weekly newsletter. Normally I write it. So the last few weeks I've written on a Sunday evening with a schedule set to go at about eight 30, Monday morning. And I do find myself looking back on this and suddenly realizing, Oh, Kevin, you've written this for another male CFO. Go back, take out all the references to he or him or whatever, and realize that probably 40-45% of the people that are reading this newsletter are female.”Learn to specialize & delegate Since you can’t possibly do it all, what’s the answer? Kevin says the solution is to learn when to dig in - and when to pull back. “You can be weak in something. And part of it is recognizing you're weak and maybe getting somebody else to help you rather than learn the skills yourself...The CFO cannot be good at everything. But if you've got a few strengths, then strength is the sort of thing you can take the mastery. So why not put your personal development into stuff that you are good at, and become better at it? And that becomes your kind of specialism. I think that's a far more sensible way of approaching things. Especially since things that you're strong in, things you good in, tend to be the things that you enjoy doing as well.” Dealing with imposter syndrome The only way to deal with imposter syndrome is to face it. Kevin explained that admitting how you’re feeling is the first step to banishing it. “Nearly everybody that gets promoted to the top of your game, top of their game, whether it's to the C-suite, whether it's to partner level in one of the big four accounting firms, they get to a point that they're going to think, what am I doing here? I haven't got all the skills and the talents that are needed for this role. I'm going to get found out at some point.”“That's perfectly normal. And the first thing you're going to do with imposter syndrome is actually admit that you've got it. And that's a very hard thing to do, but once you've made that admission, then you can start to do something about it...The CFO suddenly has to be the man who understands business strategy, has got to be the man that understands the finance numbers. That's probably easy because he's done that all his time, but he's got to be able to communicate. You've got to know about investor relationships. I think in the CFO role the potential to have imposter syndrome is probably doubled over any other role in the C-suite.” Finding a mentor Once you’ve realized that you have questions to ask, a good mentor can help you think through the answers. “One of the things in GrowCFO that we passionately believe in is the role of a mentor. I think CFOs as well feel as though they should know it all and probably think, Oh, if I have a mentor, it's a sign of weakness. But actually again it's recognizing that you can't possibly know and know everything...One thing I loved about consulting was that we always had a consulting team of fellow, reasonably senior people. [If] we had a problem around a project - yeah, let's go have a beer and work out what we're going to do about this. I don't see the CFO having the same kind of peer group. So why not have a mentor?” Embracing technology New CFOs have a unique opportunity to understand and embrace new technology in... | |||
| 28 Feb 2023 | Bridging the Gap in NextGen Communications with Anthony Pastore of UBS | 00:41:51 | |
In the world of wealth and asset management, and the private markets in general, there is a noticeable communication gap between generations. The next generation of owners–people between the ages of 18 and 25–are prolific consumers of digital content, from Reddit threads to Spotify podcasts. For many businesses, that means adopting new technologies, broadening offerings, and finding modern ways to effectively serve clients. In this in-person episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski visits with Anthony Pastore, Head of Broadcast Communications at UBS, to chat about what his firm is doing to bridge that generation gap in communicating and investing, the role that social media and video plays in staying relevant and ahead of the competition, and the importance of having a digital approach to maintaining the massive amount of wealth transferring to the next generation in the decade to come. Show Links
Transcript [00:00:25] Anthony Pastore: Andrew, I'm honored to be here with you and it's very rare for me to be on the other side of the table of, podcast and video interviews. Usually, I'm the one asking the questions so I actually said to my team today as I was preparing to sit with you, I was like, I'm a little nervous. I'm not used to being interviewed. I'm usually the interviewer so I wouldn't be surprised if at some point I start turning the microphone to you and saying, "Andrew, I have a few questions for you as well" so hopefully, you're prepped for that. [00:00:49] Andrew Seski: I'm happy to. [00:00:51] Anthony Pastore: Anyway, I'm really happy to be with you. This is great. [00:00:53] Andrew Seski: Excellent. Well, I think the beginning of our conversation should probably start around your early career and why we're talking today. There's a huge gap in the wealth management and asset management world between generations. We are all consuming media in a different way, which is why I'm glad to be using this medium. And I'd love to learn from you as the head of broadcasting at UBS to explain what some of the brightest minds in the world are doing to bridge that gap. So, we have a ton to cover and I hope that it's a useful lesson for a bunch of CFOs who also have to communicate across a bunch of different cohorts of people. Whether they're investors or they're your C-suite or they're part of your team, having strong communication flows in a really technical way or a technical area like finance is just invaluable when it comes to senior leadership so. [00:01:44] Anthony Pastore: Yeah, I agree with that, by the way. And it's interesting because, and once we get into it, I'll talk more about it, but I think one of the interesting things about a job like what you and I do is we have to always be thinking, you know, five steps ahead of everybody else but it's really hard to do considering the competition in the media space. But what I think is interesting is we're talking about it, like I'm sitting in a wealth management firm at UBS and that's unique to our industry specifically — to have content like podcasts and virtual events and videos and internally for our employees and externally for anybody who wants to get a glimpse of what's going on and the thought leadership from this the UBS side. But, yeah. I know I'm going off on tangents here but I know you and I are both thinking similarly like what how much competition there isn't. How do you keep on top of it and stay relevant, especially for somebody who's sitting in a CFO seat? [00:02:37] Andrew Seski: Right. And the CFO doesn't typically get called upon for many any of the — I always say on the podcast, if you want to hear the vision of the company, you go watch the Bloomberg interview with the CEO. If you want to hear how finance is actually, you know, a key role in how that innovation is created, you come back to the podcast and listen to The Modern CFO and you listen to people like Anthony who are able to share insights from, you know, unique people who have a lot of sway into how companies are financed. So, strategic finance can take forms and a lot of different ways. We were just laughing about how both of us found ourselves in this building but neither came from purely financial roles like at wealth management firms. [00:03:20] Anthony Pastore: That's right. Yeah. And I guess that's a sort of a good segue. So and as you were asking, my background is pretty colorful. I kind of came up and I say this to all the younger people who start now. I'm in my late forties. I consider myself a true Gen X-er listening to grunge music because I was depressed and sad wearing my flannels in the nineties. But coming out of college, I went to school for I was a bit of a Renaissance man, as I always say. I studied theater, I studied business administration, and I also studied speech and communications. And my father looked at me and said, "What are you gonna do with that?" I said, "I don't know but I'll figure it out." And back in those days, you know, I was starting to look for full-time work in, say, 1997. It was the tech boom was just starting. Companies were hiring and, as we know with Gen X, there were fewer of us on the planet so there were a lot more jobs than there were people to fill them. So, I got a job working early days at Smith Barney. RIP Smith Barney. What a great firm and I still obviously work with a lot of people from those days who are now here at UBS and other firms. But Smith Barney hired me to work on a stock plan services desk, and I was helping Bank of America employees exercise stock options that they were granted by being full-time employees. And I learned a lot about the business but somewhere along the way, I met a woman who said, "You'd be really good for our radio station." I said, "You have a radio station here?" And she said, "We do." And it was called at the time "Radio FCN," which stand stood for Radio Financial Consultant Network — before we started calling them financial advisors. I interviewed and the my guy who the gentleman who became my boss for the next decade said to me, "Do you have any experience with talking about finance on any kind of a medium like this?" and it was only internal content just to the employees. I said, "No." I said, "But I have a theater background and I can talk about anything." He sai... | |||
| 21 Oct 2021 | Exploring Secondary Direct Investments with Andrea Walne of Manhattan Venture Partners | 00:41:29 | |
With an abundance of capital chasing a limited number of opportunities, one unique entry point for investors is in secondary direct investments. Secondary opportunities consist of buying shares in private, pre-IPO companies directly from employees and investors versus the traditional route of participating in the next round of fundraising. Andrea Walne is at the center of this world at Manhattan Venture Partners (MVP), where 80% of their investments are in late-stage companies by buying secondary investments. Andrea and her team are focused on tapping into the value that already exists. Formerly a founder of Forge Global, Andrea has worked with over 100 late-stage private companies and has facilitated over $10 billion worth of transactions. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Andrea shares insights on this growing market segment in VC, its evolving landscape, and the opportunity for liquidity it presents. Show Links
Key Takeaways 3:20 - Build a secondary position Instead of fighting to issue a term sheet and compete with late-stage investors, MVP uses its network of relationships to enter a business at the ground level. “We're on our fourth fund right now. With our strategy, it allows us, strategically, to pinpoint how we want to enter a business that we're interested in. When I say enter a business, we're not fighting to issue a term sheet and compete against other late-stage investors to lead a round of funding. What we are doing is generally considered “friendly” to many of our counterparts in the late-stage venture community, because we are figuring out a price point and identifying, by way of our network, (who all knows the partners of our firm really well by way of our experience); We find our way in with a certain price point and we're able to dollar cost average and choose that building of a position by way of the secondary. So, it's pretty awesome. It allows us to choose what valuations make the most sense for us.”6:33 - The changing environment of common stock Common stock used to be considered a risky business. Today, it’s easier to assess if a company—and therefore its common stock—is valuable early on. “I've never seen a world where a company can raise a round of funding and be a mid-stage or late-stage company. I do say mid-stage, because I think it's important. A company will raise a round. It's typically oversubscribed—most companies are raising oversubscribed rounds. There's a ton of capital flowing in and immediately after the round is raised, we're working with issuers and their shareholders who believe that their stock is immediately worth a premium to that round, immediately after the round is closed. Precedent will tell you that, historically, you could see that common stock, which is issued to the employees of a private company, versus the preferred stock, which is issued to the investors when they invest, the common stock is usually priced at a discount, because there's inherent risk associated with common stock. God forbid there's ever a bankruptcy in a private company, the common stock gets paid back last after all the preferred stock and any debt. So, there's inherent risk associated with common stock. If you go back three to five years, 20-25% discounts for common stock were normal relative to the latest round of preferred financing. For the environment to change so rapidly is absolutely fascinating for us.”10:03 - The danger of taxing unrealized gains Congress has floated different options for taxing wealthy figures, like Jeff Bezos. The problem is the potential for harmful trickle-down effects that could negatively impact budding entrepreneurs and their early employees. “Something that seems like it comes up in Congress quite often is just taxing unrealized gains. That alone is constantly brought up and constantly talked about at both the gains-perspective and then deeper on a carried-interest perspective, which is obviously gains earned by way of the profits to venture capitalists and those that are investment managers. Overall, what I will tell you is that the resounding theme across all of these proposed changes and contemplations is that clearly Congress is looking at the folks like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and the upper echelon of the tech community as being the only population that really matters. The more that Congress can better target them and tax them for their wealth, which was in my mind earned wealth, quite well-earned wealth, is something that I feel is so shocking, because I don't think Congress realizes how that permeates down to those who are really the rank and file working at tech companies. Employees these days are given stock options at private companies. That doesn't mean that they own the shares outright. A stock option simply means they have the right to exercise, AKA pay a cost, to then own common stock shares in a private company. For there to be a concept of taxing unrealized gains when there hasn't been any form of a sale, where there's any gain to be had or money in the bank, it's just constantly shocking to me that that's even a consideration. It's something I worry about..”15:44 - Successful startups are impossible to ignore Many startups today are coming out of the gate with incredible growth and high value. “As much as we all love working with institutional folks, school endowments, pension funds, fund of funds and the like, there's a bit more of a disconnect when you're working with an institution that has a bit more of a regimented strategy as it relates to their venture asset allocation. The passion comes from the family offices and so, when we speak to our LPs, we see that they're all seeing startups more and more and more in the news. What I think has really shifted in the last five or six years has been that you're now seeing startups with bigger market caps than any company listed on the Nasdaq or New York Stock Exchange. So, it's impossible to ignore these startups, because they're bigger by way of market cap and size and growth than most listed businesses. That shift means that startups are in the news every single day. There's a new $10 billion minted company every single day, which is shocking to hear. It used to be that seeing a billion-dollar valuation four years ago was fascinating.”21:41 - The impact of media exposure With large private companies doing so well, they also get a huge amount of media coverage. That means that determining facts about their financial profile is easier than ever. “The biggest private companies these days are actually getting more exposure in the media than most public companies are, which is really fascinating. It's because they're just so big, they're so innovative, they're breaking rules, and they're making change. With all of that, they are getting more media exposure. With media exposure comes people who are covering them and digging into the company's analytics, digging into the company's financing history, revenues, and growth. There's a lot more of a spotlight on that and late-stage private companies these days than there ever was. Coupled with the concept of vast transparency, compa... | |||
| 07 Jun 2024 | Leveraging "The Venture Mindset" with Ilya Strebulaev | 00:44:36 | |
In the complex world of academia, corporate finance, and venture capital, few names resonate as powerfully as Ilya Strebulaev’s. As a Professor of Finance at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Ilya has cemented his reputation as a leading authority in corporate finance, financial decision-making, and private company valuation. Ilya’s academic journey is marked by countless accolades and published works in top-tier academic journals. In his latest book, The Venture Mindset, Ilya’s research provides profound insights into venture capital markets, offering a deeper understanding of financial strategies employed by firms today. Known for his rigorous analysis and clear articulation of complex financial concepts, Ilya’s work is a cornerstone for both scholars and practitioners alike. In this episode, Ilya joins host Andrew Seski to discuss his extensive research and its implications for modern CFOs. He delves into the nuances of venture capital, the history that led him to his success, and some of the core principles that allow VCs to pursue success despite the odds.
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| 09 Nov 2021 | Tapping into The Power of Crowdfunding with Woodie Neiss of GUARDD | 00:36:35 | |
In 2012, Woodie Neiss was a CFO and entrepreneur who was seeking to change the rules of the investment game. When President Obama signed his crowdfunding bill later that year, it opened a whole new world for individuals to participate in the private capital markets. Today, the crowdfunding industry has surpassed $1 billion in funding and takes place almost entirely online. Woodie continues to empower entrepreneurs through his latest venture, GUARDD, where he automates the process of ensuring audited financials with the goal of creating a more liquid environment for private company founders and shareholders. He is a vanguard of empowering founders throughout the lifecycle of their businesses from fundraising to exit. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Woodie shares how he architected the roadmap of Regulation Crowdfunding (Reg CF), what is so powerful about crowdfunding, and why one-size regulation does not fit all. Show Links
Key Takeaways 2:30 - Tackle outdated investing laws In his early days as an entrepreneur, Woodie was frustrated by the inability to tap into individuals as investors, like his large customer base. “I had started a company with my brother-in-law called Flavor RX. We flavored medicine for children so they’re more compliant. The coolest thing about our company was a mother got her kid to take her medicine by going into the pharmacy and asking pharmacists to flavor it. The kid took the medicine and she's like, ‘Oh my God, you just saved me countless hours of struggling.’ I would get a phone call the next day: ‘How do I invest in your business?’ I thought, well, you can't because we can only raise money from accredited investors. When my lawyers told me this, I knew this was a complete missed opportunity. I have hundreds of mothers calling me saying, ‘How can I become an investor in your business?’ They can be a marketing agent for my company. Why can't I take money from them? These laws were written 80 years ago to protect retail investors, and you have to live by them. I thought was stupid.”3:53 - How the crowdfunding bill was signed Woodie and two friends from business school ultimately drafted a new framework for Reg CF. President Obama signed it into the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act in 2012. “We wrote this eight bullet-point framework for investment crowdfunding. We went to the SEC, they said it was cute. Then they said, You should head over to that building with the white dome on it.’ I kid you not. Naively enough, we just walked over there, because we had a few days in Washington. We started knocking on the doors of both Republicans and Democrats. People were shocked that entrepreneurs were there, so they listened.”6:04 - Connecting retail investors to the private capital markets Today, crowdfunding doesn’t just live on websites—it’s been used on social media as well. Woodie never anticipated the breadth and reach of his bill, which he sees as bringing positive transparency to the investment space. “The industry launched in May 2016. Just this past month it surpassed $1 billion in funding. When we put this together, I was thinking, ‘Wouldn't it be great to use a website to be able to allow people that have a customer list, or their own friends and family, to invest in their business the same way that a campaign on Kickstarter or Indiegogo can?’ To see people using Twitter, Instagram, YouTube Live as the outreach, the public solicitation, I think is awesome. It really connects the people to the entrepreneur in a way that a website just doesn't do by itself. I think the advances in technology are really benefiting the industry because it ties you closer to the people that are raising capital. I think that's all good, too, because I think it brings this level of transparency that you otherwise don't have in the private capital markets.”8:43 - Deciding which constraints would minimize retail investor risk One major fear was that crowdfunding would end up like gambling, leading some investors to lose everything. That’s why Woodie and his team wrote in limits based on annual income. “Any accredited investor can risk everything that they have in one company. Do they? No. They're smart enough to diversify their assets. Now, when we built this framework we were concerned that people might be risking more than they can afford to lose. This is the only segment in the private capital markets where investors are capped on how much exposure they can have. We built into the framework, based on net income, or annual salary I should say, as an individual investor, how much you make or how much you have saved thresholds as to how much you can invest. That doesn't exist anywhere else. People will tell us that’s pedantic, but quite frankly that was an investor protection mechanism we put in there. So, the investors that are saying, ‘I think it's too risky for certain investors to put in there,’ my response to that is well, there are caps and limits on how much people can risk.”11:11 - Tap into the power of the crowd Some assumed crowdfunding would operate only within the San Francisco and New York venture communities. That hasn’t been the case. “The deals are the same deals that are being seen in the Bay Area and New York City, with the same investors. What we've seen is the evolution of this industry, where instead of those people saying, ‘You know what? You shouldn't go to crowdfunding.’ They're saying, ‘Well, we should use crowdfunding and we should syndicate our deals to the crowd because the crowd brings something that we don't bring.’ We can bring deep pockets, but they can bring marketing power because they've got a vested interest in the outcome of the business. They can bring connections. They can bring their own brainpower to how we can help scale this business. VCs are great for that Rolodex of people that they might be able to connect you to, but the reality is you can get so much more out of a crowd.”12:44 - Make transformative moves at the right time Woodie credits the success of the crowdfunding initiative to timing. His team pitched the idea to Capitol Hill on the back of the recession when political leaders were hungry for job creation. “We were in the right place at the right time. In 2008, we had a recession. Washington was looking for solutions. We went and showed up in 2010 with this [pitch]. People were looking for an answer to the question, ‘How do we create jobs in local communities?’ The whole point of investment-based crowdfunding is you are, essentially, helping people that have great ideas all over the country create businesses that hire people. The government can't do that on a macro level and so they need to look at innovative solutions like this that can actually solve what they need to solve at the most basic zip code level. That's what we delivered to them. That's why we were able to build support for this.”16:34 - One size regulation does not fit all... | |||
| 06 Apr 2021 | Cameron Hyzer of ZoomInfo on why CFOs are a critical link between growing companies and their investors | 00:30:51 | |
Cameron Hyzer is the CFO of ZoomInfo, a B2B database seeking to revolutionize the sales & marketing process. With over 2 decades of experience, Cameron is expanding the role (and importance) of CFOs in growing companies. Cameron joined me to talk about the evolution of today’s CFO, the best mentalities for success, and how ZoomInfo is changing go-to-market motions for good….even during a global pandemic. Show Links
Key Takeaways 1:24 - The many roles of a CFO Numbers are just the start. CFOs are a critical link between growing companies and their investors. “I think the CFO's role is really being the steward of the company's both business model and capital, as well as the bridge between the management team and shareholders. As the CFO role has evolved over time, there is a lot that gets bundled into that. Everything from the ability to report and understand drivers of the business, to helping the management team itself improve and grow. As well as really working with the capital markets and various different transactions, whether that's acquisitions or sales or fundraising. And finally, making sure that investors understand where we're going and are excited about that.” 2:57 - Profits first Cameron cautions against losing sight of the basics, like profitability and shareholder returns. “I do think that the transactional orientation of a CFO is really important: knowing what happens in an acquisition, whether you're acquiring or being acquired, understanding how to fundraise, and make sure that your capital structure is as efficient as possible…You don't want to be entirely focused on just capital structure and transactions, but that is ultimately what drives returns for shareholders. So having that point of view is important along with the ability to help the company grow and mature, making sure that you're making the right investments within the company to power growth or profitability over time.” 4:50 - Driving sales with better data Cameron’s company, ZoomInfo, provides in-depth data to give sales teams critical insights into potential leads. “ZoomInfo helps sales and marketing teams, and recently we've rolled out products to help recruiters as well, understand the world around them and their prospects and customers. We do this by gathering data from literally millions of different sources, normalizing, and bringing the quality up of that data so that customers can identify their next best customers…We provide information about companies, everything from how many employees that are what's the revenue within that company to org charts within that companies and what technologies they use and what they’re planning to buy over the next 1, 3, 6, 12 months. With that information, a salesperson can identify who to talk to and figure out when, how to prioritize the different prospects that they have.” 8:27- Pioneering the data trend Businesses have started recognizing that traditional sales & marketing need a modern overhaul, 14 years after ZoomInfo’s vision began. “Before the pandemic people were looking for better ways to engage with their customers... making their sales and marketing teams more effective and more efficient. And the natural way in our minds to do that is to use data to make better decisions. High-quality data drives better outcomes. And that's been our mantra for the last 14 years. So as companies got more acclimated to the environment, they started to determine that maybe they shouldn't be worried about conserving cash at all costs and actually looking to grow the business.” 9:11- The ups and downs of 2020 After the stalled markets of early 2020, ZoomInfo saw a surge in sales as traditional sales tactics disappeared. “That secular trend that we'd seen of people trying to improve their go to market motions became a much starker relief when you can't go to a conference and collect business cards anymore to figure out who to talk to when you can't take people out to golf outings or baseball games in order to get the inside scoop from the company when you can't shmooze people at dinners to meet other people in the company. Our platform allows people to do all of those things from their desk or home or whatever else. So we're really excited about that acceleration that we've seen of that trend in the second half [of 2020].” 11:21 - Cameron’s key to navigating crisis Cooler heads prevail, as does a long-term focus that can see past today’s hurdle. “I think that the most important thing is that you need to be long-term focused. You can't be focused on what's necessarily happening right now and panic about whatever. You need to look past what the current hurdle is and understand what you are going to do to overcome that hurdle that isn't just a quick fix, but it's going to actually drive value for the company in the long term. Being calm in the face of pressure and being able to have that long-term view, no matter what's going on is the most important aspect." 13:14 - Lessons from the pre-internet bubble Cameron’s early years in the workforce showed him that profit beats popularity. “I've had the luxury of seeing a lot of different things over time. Among the probably most formative things, I graduated from college in the late nineties and went into the workforce and worked for an investment bank that focused on technology companies in 1998, which was like the huge rise of pre-internet bubble, fast growth, multiple software companies changing the world. And I think that living through that era where everything was changing, everything was fast, everything was super valuable. And then going through the collapse of the internet bubble and always having a view that valuation isn't about how many eyeballs you make, but ultimately about how much money you can make in the long-term.” 16:03- Two success mentalities The best CFOs are always learning new approaches and willing to get hands-on to solve problems. “I think that the most important thing that I see of CFOs that I really admire or are high quality is that they're always looking to learn something new. They're not just focused on ‘this is what I learned and how I approach it.’...Putting yourself in that situation where you're not just relying on someone else to solve it for you, but actually solving that problem. I think that that makes for people that are able to weather a bunch of different situations and able to drive value through the unknown. There's always going to be twists and turns in the road and you want to make sure you get to the... | |||
| 26 Jul 2022 | Evolving Against Sea Change with CFO Lee Westerfield | 00:36:06 | |
The challenge of a CFO’s role is more than just being the pillar of confidence and stability in any organization: their hands are on the financial tiller. They must be the cornerstone that a CEO can draw confidence. Whether navigating downturn conditions, balancing your company’s runway with its growth, or keeping your team strong despite the competitive hurdles, they must always be on deck. These and more are matters in which Lee Westerfield - Chief Financial Officer, strategic financial advisor, and Columbia alumnus - is intimately experienced. With his depth of insight and his passion for knowledge, he keeps both eyes on the ever-shifting horizon of success in today’s economy. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Lee talks with Andrew about how things never really change, and why staying committed has kept him both competitive and successful. Show Links | |||
| 02 May 2024 | The Force Multipliers Fueling Fanatics' Success with CFO Glenn Schiffman | 00:26:48 | |
Fanatics has rapidly emerged as a juggernaut in the world of licensed sports merchandise, collectibles, and online betting. What started as an online retailer in the late 1990s has transformed into a multi-billion dollar operation serving as the official e-commerce partner for major professional sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, as well as top college programs. Under the leadership of CFO Glenn Schiffman and executive chairman Michael Rubin, Fanatics has vertically integrated its operations by acquiring brands like Topps' sports collectibles business, and many others across manufacturing and, most recently, online betting platforms. This aggressive growth strategy has propelled Fanatics' revenue from just $250 million in 2012 to over $7 billion (as of 2022). The company has secured groundbreaking long-term merchandising rights partnerships with sports leagues, while also expanding into new revenue streams like collectible NFTs and online sports betting via Fanatics Betting & Gaming. With over 100 million customers in its database, Fanatics is uniquely positioned to provide a comprehensive, fan-first experience across merchandise, collectibles, and gambling verticals. In this episode, Glenn Schiffman pulls back the curtain on Fanatics' meteoric rise, sharing his journey from investment banking to CFO. He also highlights the company's forward-thinking acquisition strategy, how they attract top talent, and his vision for the future as Fanatics dominate the intersection of sports and entertainment. Show Links | |||
| 28 Jun 2022 | The Dynamics of Scaling with David Magerman | 00:44:12 | |
In this special episode of The Modern CFO, Andrew Seski sits down with David Magerman, renowned computer scientist, investor, and current co-founder of Differential Ventures. During the mid-90s, David was at the precipice of quantitative investing—parlaying his revolutionary research at IBM into joining mathematician Jim Simons at Renaissance Technologies. Enjoy! | |||
| 20 Apr 2021 | Why you need to liberate your data, according to Martin Chee of Amaka | 00:44:18 | |
Public practice accountant Martin Chee knows: no one likes wasting time on tedious data entry of the same numbers over and over again. That’s the gap he uncovered in the financial accounting industry — and the gap that his company Amaka fills seamlessly. Their accounting integrations software lets businesses capture their financial data and use it across all their systems, so there’s no double work. Martin talks with Andrew Seski of the Modern CFO podcast about the importance of data accessibility today and the evolution of Amaka, especially during an unprecedented pandemic, plus how parenting is good prep for running a business.
Key Takeaways 5:04 — A really, really clunky process A great idea — like Amaka — always starts with a problem, in this case the overly manual, time-consuming, and error-prone process for exchanging financial information. “This process around organizing finance was really, really clunky and antiquated and just deeply inefficient, and effectively what it was, was the exchange of financial information. So, you want to borrow money for the business. You need to provide the business’s financials and a whole host of other documents and information...What a lot of banks were doing is, they'd consume that information in a really manual way. Like you would email them a PDF or worse still, you'd hand deliver documents to them and then they'd give it to someone else. And they'd be like keying in the numbers into this piece of software, which would then spit out a result. And it was just a really, really long, time-consuming process. And it was really error prone as well.” 10:42 — Same information, different systems Amaka was carefully developed to capture the myriad data points from a single transaction (date, time, price, cashier, etc.) so they can be used across all systems. “We definitely put a lot of work into architecting something that made it really easy to understand the same information, but in different systems. Take a sale, as an example, can you just talk about generic attributes of a transaction? You might have the date of the transaction occurred, the time when it occurred, the day that it occurred, the employee that was responsible for it, the value of the items, the discounts that were applied on it — you can quickly see how much data is there just in a, in a simple transaction like that.” 13:36 — Data liberation Martin and the Amaka team call what they do “data liberation” — they free data so it’s no longer tied to just one system. “One of the phrases that we kind of throw around at the office is data liberation. Like we liberate your data from whatever system you might have. Because as a business owner, you have this information there, but it's just not always easily accessible. We're really trying to solve that problem, so you can leverage the information that you have in a really, really easy way.” 18:35 — Stay positive and knuckle down A strong team and honest, hard work is what kept Amaka going during the pandemic, says Martin. “We really just had to stay positive and knuckle down...We're developing new products and we're enhancing things and it's like, whatever was happening in the broader economy, in the broader market, macrowise — well, if you didn't have a positive outlook and you didn't think that this was going to be something that eventually was going to go away, then I don't know what the alternative really looks like. And no one was going to stick their head in the sand and just, like, ignore it. But at the same time, we had a full schedule of work to get through. And we just kind of knuckled down and focused on that. Rather than, you know, looking at the things that were happening, which were outside of our control anyway. And we knew other businesses largely anyway were having that experience. So it just didn't pay to do anything else, except that.” 20:19 — Plan accordingly Andrew shares a comment from a different interviewee that struck him; it removed all emotion from the equation and focused on just getting the job done. “One of the more insightful comments I've heard that just took me aback, as somebody who hasn't been through at least one pandemic through their lifetime, was that if the world is only going to end, plan accordingly. If you're confident that this is the time, that the world ends, then plan accordingly. If you don't believe so, plan accordingly. It was such a detachment from the emotion that was running through.” 24:32 — An annoying distraction Fundraising rounds, while essential, can be a distraction from the important work of growing and directing a business “There's a lot of components to the business as well, particularly when you're gearing up for a fundraising round — that is a really big, annoying distraction for the business, particularly from the leadership perspective. When you get dragged out to do pitches or prepare materials, answer questions — that is a really time-consuming process that takes a lot of the focus away from the important things that are adding value to the business (other than giving it capital, which is also incredibly important obviously). That’s always a challenging thing to be contending with, at the same time that you're trying to help your business grow and direct it accordingly and really make sure that you're gearing it up for success.” 28:26 — So much change Everything changes so rapidly in the startup world, says Martin. Sometimes even what you did last week is already obsolete. “The reporting side of things is always like a challenge anyway. At the best of times, with a startup — it's changing and pivoting. If I put together a business model, like two years ago, the one that we have now is like poles apart. Aside from just underlying assumptions changing, products have changed out, pricing has changed, revenue models have changed. So there's just so much change that's constant. Where, you know, you're always trying to spin things out that are relevant, and then, you know, a week later they could be totally irrelevant. And you really need that speed to be able to access that information. That's incredibly challenging.” 30:52 — Going through startup life The ebb and flow of living through a pandemic, Andrew observes, is a lot like running a start-up; priorities must be constantly reassessed and reset as conditions and variables shift at an exhausting pace. “In the startup world, which we are both endeavoring to navigate, it's almost as if there's a constant reprioritization process that occurs, and that it can ebb and flow with great ideas, great new clients, international clients, and just a number of variables. And I think that is almost a great analogy for the year th... | |||
| 27 Apr 2023 | The Intersection of Digital Transformation and Customer Experiences with Zhi Li of Customer.io | 00:41:28 | |
As customer expectations continue to evolve, marketers must adapt by delivering more personalized, timely, and efficient communication. This is where the online marketing platform Customer.io truly shines. Customer.io enables tech-savvy marketers to engage with their customers in a more meaningful way through emails, SMS, push notifications, and more. For the fast-growing SaaS companies that Customer.io serves, this capability could translate into stronger customer relations, higher conversion rates, and increased scalability. In this episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski talks with Customer.io CFO Zhi Li about his nonlinear career path, the impact Customer.io can have within organizations, how marketers can use AI as a fractional assistant, and more. Show Links
Transcript [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, I'm joined by Zhi Li, CFO of Customer.io. Zhi, thank you so much for being here today. [00:00:21] Zhi Li: Thanks for having me. [00:00:23] Andrew Seski: So I'd love to talk about your career progression, the route to the CFO role, your first time as a CFO in earlier companies. But before we do so, I'd love to hear a little bit of background as to what you were interested even in undergrad and some of the first roles that you had, you know, right out of Penn. [00:00:41] Zhi Li: Yeah, yeah. So maybe just a little bit of myself and then we can probably launch into different topics that would go in there. But so I was born in China and then grew up in the Bay Area and then went to Penn. You and I just chatted about like Philly, which is the city that I really love. But after Penn, I actually started my career in Canada. So I was in finance at a wireless division of a large telco called Bell Canada. And then after that, I moved back to the US. So I worked in investment banking in New York in the tech group of Credit Suisse. So if you follow banking, you know, Credit Suisse might be called UBS or First Boston later on or something like that. So that's the some of the new dynamic there. But I learned a lot during that time in banking. Worked a lot as well but, you know, on many tech M&A and IP financing deals there and also get to interact with a ton of smart, hard-working, talented people. And then after that, I actually moved to Seattle cold turkey. And the backstory to that was my wife and I were both actually in grad school in LA. When I took the job to move to New York, I made a deal with her and say, Hey, you know, we need to transfer your grad school. She's got two more years. You know, whenever you are ready to leave, I'll hold up by end of the bargain. So no questions asked. When you're ready to leave New York, then I'll go. So the time came. This is probably like seven years ago. She says she wants to move to Seattle closer to her family. And then, I picked up and go. I did not know anybody in Seattle going in. But Seattle, I — now, like it's home for me. So I love it. It reminds me of maybe the Bay Area when I was, you know, many, many years ago, you know, back in high school when I kind of grew up in the Bay Area. So but yeah. So now, I'm in Seattle. I focus on helping fast-growing SaaS companies, helping them scale. So, you know, the one of the company was Skytap, which is a Seattle-based enterprise SaaS company. And we did a number of transactions, including a Series E Round led by Goldman Sachs. And then after that, I was with MedBridge. So it was a growth P/E-backed company, and we sold the company from one growth P/E to another growth P/E. And now, I'm at Customer.io. So very happy at the momentum and everything that we have here at the company. So just really, I think, very fortunate to be part of this growing story with Customer.io. Yeah, so that's generally the work background. [00:03:07] Outside of work, I also, you know, spend time doing the alumni interview for the Penn undergrad admission, which I always find super refreshing to see the fresh applicants every year. And I've always been amazed with the quality of the applicants. And then also, I'm on the board of an organization called LCYC — Legal Counsel for Youth and Children. So we're focused on advancing the rights of our youth and children so. [00:03:35] Andrew Seski: That's a pretty incredible resume. I want to — we're gonna pick it all apart, but let's start right at your last and current role right now, Customer.io. And I'm curious to know first, what attracted you to the firm, the leadership, maybe some of the cultural ways that the firm's been building out over the last decade, and also maybe the value add of working together. I know there are a million SaaS solutions out on the marketplace today. The venture world has been in flux over the last few years. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about the firm, how you're delivering value to clients, and what got you most excited. And you've been there for about two years now, so, you know, maybe bring us back two-ish years. [00:04:19] Zhi Li: Yeah, yeah. So just a little bit about Customer.io. So we're a leading multi-product, customer engagement platform. I think today, it's actually super exciting day 'cause we have our new launch of customer data pipeline that we launched today for early access. So, you know, throughout the last 10 years or so, our core product has been the Customer Engagement Platform, where we allow tech-savvy marketers to engage with their customers through emails, SMS, and push notifications, and also in-app messaging. And now, we also allow a new product called the Data Pipelines, so we can leverage first-party data to create more unified view for our customer records. So super exciting. [00:05:00] And I think what really attracted me — with my background, I've looked at a ton of software SaaS companies and looking at like their value and their potential. I was really attracted to number one, it's founder-led. So Colin, our CEO, has been there from day one. He's got this really long-term vision, and I really kind of feel aligned with that vision. And also, we are very horizontal in terms of like our approach to our customers. So we want to partner with early tech companies. So if you're like a VC-backed early company, we want to be partnered with you early on and grow with you, and then just try to be, you know, as you kind of advance and mature as a company, we will be part of that. And so throughout that journey, we were able to provide a lot of value for you to engage with your customer. The company's also fully remote, which I find super refreshing as well. When I joined, it was just right around the COVID time, so people are like definitely warming up to that remote idea. But the company... | |||
| 29 Jun 2021 | Creating a New Future in Venture Capital with Aman Verjee of Practical Venture Capital | 00:42:59 | |
Realized returns on investments for venture capital funds used to happen within three to seven years. Now, the biggest companies are extending funds to 15+ years—and investors are getting impatient. This could dampen venture capital as an asset class, but not if Aman Verjee can help it. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Aman discusses how Practical Venture Capital is creating a secondary market from VC funds, how faster liquidity will keep VC relevant, and how his experiences at PayPal, eBay, and 500 Startups resonate with modern CFOs. Show Links
Key Takeaways 02:59 - A new application to a new asset class Practical Venture Capital (PVC) focuses on venture capital secondary, buying LP and GP interests in early-stage venture funds, and direct secondary in breakout portfolio companies. “It's not a new idea, but it's a new application to a new asset class. I think in venture, there wasn't a need for secondary markets, even up to 2005, 2008, 2010. I was at PayPal early. I joined in 2001. That company went public in four years, from founding all the way to the IPO. Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay were all four- to five-year exits. So, there was not a terribly long time to get your money back. The biggest IPOs, now, in the venture community are: Airbnb, which took 15 years and counting to get their liquidity. Palantir was 17 years and counting. All the biggest companies now are taking much, much longer to get their money back. So, there's much more demand on the investor side for that kind of liquidity, around year 8, year 10, year 12, and year 15. That's a fairly new phenomenon, taking place over the last 10 years. That's what we’re capitalizing on.”20:49 - Three functions of the modern CFO According to Aman, the modern CFO has an accounting function, a treasury function, and a data analytics function.“There's the traditional [function], or the accounting function, which is really about understanding and applying accounting principles, backward-looking, making sure stuff gets done, operational, and that communications infrastructure is running well. That is one job. And it's a big one. That's the digital controller function. And that's always been part and parcel with the finance function and will never go away. There's increasingly another aspect around treasury and managing cash and making sure, especially in global businesses, that all the functions are adequately capitalized, and you've got the right liquid resources where you need them. That's a big problem in venture and venture-backed companies. They never have enough liquid cash. There's a lot of paper valuations. There's a lot of investors locked up for 5, 10, 15 years, so that's a big challenge. Then, I think the third part is just the business facing [functions]. How do you help a team make good decisions, and how do you use data and use analytics in order to inform those decisions?” 24:19 - Communicate data across the organization Most departments deal with data, but CFOs have to be able to communicate it to every department clearly and accurately. “You have to be able to communicate to all those [department] heads and the entire team about what matters. To be able to store data and make it a single source of truth. That's often a problem in big companies. Like it or not, finance is always going to be seen as an objective repository of the information that then gets to make it into boards. That's how you pay bonuses. If your data is wrong, that's a terrible consequence for the whole organization. If the head of marketing is using imperfect data or some of the analytics isn't perfect, even if it's off by 1%, they'll make mistakes, but it's probably not the end of the world. It doesn't endanger the business in most cases. Product engineers take shortcuts and make quick data-driven assumptions. Finance has got to be right. You have to be able to double click and understand some of the flaws and how data is being kept, how it's been used. You have to be facile with statistics and be able to communicate all these concepts across different teams. That's really the challenge of the CFO job.”29:43 - The need for a secondary market As COO of @500 Startups, Aman had a unique vantage point to observe the shifts taking place in the venture community, as well as the developing needs of LPs. “What we recognized a few years ago was that as these funds are getting longer and longer with no liquidity back to LPs, there’s this pent up demand from sellers who've been in a great fund for 8 years, 10 years, 12 years, but haven't gotten their money back. The fund is maybe up 6x, 7x, 9x on paper, but family offices may want to rebalance their portfolio. They have cash flow needs, they have liquidity problems and so they want to be able to sell. No one's doing it in that market right now. There's no market for venture secondary right now. We are literally buying great portfolios at a 30% discount to fair value and there's no bidder. We are the only bidder who says I'll take that portfolio of nine great companies and a lot of other companies you may have never heard of but we like, and I'll pay you 30% less than the fair value. The challenge in this space is they're all private companies, so you don't have a lot of information about the companies, but that's where Dave and I excel. We've been investing in private companies and figuring out how to diligence and source intel about them for years now.”33:53 - Venture capital as an asset class won’t reach its full potential without meeting investor needs. Private companies are extending their funds to longer and longer timeframes, but LPs want their money sooner. If this keeps happening, VC may stop being an in-demand asset class. “I'm just going to extend the fund. We're now in year 17. Please read the fine print in your LP agreement. I can extend the fund as long as I want to and, when I have money, I’ll give it to you. Those early LPs are looking for liquidity and may want to take some money off the table for good reasons. That just doesn't happen in VC today. If that continues, VC as an asset class will just be an afterthought. It won’t ever be as big as private equity, or as big as it should be because it's not solving the key problems. So, I'm hoping that PVC can help solve the problem and really help the whole asset class, too.”35:39 - Modern CFOs serve as the custodian of their CEOs long-term vision. The CEO-CFO relationship is most productive when both address their strengths and weaknesses in sharing the vision of the company and grounding that vision with current financials. “You have to take your cues off your CEO, because it is a team sport. In many of my cases, I've had CEOs who were very strong in product and marketing. They would kind of amp stuff up. They would tell a story where there's always a happy ending and there's a h... | |||
| 12 Apr 2022 | Navigating Life as a Startup CFO with Melinda Smith of ChaosSearch | 00:30:42 | |
The route to transitioning from “Big 4” accounting to early startups is not always a natural transition, but for that exact reason–and more–Melinda Smith is one of the most unique CFOs we’ve had on the podcast. She demonstrates how to best leverage practical, financial, and technical skills into emerging firms like she has done in the past at now-massive companies like Venmo. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Melinda shares her insights on driving culture, building a strong finance team, and what it means to be a custodian while raising venture dollars. Show Links
Key Takeaways 5:21 – Your team is your foundation
16:16 – Becoming a custodian of your funding Your role as CFO is to be a custodian over the company’s funding. You need to determine how much to bring in, and what to do with the funding once you’ve secured it. “One of the interesting things I see in the environment we're in today is companies that are raising these gigantic rounds of funding. I do think that there is a role of a CFO to help the team determine how much is the right funding to bring on and balancing that with the dilution that you're taking on in the business. And how confident you are in what you see as the data points towards your growth rate, that supports that valuation at the end of the day. I think there's a propensity, potentially, to take this big amount of money and then have trouble being responsible, I guess, about where to invest that money. That ties back to my view of this custodian of the funding and how do you invest every dollar to drive at least a dollar of value, so that effectively you're turning that dilution that you took from selling equity in your business down to zero.”
The best way for a woman in technology to succeed is with the right support resources. As society shifts to a less traditional work culture, that support is easier to come by. “I think that some of the quality of women in the workplace is fundamentally dependent on this concept of having the right resources to support them in that journey. Whether it means flexibility for a two-job family to split up everything that needs to be done in a day; whether it means splitting up childcare drop-offs in the morning or in the evening, or heading to the soccer field for a four o'clock varsity soccer game, then getting back to finishing up your email when you get home after dinner; spending time together as a family; cooking on Sunday afternoons so that you have food to reheat during the week for dinner. I think employers fundamentally need to realize that those old days of a single breadwinner dedicating nine to five in-person in an office are long gone. I think the interesting part about today's world is that COVID has accelerated this flexibility for families and for that two-career household where it’s a lot easier now when you're working from home, at least for people who have the opportunity to work from home, to really split up that flexibility. And I'm hopeful that that's going to drive more opportunity for women and that support structure that they need to accelerate their careers.”20:47 – Scaling for both company and investor value 21:44 – Building a diverse team in 2022 | |||
| 14 Mar 2024 | Resourceful Leadership From Seed to Scale with NerdWallet CFO Lauren StClair | 00:31:53 | |
In this episode of The Modern CFO, Lauren StClair, CFO of NerdWallet, shares her unique career journey spanning across startups and large corporations like PayPal, eBay, and StubHub. She delves into the valuable lessons she's learned along the way, offering key takeaways for professionals in the finance and technology industries. Lauren's journey began at a small early-stage startup, where she quickly learned the value of resourcefulness and urgency in business. This experience taught her to wear multiple hats and connect the dots across various aspects of the company, providing a solid foundation for her future roles. However, she also realized the importance of understanding how to operate at scale and the need for best practices, leading her to pursue opportunities at larger organizations. During her tenure at eBay, Lauren had the opportunity to work in different functions, both within and outside of finance. She participated in a leadership development program, allowing her to complete multiple rotations across various departments. This experience not only expanded her functional skills but also taught her the importance of embracing change and humility. As Lauren reflects on her career path, she shares valuable insights for professionals navigating the dynamic landscape of finance and technology:
Lauren StClair's journey in the world of finance and technology offers a wealth of knowledge for individuals looking to build a successful career in these industries. Tune in to The Modern CFO podcast to hear the full conversation and gain inspiration from Lauren's remarkable story.
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| 04 Oct 2023 | Beyond the Badge: Lessons from the Automotive Industry with Verge Motorcycles CFO Mark Wilson | 00:51:18 | |
In this episode, Mark Wilson, former CFO of iconic automotive brands McLaren and Aston Martin, reveals the keys to enduring success in an ever-changing industry. Now CFO at Verge, an electric motorbike company, he shares with us his strategy to marry cutting-edge performance innovations with an authentic human experience. We discuss the fundamental values of financial management, especially in fast-paced environments. Mark emphasizes the importance of discipline, rigor, and transparency in all financial decisions. We also talk about the power of partnerships built on mutual goals, where the sum or parts is far more valuable, while also highlighting strategies he’s used for avoiding one-sided deals. Listen in as we revel in Mark’s experiences at Aston Martin, where he successfully propelled the storied brand into the modern era—navigating great deals while also supporting legacy relationships, like that of the storied James Bond franchise
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| 10 Jan 2023 | Making Business Banking Frictionless with Jeremy Klaperman of Rho | 00:40:22 | |
Many small and medium-sized businesses in the country rely on a disparate range of financial services to help manage their accounts, expenses, and payments. Unfortunately, this system lends itself to time-consuming processes and inefficiencies that get in the way of growth. That’s why Rho is integrating all the financial services businesses need into one easy platform. With Rho, finance teams can view everything in one spot, scrap inefficient processes, and focus on driving value and growth. In today’s episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski talks with Rho CFO Jeremy Klaperman about how to 1) organize information systems, 2) build out an integrated data infrastructure from day one, and 3) embrace cultures of integrity from the CFO position. With decades of experience at elite financial organizations such as Goldman Sachs, D.E. Shaw, and Citadel, Jeremy expertly navigates his role as Chief Financial Officer. Show Links
Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, I'm thrilled to be joined by Jeremy Klaperman, CFO of Rho. Jeremy, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm excited to talk. [00:00:23] Jeremy Klaperman: Thanks so much for having me. Really excited to be here. [00:00:26] Andrew Seski: So, Jeremy, you've spent most of your career across some of the most storied investment firms, from Goldman to D. E. Shaw to Citadel. But this is your first foray into the CFO role. I'd love to hear a little bit about what it's been like over the last six months crossing this chasm. [00:00:45] Jeremy Klaperman: It's been great. It's something that I've been looking forward to doing and planning for a while. And I think of my 20 years in investment banking and investment management as training for this because I either advised or invested in companies from all regions, from all industries, many different market cycles, whether it's the original tech bubble burst of the early 2000s to the global financial crisis to COVID. And I've had so many reps speaking with CFOs and CEOs. I've built up a great playbook of what I think best practices are and also pitfalls to avoid from everything from high level strategy to accounting to operations. And what I try to do with that is bring that to bear in my current role. And so, I view the last 20 years as kind of giving me the best practices and building up to what I'm doing now. [00:01:40] Andrew Seski: So, can you tell us what Rho is and what the future of frictionless finance means to you? [00:01:47] Jeremy Klaperman: Absolutely. So, Rho provides a wide range of financial services as well as spend management software to small and medium businesses. And a lot of our clients, almost all the small and medium businesses in the country have a disparate range of providers currently that give them all these things. They might have a bank, a credit card company, an investment firm that helps them manage their treasury and their cash. They might even have a FX transfer provider if they do a lot of international business. So, they could have two, three, or four providers of financial services. Increasingly, companies are using software on the spend management side for things like tracking expenses or automating bill pay and accounts payable. So, they could have one, two, three providers on the software side. They have all these disparate systems that don't work well, don't talk to each other, and it creates a lot of manual processes, errors, inefficiency. And the finance teams end up spending a huge amount of time just trying to do basic tasks rather than controlling their finances well, gaining strategic insights, running the business. So, what we do is we take out the entire stack on the financial side and the software side with one integrated all-in-one solution that's very easy to use and the entire finance team can centrally control and command the finances. [00:03:10] Andrew Seski: So, was this something that was important to you prior to joining? Were these inefficiencies something that you were able to identify, you know, on the other side of the table as an investor as well? [00:03:20] Jeremy Klaperman: Well, you can often identify the output or the symptoms of these, which is you're speaking to a CFO or CEO, you ask them what a key question is on the business, and they don't clearly have at their fingertips what you would think would be an important insight or just an important piece of knowledge. And that often comes from the data and the systems in the company not being well configured. So, having your key financial services and software services all-in-one integrated solution is one step, but not the only step you need to provide your management with the right information to run the business well. [00:03:57] Andrew Seski: So, I wanna talk a little bit about, you know, using some of these tools yourself as a CFO for the first time now and sort of what that foray looks like. I am so lucky to have a really, really unique subset and cohort of guests on the show. Some come from banking. Some come from, you know, Big Four and audit. Some, you know, were in the Navy or the military. And it's really interesting to see, you know, kind of a career progression that lands somebody in this financial leadership role. And would love to discuss, you know, you said your entire career was basically training for this opportunity. Did you always see it that way? Or is this new role something that you took a long time to consider, kinda a different risk profile and really different environment? Or has it been kind of a natural progression of your career? [00:04:46] Jeremy Klaperman: Over the last decade, I've become more and more interested in it. At least for me, when I graduated from school, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to be. I knew the kind of skills I wanted to learn and what I enjoyed doing, so I went down this path. And I think it's, after working with companies for so long, what I wanna do was not be an outsider or an advisor or an investor for a portfolio, but really get in on the inside; have a portfolio of one company where I'm on the team that's driving the growth, creating the value. So, it was really a natural evolution over the last 10 years where I determined that this is what I want to do. [00:05:20] Andrew Seski: I'm curious to know if you have kind of a definition of what you'd consider a modern CFO. I think everyone is really interested in general in some of the firms that you've worked at. I mean, they're, you know, the household names of Citadel or Goldman. It must be really interesting to have some of those unique experiences and learning from some o... | |||
| 02 Aug 2023 | How Turo Assembles Trust, Value, and Platform Power in the Car-Sharing Industry with Chuck Fisher | 00:53:25 | |
Have you ever wondered what the future of car-sharing looks like? Turo CFO Chuck Fisher unpacks this with host Andrew Seski on this episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. Chuck also shares his perspective on the role of trust in car-sharing technology, the economic value created on Turo's platform, and how Turo is bridging the gap in transport insecurity. Listen in as Chuck shares his most memorable pit stops and detours along Turo's journey, including the company's rapid growth in 2021. From the role and impact of his mentors, to scaffolding platforms, hear Chuck’s route to the CFO seat and how Turo is using data-driven decision-making to create a more sustainable and equitable transportation system. Show Links | |||
| 17 Aug 2022 | The Business of Sports with Rachel Pearcy of the WNBA Dallas Wings | 00:29:07 | |
There’s more to your average sports game than meets the eye. It takes a dedicated team working off the court to prepare for each game and ensure fans show up and players are paid their due. These and more are matters in which Rachel Pearcy, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of the WNBA's Dallas Wings, is an expert. Drawing from her college athletics experience and history working in the power sports industry, Rachel works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure strategic growth for Dallas Wings season after season. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Rachel talks with host Andrew Seski about what it’s really like managing a professional sports team as well as how she keeps herself and the organization grounded in pursuit of success. Show Links
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| 21 Sep 2022 | The Product Manager CFO with Marcum LLP’s Jack Boyles | 00:36:06 | |
Financial management can make or break a business. Any business undertaking attempted without taking cost drivers, growth prospects, and value realization goals, among other critical factors, into account is leaving a big, wide door open to problems. Jack Boyles, Managing Director at Marcum LLP, understands this perfectly well. With his extensive experience in financial planning and modeling, valuations, and funding strategies, Jack keeps a trained eye on both the micro and macro factors that influence today’s rapidly evolving financial services sector. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Jack talks with host Andrew Seski about critical factors to consider for growing companies, how he deals with the unexpected, and the valuable lessons he learned over his 25-year-long career as founder, investor, and CFO of several companies. Show Links
Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Modern CFO podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, we're joined by Jack Boyles. Jack, thank you so much for being here. [00:00:19] Jack Boyles: Thank you. I'm looking forward to our conversation. I reviewed a number of your other podcasts. They're all great and I learned something in each one. [00:00:25] Andrew Seski: So today, Jack serves as CFO at Marcum. Jack's based in Boston and has been a CFO across a number of industries and is insatiable when it comes to learning new things, trying new industries. [00:00:38] But one of the things that we've been talking about, maybe ad nauseam, but between us is the idea that maybe there is a certain time and place where CFOs can have their biggest impact at, you know, either a type of financing, an industry, and maybe CFOs shouldn't necessarily grow across all stages and all different types of industries. Maybe they should be specialized and maybe there is a time and place for that CFO who can drive the most value. [00:01:05] So this is a topic I really want to dive into and really dig our teeth into because Jack has such a unique vantage point, serving his entire career really honing in on this idea. So Jack, I got to turn it over to you to tease out some of the value and insights here on sort of that topic and whatever else we can foray into across all of the experiences you had as a CFO. [00:01:26] Jack Boyles: Thanks for the great introduction. Yeah, I'm not CFO of Marcum — number one. Marcum has a group of consulting CFOs and so I now work with roughly a half-dozen small and medium-sized companies as a fractional CFO. Prior to that, I've been CFO of a number of companies in which I was founder, investor, angel, and always had a CFO title in a wide variety of verticals — distribution and logistics, software manufacturing, IT services, natural resources. [00:01:57] And right now my portfolio includes a SaaS company — a company working on carbon credits with blockchain — and another marketplace for health services. So, you know, it's a pretty broad spectrum and I've enjoyed it because there has been a number of learning opportunities. [00:02:14] But returning to your theme, I found I'm really good at the five million to 50 million-dollar service orientation companies. And I've realized that that's where I can add the most value. I'm not somebody who can take a company public, although I've sold a number of companies to Fortune 500 companies. But it's really recognizing there are different skill sets for those by both vertical and by size of company, if you will, the capital intensity and sort of the economic structure underlying the business. [00:02:45] So I can break down those and, you know, they're all interesting problems, but it's really a different skill set for each one of them. And you need to manage differently as that, you know, financially-oriented team member. [00:02:58] Andrew Seski: In terms of where some of this interest comes from from my end is the fundraising environment over the last few years dramatically changing in the last few months. So what may have been, you know, a company doing five to 10 million then that could have been valued, and maybe in the software land, maybe even at a hundred X multiples at one point, just an absolute crazy valuation and fundraising environment to, you know, a very, very immediate, almost shift in going from, you know, pure growth orientation to conservative cost cutting, you know, headcount reduction. And I think the question there stems not only just from where the CFO can be the most valuable in their niche and their competency, but also how to weather the volatility of different market cycles. [00:03:42] And there are a lot of variables to play with here so I really like your answer that the CFO can be really valuable by identifying their impact in a niche due to all of the other market environments and volatility in the markets that could, you know, shift strategy and financial strategies that a company may pursue. [00:03:58] Jack Boyles: Well, you're shining a spotlight on, you know, certainly what is the most critical thing for growing companies, which is, do they have access to capital? And is it the right capital on the right terms and in the right timing? You know, obviously, you progress from family and friends to seed rounds, to Series A and up. [00:04:17] But it's really more important, or the starting point for that analysis is really, what's driving the need for cash? Is it building your organization? Is it financing working capital? Is it plant and equipment expansion? Is it building relationships that you need to invest in? So really understanding from a, what I would call a fairly granular level, what are the cost and capital drivers in your business and really internalizing that, that economic, that, you know, the calculus of the business, because that's gonna tell you what kind of capital you need and where to go knocking on the door. It's seldom the case that you're gonna be the first guy knocking on that door, but making sure that they understand your economic model is critical. [00:04:59] And so to narrow your field down on who you're focusing on and what you're offering and making sure, I mean, whether you look at PitchBook or anything else, it's fairly easy to qualify those people and what their investment criteria are. Most firms are very upfront about what they invest in and there's nothing wrong with reaching. But there's also economy and wisdom and finding people who've done your deal before with like competitors because they understand it. They get it. Whether you consider that investor a bank or a venture capital or a family office, find people who have done it before. They're gonna bring more knowledge to the deal — in the one they do because they are always seeking to be better. Their due diligence will be a lot more efficient and helpful... | |||
| 06 Nov 2023 | A Macro Moment for the Modern CFO with Financial Stability Professor Steven Kelly | 00:49:26 | |
In today's fast-paced marketplace, distinguishing what is important and impactful is a challenging task, and when a crisis unfolds rapidly, the stakes reach unprecedented heights. Steven Kelly, Associate Director of Research at the Yale Program on Financial Stability, joins us to discuss how navigating the choppy financial waters requires CFOs to possess a keen sense of judgment, as well as a sharp appetite for risk. Our conversation delves deep into financial stability, its critical tools for navigating fast-moving crises, its relationship with technology, and recent dynamics among banks, governments, and international markets. Listen in as we uncover valuable insights on how CFOs can better understand, mitigate, and effectively manage risk, offering a lifeline for those seeking to fortify their financial strategies and bridge the gaps in tomorrow's balance sheets. Show Links
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| 17 May 2023 | Beyond the Ballpark: Winning Strategies for CFOs with John Nickolas of The Philadelphia Phillies | 00:36:02 | |
It is a real privilege to invite you to listen to this exclusive podcast episode featuring John Nickolas, the esteemed CFO of the Philadelphia Phillies since 2007. With a rich background that includes notable contributions to Philadelphia's business landscape through esteemed firms like KPMG, Safeguard Scientifics, and Internet Capital Group, John's leadership has been instrumental in shaping the success of the city's iconic ventures. In this episode of The Modern CFO, host Andrew Seski engages in a compelling conversation with John, delving into the intricacies of managing a publicly visible yet privately-owned enterprise such as a professional sports franchise. Drawing from his extensive experience, John shares veteran insights that hold relevance for CFOs and aspiring leaders alike. Don't miss this opportunity to gain valuable perspectives from a seasoned industry expert. Show Links | |||
| 27 Oct 2022 | Modernizing The Capital Raising Process With DealMaker’s Mat Goldstein | 00:39:43 | |
Raising capital can be a tedious process, even after investors have agreed to commit capital. This realization was the catalyst for experienced Bay Street lawyers Mat Goldstein and Rebecca Kacaba launching DealMaker—a digital transaction management platform that provides a seamless, headache-free investor experience. Since the platform’s inception in 2018, companies of all sizes have used DealMaker to launch and market their offerings to investors across the globe. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Mat talks with host Andrew Seski about the future of digital capital formation and what sets DealMaker apart from other cloud-based platforms offering capital raising solutions. Show Links
Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello everyone and welcome back to The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, we're joined by Mat Goldstein, co-founder of DealMaker. Mat, thanks so much for being here. [00:00:20] Mat Goldstein: I'm delighted to be here. Thanks, Andrew. [00:00:22] Andrew Seski: So before we kick off, let's talk about DealMaker and what it is. What does it mean to turn a simple capital raise into e-commerce? [00:00:30] Mat Goldstein: Yeah. DealMaker, first and foremost, is a technology company. Our platform is used by issuers. You know, think, when I say "issuers," think "founders." You know, companies who are raising capital, who are looking to solve an age problem of how to engage with prospective investors and turn them into a source of capital. Using our software, an entrepreneur can start an online store and run a full e-commerce campaign, identify leads, create a relationship with a community, engage with that community to turn it into a source of capital, and rely on the analytics, payment processing, and full set of functionalities you'd expect in a Shopify store. You can leverage that for a capital raise campaign. So that's what we mean by turning raising capital into e-commerce. It means using the internet as your medium of sale and using the tools of e-commerce to identify an audience, engage with it, and turn that into a source of capital. [00:01:38] Andrew Seski: So let's talk about how you identified the need for DealMaker and what actually catalyzed the entrepreneurial spirit in yourself to go start something new. You were a lawyer in your previous life. So now, are there no efficiencies when it comes to the legal frameworks of startups? Because I'm sure between all of the different types of offerings, whether you're doing Reg CF, Reg A, Reg A+, and having all of these actually change a bit probably over the last 10 to 20 years between the US and Canada, did you notice any major inefficiencies that catalyzed your, you know, desire to go try to solve some with technology? [00:02:16] Mat Goldstein: Well, Andrew, that's what we lawyers would call a leading question. You're right. So look, you know, Rebecca and I started this company back in, you know, back when we were still practicing law early kind of 2017. We did our beta in 2017. We started planning the company earlier in 2016. We were both partners at an international law firm. And in our daily practice, we dealt with technology companies and we came to understand that kind of lean startup mentality of how to solve a problem using technology by build-measure-learn. And we, you know, one day, we sat down with a whiteboard and we mapped out what the steps were in a capital markets transaction. [00:02:58] And when I say "capital markets transaction," I really just mean a company selling shares, right? And it's crazy. I mean, you have to identify, there are eligibility requirements when you're selling chairs in the exempt markets. I can get into all that. It's like, you know, you've got public companies who are listed on stock exchanges. They have a whole infrastructure to raise capital, and it's automated, and it's built on, you know, brokerage houses where you go into your Robinhood account and you press "buy" or "sell." And, you know, technology takes over. The private markets have nothing like that. Just nothing. If you and your co-founders were raising capital, which, you know, you've done so you can talk about, then you're in the exempt markets. You're not a public company. You don't have access to that infrastructure. So you need a lawyer to draft a subscription agreement. The investors have to be eligible to buy exempt market securities, which means they need to be accredited in some way or the offering needs to be qualified in a different way. They'll need to fill in the certificate, they'll need to send in the money, the money they send in has to match the order on the form. And there's a whole nine depth, you know, kabuki dance to get to a closing, which just costs everybody time, money, and headaches. [00:04:15] And so, we looked at that and said, "Well, isn't raising capital really just sales?" Right? And that's something you and I have chatted about before. Isn't it just sales? How is it different? You're identifying somebody who, you know, likes what you have. You've got an ideal profile in mind and you wanna eliminate any friction in between them liking what you have and, you know, you making the transaction. And so, there's a playbook for this. It's called the internet. And if you think back to the early days of e-commerce, you had shoe stores who would go to like Accenture and custom-build a website to sell shoes online. And along came Shopify and said, "You don't have to do that anymore. We built a platform. You can license an online store and it has everything you need to run a campaign on the internet and you have to find the buyers." That's the Shopify model. And that's our model as well. [00:05:20] And at the end of the day, there's just some stuff you can't outsource or automate. If you are a founder, it's you that people are investing in. You have to be front and center of your store. But we built a technology platform that puts the issuer front and center, puts the founder front and center, and going out to raise capital then becomes an exercise in, you know, e-commerce, right? Identifying the prospects, engaging with them in a way that, you know, speaks with them, that they connect with, using analytics to see who's likely to close, right? All of the tools of the modern kind of sales funnel management — the CRM, the prospecting, the elimination of friction in getting an order form signed, elimination of friction in taking payments online using credit card — we built all of that. [00:06:10] And over time, it became, you know, something that, I think it's true whenever you introduce innovation into a market, there's a dynamic, right? The market response, the innovation, and it unlocked people's minds. So in the very early days, right, there were, you know, people who were raising capital from friends and family and from kind of pre-IPO rounds and following the same steps that traditional capital raising would follow. But over time, as people came to really und... | |||
| 26 Feb 2021 | Hypertherm’s Rob Masson on navigating crisis with teamwork | 00:34:24 | |
Rob Masson is the CFO at Hypertherm, a 50-year-old company that is a leader in industrial cutting systems. He’s also a former Naval aviator who learned critical leadership skills firsthand. Rob joined us on the Modern CFO Podcast to share his unique perspective on management and the ways in which empowered, confident employees helped Hypertherm weather the COVID-19 crisis.
Key Takeaways Weathering COVID-19 The pandemic took an early toll on Hypertherm, but the company stayed true to its employee-centric values. “We suffered, you know, over a 30% loss in sales almost overnight in April, and that caused a whole chain of events...We're an employee-owned company. We all share in the success of the company. And so we're all committed to each other. We have a no-layoff philosophy. So a lot of the normal things you do in public company settings and others, we don't do. And we have a very strong passion for that. So we will cut costs. We're very aggressive with that. But in terms of commitment to people, we don't do that. We come together as a team and solve the problem.”Overcoming obstacles as a team Teamwork enabled Hypertherm to bounce back from COVID-19 amid global challenges. “It was quite a dramatic response from us internally to reset for the new norm. And then there were a lot of things on the capital structure side that we thought about with the treasury group and working with our banks, just to make sure we were secure from a cash flow and keeping that going...we serve some essential end markets. So we worked very diligently to keep our supply chain open, to make sure we had raw materials, stock, etc., since we source from all over the world. So it was really a team effort.”Crisis builds new muscles Once you go through a crisis situation, you are better equipped to face the future. “This year, actually, we really surprised the organization because our business came back quite strong and we really stepped forward and shared a lot of that profit back with our associates...When you go through crisis, you live through it, you gain new muscles. So I feel very confident. Hopefully we never have to face it again as a company, but we're now prepared more than we were prior. And I think we'd do even better the next time, just because of the response and teamwork of the company.”Navel experience in action Rob’s Naval background played a critical role in his ability to keep cool under pressure. “There's just a different experience you get as a Naval aviator than you get in other walks of life, and that's trained into you to compartmentalize and solve the problem. ‘There's no end until it's over’ kind of thing. And excellence is that way too. You demand a lot of yourself. And anytime I flew, we briefed as a team. We flew in the mission then we came back and we assessed what we did and how we could get better the next time...so it was a very critical look and that was all part of teamwork as well. And then the last thing is tenacity, which is what I started with. When you're in a crisis situation, you're not done until you've tried everything. And you don't let yourself think of anything but solving the problem and keeping with it. And I think that's the type of unique training I had as a Naval aviator that helps me in all sorts of situations.”The value of parallel expertise Structural versus Operational CFOs Rob sees himself as a leader first, and an operating CFO second. “I was an economics major in college. So the art and the science of economics always appealed to me. And I think it's more of that side of operational finance, and what does finance tell you about the operations of the business. So I'm much more of an operating CFO if you will. And those are really, if you look at CFOs, you either have a structural technical side or you have the operating side. And I definitely fall into the operating mode with my military experience...I think of myself as a leader first, it's my first passion. And I really enjoy the art and science of finance. So I choose to apply my leadership skills through the function of finance in that lens. But I always do come at things first with the grounding of leadership.”Commitment to the “triple bottom line” At Hypertherm, the company’s unwavering focus is on customers, associates, and the community. “We're really on the next S curve of growth at Hypertherm. And that's what's really exciting. We really see the opportunities in our end markets to add value with the types of investments we're making...We have a motto here. A part of our strategy of shaping possibility for our customers, our associates, and our community. And that's what we call the ‘triple bottom line.’ But what that really entails for me inside my function is okay, Hypertherm has been incredibly successful to where we are here. And all businesses go through transformations to get to the next level. We have to continue to evolve and advance. And so I'm focusing my team on re-looking at what we've done and where we've come from so that we can leverage the future.”Flipping the triangle Rob’s goal is for 80% of company time to be spend on insight & action, and 20% on transactional duties. “In most organizations, people spend their time on the transactional side of things on that lower end of the triangle. And that takes up the 80/20 rule applies here. That basically takes up 80% of people's time. And the insight and action, where they're really making meaty decisions and driving the value of the company, is sort of at the point at the top. The 20% or less of their time. And so the transformation we're going through is I call it flipping the triangle. We want to flip that ratio on its head...I want 80% of the time spent on insight and action. How do we drive the business forward? How do we meet our customers? How do we benefit our associates? And how do we hit the community with positive impact?”Breaking down barriers Rob believes that by empowering individual employees, the entire company benefits. “My job as CFO now is to make sure I'm getting input from everybody at the right time, at the right spot to empower them to make th... | |||
| 17 May 2022 | Web3: Exploring the Blockchain-Backed Frontier with Alchemy’s Head of Finance, Gabe Avins | 00:25:34 | |
Built on the back of blockchain technology, token-based economics is creating a new kind of environment. This internet evolution–Web3–is being spearheaded by new technologies, NFTs and cryptocurrencies for example, and the people that design these new applications.
Key Takeaways 2:56 – Determine long-term value Understanding risk and reward is an intangible skill. You have to be able to make decisions based on what provides long-term value to the company. “Coming out of undergrad, Bain was a great place to develop some of the most core, underlying business frameworks and ways to think about business growth. I went from there to a private equity fund called TSG Consumer Partners, [which was a] really valuable learning experience where I think one of the skills that I picked up there was the ability to understand value. What drives value for companies, why companies are valued the way they are. That lens is how I approach many decisions on a to-the-minute and daily basis where I'm always trying to think big picture. Is what I'm doing today impactful to the business’s long-term value? And if it's not, and that’s somewhere where I find that I'm spending a lot of time working on something, it’s probably a good candidate to be on the chopping block and to spend less time there.”6:18 –The best teams are flexible You have to be flexible when you’re working in a small team because there are a lot of gaps. Everyone has to be willing to roll up their sleeves to get the job done. “As I was interviewing with Alchemy, it was kind of funny, reflecting on it recently that I would show up to an interview and someone would say, ‘Hey, what we really need help with is X.’ And I'd show up to the next interview and someone would say, ‘Oh, what we really need help with is Y.’ And then Z, and then A and B and C. Startup life, when you're that few people, it really requires a mindset of, ‘I'm going to roll up my sleeves and do whatever I can to help the team.’ Because teams that are that small can be fragile. If there's infighting, if not everyone's carrying their weight, that can slow the team down a lot. Two people not being on the same page, when that's almost 10 percent of the company not being on the same page, that has some real efficiency loss there.”7:07 – Learn to work collaboratively As a finance leader, you have to learn how to appreciate different job functions in order to help people do their jobs better. “When I was at Homebound, I spent my second year as general manager of a new line of business that we were launching. I think that mindset of building something from scratch, or at least getting something off the ground and having to work collaboratively with pretty much every other function within the company, is really instrumental. To me, seeing from the financial operator's seat how decisions and policies can be set can really enhance or take away from others’ abilities to do their job. And so I think that appreciation of what lots of different job functions look like has been really helpful to me as I've tried to help folks at Alchemy use their time best and move as fast as possible.”
When companies have different departments, that doesn’t mean they are siloed. The strongest leaders bridge the gap and have them working in unison. “I think for a lot of companies, there are teams that are creating products to solve timely issues–that's largely going to be your engineers and your product managers. There are teams that are selling the product and educating the world on the product–sales, marketing, customer success, customer support...And then there are teams that are supporting those functions, allowing the company to maximize its potential.That's where I view my role: How do we make Alchemy the best place in the world to work overall? And, how do we set up all functions–whether you're making the product, selling the product, or supporting those who are–as successful as possible?"
If you’re part of a growing organization, you have to don the hat of a recruiter and always look for talent you can add to your team. “With any growing organization, basically in any function, you've got to be a recruiter. You’ve got to be hiring. If you're not able to build your team, then as the company scales it's going to become unwieldy and then impossible, in many ways, to support them as effectively as possible.”11:47 – Resource allocation as a startup means constantly reprioritizing A CFO needs to be able to support different departments by helping them budget appropriately. “I think through a scaling organization, one of the most critical things for a CFO to do, besides the very basics of making sure that an operating model exists, is that the company can budget appropriately. The challenge we're having at Alchemy right now, more so than, ‘how do we rein in spending’ is ‘how do we pour gas…pour fuel on the fire?’ We have some functions who don't know exactly how much they should be spending. And when we as a finance team could give guidance that, ‘Hey, these activities are being really successful for us; really high ROI. We should be investing deeper here.’ That both gives them some positivity and inspiration to go build and also greater clarity that what they're doing is valuable and that they're really doing a good job in doing their part to help us succeed.”
17:05 – The future of Web3 development Fueled by the increase in the number of developers moving to Web3, the future of the Web3 environment looks promising. “One of our North Star metrics here is the number of developers that are developing on Alc... | |||
| 15 Jun 2021 | Curt Sigfstead on how Clearco is helping to revolutionize how founders raise capital | 00:32:28 | |
The heyday of Main Street is over. The spotlight now shines on Digital Street. Curt Sigfstead has been long drawn to the power of entrepreneurs and the opportunity they present to transform the world. After leading the prominent West Coast technology investing division at JP Morgan, Curt joined Clearco. Clearco is at the forefront of digital growth, where they are busy building out the capital infrastructure for the internet in the realm of embedded finance. Working with digital founders, software platforms, and financial institutions, Clearco is helping to revolutionize how founders raise capital. Show Links
Key Takeaways 1:44 - Providing capital based on data Digitally-founded businesses often don’t have the traditional assets required to raise capital. By providing capital based on more diverse factors, Clearco is serving a new, data-driven market. “It means that we can, in a very innovative way, provide capital, provide advice, provide benchmarking, provide a means by which entrepreneurs can improve their business with capital by using data. That's an important core of our business; our ability to leverage third-party data sources to create a modern finance platform that can serve these digital founders. As you were getting to Andrew, [Clearco is] serving what is a global transition from Main Street to Digital Street. And as more and more businesses are founded, at least initially, online--as businesses become less and less geographically constrained--they don't have the aspects that typical financing institutions like banks or credit unions are looking for. They don't have collateral. They don't have inventory. They don't have the assets. But they do have a lot of data. And their data is very revealing with respect to how the business is performing, what the opportunity is for that business. So, what we found is this vast, global underserved market.”3:32 - Helping entrepreneurs retain ownership As a rule of thumb, entrepreneurs don’t want to give up equity. Clearco gets that, helping businesses get off the ground by focusing on repeatable processes. “So we're part of a spectrum. We're not in the business of competing with venture capital or with seed investors or with friends and family. We're in the business of being a complementary pool of capital for entrepreneurs to leverage as they grow their businesses. And in any business, there are aspects that are repeatable. So, you have an understanding of how the business is actually going to perform based on data, historical data, and how you might project that--like your return on ad spend, or how much inventory you need relative to your sales growth. There are other aspects of your business that are not repeatable. It's innovation that you may have underway. It's actually kicking off a very early-stage business."
Clearco understands what entrepreneurs need--helping them control their destiny through repeatable aspects of the business. “Where Clearco comes in is in those aspects of the business that are repeatable. Our perspective--and what we found product market fit with--is the fact that entrepreneurs don't want to give up equity in their company, and therefore ownership, for aspects of their business that are effectively repeatable. It's, ‘okay, I know if I put a dollar here, I will get $3 in revenue. Why should I give up equity for that?’...As businesses grow, ownership is important for entrepreneurs. It's part of the economic puzzle. And so if we can help them control their destiny, if we can help them access lower-cost capital effectively, and maintain ownership, then we think we’re doing our job.”7:06 - The three benchmarks of success Curt says that success comes down to three things: a bulletproof process, strong performance, and a solid market backdrop. “For me, there are really three aspects to a successful process and this is obviously something I learned over many years helping companies to access the market. Which is: 1) you have to have a bulletproof process. You've got to start with a large funnel. You've got to work that funnel and you're eventually going to have a number of investors who come out the bottom of who are committed to funding the company at terms that are acceptable to the board and to the founders of the company. 2) You've got to have performance. Investors really want to understand, at least at the Series C level, how $1 of investment turns into $5-10 of return. It has to be a very repeatable process, i.e., in the Series C you're not introducing new operational risks, you're introducing scaling risk. There's product market fit. Your business works. It's got a huge TAM and really, it's about scaling the company...3) You've got to have a solid market backdrop. None of this happens in isolation. Investors are influenced every day by what happens in the capital markets and what's going on with their investments, as well as how other businesses in their portfolios are growing.”9:39 - A conservative-aggressive approach It might sound like an oxymoron, but Curt says that the best forecast is optimistic while also building out realistic benchmarks based on market share. “My job was to ensure that our forecast was bulletproof. It was highly conservative, yet aggressive. What do I mean by that? Our job is to express the business in the most optimistic way that we can as a company. That's why we're here. We've got a big opportunity, but at the same time, building in aspects to the forecast that are not leaps of faith. I.e., for us, the size of our marketplace: If there are 10 to 12 trillion of GMV globally, which is cited in a bunch of market forecasts, then trillions of dollars, tens of trillions of dollars - us saying that we can get to 20, 40 billion, 100 billion of GMV, well, that's pretty conservative. We don't have to get a lot of market share. Those are the types of aspects to set the context of your forecast conservatively relative to a lot of external metrics. I think these are important aspects to getting investors to buy into your forecast. [The second factor] is based on your existing business, and so we were very, very focused on that. [The third factor is] you want to make sure that as you go through the funding process, you're meeting and beating your numbers.”11:41 - How to analyze and present data Use the data you have to prepare. Then, keep investors in an honest feedback loop where you consistently provide contextual updates. “If you fail to prepare, you're preparing to fail. It's kind of like that old adage. We spent a lot of time on that. Then, the second piece of it is obviously thinking about the second and third-order diligence that's going to support that. For us, it’s beating up the metrics. It's analyzing the data. It's focusing on, ‘okay, so what are the cohorts doing? How do ... | |||
| 07 Aug 2024 | The Journey to Interplanetary Innovation with Relativity Space CFO Mo Shahzad | 00:38:31 | |
Relativity Space’s CFO, Mo Shahzad, has been instrumental in shaping aerospace innovation, most significantly in helping build and launch Terran 1, the world’s first 3D-printed rocket. Mo's commitment to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in space exploration underscores his pivotal role in steering Relativity Space to the forefront of the industry. In this episode, Mo joins host Andrew Seski to share his unique journey from growing up in Pakistan to joining a cutting-edge company. He provides insights into how competition fuels progress and emphasizes the importance of maintaining integrity and transparency as core company values. Mo also discusses how Relativity Space fosters a culture of curiosity and eagerness for learning, enabling the company to quickly iterate on its ambitious mission to make life interplanetary. Tune in to hear from an incredible leader advancing aerospace ingenuity, as Mo navigates the industry’s complexities with an unwavering focus on progress. This episode provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of space exploration and highlights how modern finance plays a crucial role in shaping it. Show Links Connect with Mo Shahzad on LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Seski on LinkedIn Discover more about Relativity Space today! | |||
| 27 Jun 2023 | Accounting for Variability with Jessica Holscott | 00:27:25 | |
Jessica Holscott didn’t always have a clear route to a public-facing C-suite role. She had spent many years in different industries — from lighting to vehicle manufacturing — transitioning through a variety of positions to become the well-rounded businesswoman she is today. Most recently, she served as executive vice president (EVP) and chief financial officer (CFO) of WarnerMedia Studios & Networks. Prior to that, Jessica held several leadership roles, including EVP and CFO at HBO, senior vice president of investor relations at Time Warner, and CFO of NBCUniversal’s TV Stations division, where she brought a wealth of experience and knowledge in financial management, strategic planning, acquisitions, and more. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Jessica talks with host Andrew Seski about the playbooks that guided her throughout her career and how she transitioned into the public-facing media landscape. An avid networker with deep roots in the entertainment industry and blue-chip consumer companies, Jessica also shares invaluable lessons for aspiring CFOs seeking mentorship. Show Links | |||
| 05 Oct 2021 | How to Find Your Niche as an Emerging VC with Jeremy Baksht of DataFrame Ventures | 00:43:39 | |
Jeremy Baksht has a rich history in finance, from banking at J.P. Morgan to several entrepreneurial ventures. His specialty is data and FinTech, and his newest company is DataFrame Ventures. Over the years, Jeremy has learned that he has a good eye for investing and generating LP interest in his niche. In this episode, he talks about the importance of generating interest, curating a funnel, and deciding what type of CFO you want to be in today's ever-changing environment.
Key Takeaways
Early in his career at J.P. Morgan, Jeremy saw companies getting out of investments in businesses with poor margins. “You typically want to be in that high-margin, repeatable business and get out of the clunkier businesses. So every time I talked to these businesses, they all wanted to know, what do you see in IoT? What do you see in sensors? What are you seeing in clean-tech? And even though I hadn't been an investor personally at any stage in this formation, I kept coming back to tech and data, SaaS. These are all changing the world, they are the highest multiple companies. Whether they're B2B or B2C, you have to get into these businesses. Coming up with ideas is hard, but seeing what was happening in capital markets in the early 2010s, some colleagues and I from Citi joined up with one of their former colleagues and we created a private markets exchange.”6:15 - The value of automation When Jeremy set out as an entrepreneur, the best advice he received from CEO Peter Williams was to look for ways to streamline clunky processes. “The first step was automating a process. When you see a process that has very repeatable patterns yet involves a ton of people, it doesn't often make sense to have all those people involved. Whether you're a real estate broker or private placements broker, you're just thinking about if you could map all the funnels of the 20 things you need to know, maybe some offering documents, and put all the investors or interested parties in one place, and then, hopefully, they can transact in a more automated way. So, I think step one was recognizing there was no leap of faith there. You have all these people and an expensive, clunky process. Can you automate that? That really spoke to me.”8:40 - Get people to show up When you deal in marketplaces, you need to generate interest and demand. That’s what led Jeremy to focus on access to Series A and B companies early on. “All marketplaces are massively 'chicken and egg,' and you need to time very carefully which curated product do you have. How do you stoke the initial deals? Whether your eBay finding a beanie baby or Craigslist with San Francisco apartments, you have to have some reason for people to show up. So for us, at first we started to do LPs assets in hedge funds. We realized that was a fun market, but one that wasn't that liquid. People aren't necessarily looking for those unless there's a big secondary discount. What we did try to do was more company stuff, where people are excited about a Series A or a Series B, and they can't get access. This was really early. I know it's very common now, but that was our thesis 8-9 years ago.”11:57 - Create a curated funnel When he founded DataFrame Ventures, growing trust with LPs quickly led to more time sources deals and less time needed to promote them. “Two partners and I stood up DataFrame Ventures at the end of last year. We've done 17 deals, a few million in capital deployed. It was almost by happy accident. We would find something we found interesting in a data-oriented company. We'd put it up to our LP group. The first few deals took a lot of stoking the well, and calling people, and actually acting as agents in a way like, ‘Hey, we put this deal up. Are you excited about it?’ But by the fourth or fifth deal, we kept finding as you layer on LPs, they understand your thesis. As you build up trust, deals are moving faster and faster and faster. We spend almost all of our time finding interesting deals and zero time promoting them. Because they don't really require a promotion if you have a really curated funnel.”12:55 - Being a unicorn is overrated Jeremy recognizes that some people will achieve unicorn exits, and some won’t. But there’s nothing wrong with a successful multi-million dollar exit, either. “Starting a fund is no different than starting a company. It's a little less focused on some crazy unique idea. It's more putting your ideas onto paper and actually framing those and wrangling LPs and getting people excited about you. So I think the rest of my life, I will probably mostly be an investor. I find that to be really fun. And then look, between us, I've started or been a part of some really interesting companies. I don't know that I'm a next-level founder. You try it a few times, and if you don't have a unicorn exit, you know, society tells you you haven't succeeded. I see a lot of my friends and more people in the industry accepting a 50 to multiple hundred million-dollar exit. As long as you're really helping and influencing people or building a unique product or something interesting and remunerating your LPs, you've done really well. As we've talked about, 95%, or whatever the number is, of companies in the seed stage don't get to the Series A stage. You don't always get to win. So having an exit 10-million plus, as long as you didn't raise 10 million, is probably a good thing for everybody involved.”18:58 - You need trust, a platform, and distribution When working on Qineqt, Jeremy started a conversation with Bloomberg to see if they would be interested in a partnership. He ended up starting a job with Bloomberg and working in the pioneer days of their enterprise data portal. “I kept coming around to, 'Wow, there are lots of different data sources. Nobody knows how to find them. There are very few people that can pay for and use them. How do you wrap all this into a bow and package it?' I thought it was using the data structures and being more technical. But what I realized was after a year of trying to make that business go, it was you need trust and you need a big platform and you need distribution. I was talking to Bloomberg and a few others about acquiring the company or somehow working with us. I ended up being lucky enough to join Bloomberg, and spend about three years there with the enterprise data access portal and putting a lot of unique data sets in there. It was the beginnings of what is now a pretty large all-data practice, but it was early for Bloomberg. One of the industry telltale signs is if you're putting a unique product into one place and thousands of people can access, is it really unique anymore? And I think the answer really is, I guess not. In a way, we call it all external data, not alternative data now because you're putting unique things in one place and maybe some of the alpha bleeds out on a one-to-one basis. But at the end of the day, everybody's got the ingredients and they cook together.”23:32 - There are many types of CFOs From big companies to small ... | |||
| 06 May 2021 | How Summit’s Matt Wensing is challenging Excel spreadsheets and reinventing financial models | 00:34:38 | |
As a serial entrepreneur, Matt Wensing is no stranger to managing the day-to-day operations and growing pains of new businesses. However, he was surprised that his dependency on the same, stale spreadsheets hadn’t waned by his third venture. In 2019, Matt launched Summit to accelerate financial intelligence by replacing idiosyncratic, disparate spreadsheets with a collaborative modeling platform. His goal is simple: to create a forecasting platform that anyone, from CFOs to start-up founders, can leverage successfully. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Matt and guest host Stuart Balcombe discuss where Excel falls short and how Summit’s plug-and-play features are a leap forward in building companies within our globally connected world. Show Links
Key Takeaways 1:12 - The question that started Summitt Matt was confident in his financial know-how, until he was hit with a question Excel couldn’t easily answer. “The simple question was: if your sales cycles extend from what they are today, which is approximately 30-60 days lets say to 90-120 days, what's that going to do to your business? What's that gonna do to your capital needs, to your hiring plan, etc? And I remember thinking, that's really smart. He's seeing a trend, which sales cycles are extending, and he's buying into it, which is what I want them to do as a founder. But he's then saying, ‘If that’s true, then what?’ I remember going back to my Excel-based model and realizing that in order to answer that question accurately, it wasn't going to be simple. I couldn't just delay receivables. I couldn't just change the pipeline. So many things about the business needed to change to capture that distended sales cycle. It occurred to me as I was going through that wow, this is an extremely painful, but extremely smart question. And it's kind of crazy that in order to answer this, I'm going to have to spend hours and hours back in Excel."
Summit’s mantra is: speak quietly and carry a big message that pushes your users right where it (currently) hurts. “You are in a relationship with a tool that both simultaneously delights you and simultaneously frustrates and disappoints you. And in some cases betrays you when you want it to support you and have your back. There's this love-hate dynamic. And because of that, the H1 there says, ‘Tell your forecasting spreadsheet you're never getting back together.’ It's really directly appealing to the fact that it's not all love all the time. And you had your moments, maybe not today, but in the recent past, where you've thought about burning it down and starting again.”
To compete with Excel’s customizable model, Summit had to become a language - not a product. “I ended up realizing spreadsheets are a programming environment, not a database. And I think that the approach that you choose to take, when you're attempting to replace a spreadsheet, has to take a position on that. Am I going to replace this programming environment - this language, if you will - with a SaaS tool, which is effectively a product? And I am the only one who can improve that product, my team improves that product and launches features? Or am I going to take a platform language approach and say, ‘I'm actually going to build a better programming environment that enables you to do everything that you can do today, but better?’...For Summit, I've chosen an approach of building a better language, a better programming environment for financial modeling, as opposed to just a product. Because I don't think you can build you can't beat a language with a product. You can only be the better language.”
Everyone’s got their own dialect of Excel - and that’s killing collaboration in a global workforce. “The more valuable a spreadsheet is to an individual, the less valuable it is to the group. So much individualism, idiosyncratic statements, dialects, ways of doing things, structures that are unique to my mental models, all get infused into the sheet. And that puts the ‘anything-goes’ approach to development at odds with the internet itself, in terms of collaboration and protocols that inter-operate with one another. You've literally created a lot of impedance around this very valuable asset. And it's this cruel irony that the more I invest into it, the worse it gets for you. That is fundamentally at odds with a world where you and I have an easier time than ever working together, even though we're separated by thousands of miles, the fact that this paradigm is not supportive of that or conducive to that.”
As businesses rely more on subscription-based services, Excel spreadsheets don’t provide an easy way to model this new economic activity. “The other thing is the subscription economy, which I believe has put a lot of pressure on a need for standardization of certain representations within financial models. So cohorts, retention, subscriptions, plans, tiers and pricing and all of these - so much economic activity now is centered around subscription revenue. You can create subscription revenue in Excel, but the fact is that it's so hard to properly model cohort-based retention and retention analysis in a spreadsheet. Call it a difficulty level of 50 - and there's pressure for it to become a 5, because there's a thousand times more subscription revenue activity going on in the world than there was 30 years ago.”
Today, presenting a financially sound business is more critical than unicorn growth when it comes to landing VC investments. “There's a long list now of funds and firms that are actually looking for a financially sound investment. They're not just looking for unicorns. Of course, they want unicorns.That's great. But they're actually very happy with what they call the long SaaS ramp of growth. And they're looking for this at very early stages, to make loans, to make investments with maybe even revenue based returns. So the IRR is great, but they need to look at your business at a much earlier stage than ever before. And they’ll make a decision not just based on the founders and the hotness of the markets or the market potential, but they want to make a decision based on the things we just talked about, which is how sound and strong your business is financially. And that means that founders and early-stage operators are being asked to produce models that are much more rigorous much earlier in their life cycle than they did 10, 20 years ago to get that $300,000 loan for a business doing $300,000 a year in revenue.”
Companies may get away with poor financial practices for a while - but most will reach a growth plateau. This reality demands re-evaluating the antiquated tools we rely upon. “Everybody hits this asymptote at some point in their growth. That asymptote is a painful relat... | |||
| 25 May 2021 | Brian Hughes on why the best CFOs follow the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared | 00:39:32 | |
Looking for a long-term view of what it means to be a good CFO? Brian Hughes is a retired partner of KPMG and an experienced advisor to public VC- and PE-backed portfolio companies. His perspective spans an entire career of public and private market transactions, overseeing multiple market cycles--like the dot-com bubble and the 2008 recession--and becoming acquainted with the needs of companies through different life cycles. He is uniquely positioned to deliver a holistic picture of our current environment and provide advice to financial leaders. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Brian advises CFOs to plan ahead--not just for internal organization, but for future macroeconomic shifts. As he sees it, a modern CFO needs to ensure the financial plumbing of an organization is not just working, but safeguarded for what lies ahead. Show Links Key Takeaways
In Brian’s view, the most important job of the CFO is being a great partner to the CEO. The second job is to be strategic, collaborative, and adaptable. “Number one, you know, I think if you're a CFO in a company you've got to understand what your role is. And there's a lot of different things, but I think being the CEO's trusted business partner is probably by far one of the most important things that you can do as a CFO. And you need to really establish that on day one because that's the individual that's helping set strategy and direction. At the same time, I think you also, as an individual, you need to be aware of sort of what your strengths and your weaknesses are, which will dictate the type of CFO you're going to be...I also think that today's CFO needs to be more strategic in their thinking. It used to be that you were the numbers guy and you put together the financial statements. Now it's really how do you make the numbers come alive and really tell the story of the company in terms of their operations, the metrics and the KPIs. And also, it used to be you thought about the CFO just within the financial function. I think it's also extremely important now for the CFO to really get outside of their swim lane and really become more cross-functionally across the organization, supporting all the different functions that help a company operate.”
A good CFO isn’t just savvy internally. They have the confidence and ability to communicate with external partners, such as investors and board members. “The other part of a CFO is again it's multi-faceted. And you obviously need to not only have the trust and insight of the people in the company, but also the key investors and stakeholders outside the company. Because the CFO and the CEO tend to be the folks that are interfacing the most with investors and board members. And therefore that requires a unique set of skills as well in terms of understanding sort of what their needs and wants are, and presenting that in a way in which they can understand it. And then, of course, I think you need to also be somebody who can fix things that get broken quickly, right? That happens in organizations, whether it be through acquisitions or divestitures. But you need to make sure that you're able to act quickly to address issues that need attention on a real-time basis.”
Brian contrasted today’s SPAC boom with the bubble of the dot-com era. In the early 2000s, many unprepared companies went public. Today, companies are generally well-established. “I think there was the euphoria, if you will, around the dot-com boom that created a unique opportunity for companies to go public, but unfortunately they shouldn't have been public. And then I'll compare and contrast that today, where I think we'll talk more about this later, but the SPAC boom is very different than sort of the dot-com boom, in that the companies that are even going public through SPACs today are fairly mature, well-established, later stage either venture-backed or private equity companies that have a business model, have a management team, typically are generating revenues...Some may not be generating profits, but it's a very different feel and type of company going public today than it was back in 2000.”
The pandemic starkly impacted some industries and helped others. Going forward, Brian believes those temporary inequalities will begin to normalize on both sides. “Today feels very, very different in that even though we've had the pandemic, it's really been certain industries impacted. You know, travel, leisure, hospitality, restaurants. And if you look at the other industries, they have really benefited greatly by the pandemic and people being at home. So it's a story of two worlds. And now that we're coming out of the pandemic and people are now able to go back to stores and restaurants without masks, I think that, again, those industries will come back, obviously laggers we've seen them now perform pretty well in the markets. And so I think we're on a trajectory of all the industries returning to normal. And some correcting, rightfully so, because they benefited abnormally just from the pandemic...The key is that on either side, you, as a CFO, were reacting one way or another, and you were called into action very quickly.”
Available capital is fueling growth opportunities for both public and private companies. Brian believes that the SPAC model will only increase in popularity. “We've also seen the IPO markets open up rather dramatically last year into this year, and all through three different ways, direct listings, a regular IPO, or a SPAC transaction. And so, in SPACs, just recently, there's been a lot of them that have occurred in the last year; recently have slowed down because of a matter that the SEC raised about certain accounting for warrants that had issued in connection with these initial IPOs, that of course caused some people to slow down and they've had to refile their 10Ks. So although it's slowed down temporarily, I think it is probably here to stay. And in fact, we're also seeing overseas the European community now begin to adopt the SPAC as a bible for a way in which to go public in the European Union. So long story short, whether it be public or private, there's a real significant availability of capital that's driving either 1) helping companies that are earlier stage grow while they're private or 2) help those later stage private companies come public.”
When you have talented teams and proven processes in place, you are better equipped to handle any curveballs that are sent your way. “The CFO needs to be prepared always for the unexpected, right, as I like to call it. And what that means is you better make sure your house is in order if you're going to have something unexpected occur. And so that's why, initially when I talked about some of the things I did at the beginning around, you know, being the trusted partner, being strategic, having elite teams, having the right processes, people and systems in place. If you don't have all those things... | |||
| 26 Apr 2022 | Venture Debt: The Alternative to Equity with James Turner of 5th Line Capital | 00:31:59 | |
Many early-stage companies leverage equity when fundraising after considering certain risk profiles and limited liability to the founders. Though, in unique and more regularly-occurring situations, there are other options to consider. If you’re looking for capital but don’t want to raise equity, James Turner of 5th Line Capital recommends looking to venture debt instead. Venture debt is a type of debt financing for venture-backed companies that helps them fund their businesses without diluting capital through an equity raise. While some venture debt has a higher interest rate than a bank like SVB, it likely won't be as expensive as the equity. In this episode of The Modern CFO, James explains the mechanics of venture debt, when to use it, and how to be more strategic overall with your capital. Show Links
Key Takeaways 5:54 – The best time to raise venture debt
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| 11 May 2021 | How Dave Monahan used transparency to redefine the dental care marketplace | 00:39:00 | |
What do Microsoft and a dental care marketplace have in common? Plenty, if you look at it from the inside-out. Dave Monahan, CEO of Kleer, got his entrepreneurial training at Microsoft, where he learned how to focus on solutions, build transparency, and innovate faster. Today, Dave is building a pandemic-proof culture at Kleer, a dental care marketplace aiming to replace inefficient insurance plans. In this episode of The Modern CFO podcast, Dave and host Andrew Seski talk about the benefits of transparency, where to look for product data, and how Kleer survived COVID-19. Show Links
Key Takeaways 4:22 - Microsoft-made entrepreneur
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| 22 Mar 2022 | The Importance of Company Culture with Tim Brown of Dakota | 00:24:32 | |
Culture is the core of every company, but keeping it consistent isn’t always easy, especially in an increasingly remote-first world. On this episode of The Modern CFO, Tim Brown shares how Dakota prioritizes culture-building and why CFOs should think about the more permanent changes brought on by the pandemic.
Key Takeaways
Travel and in-person meetings halted during the pandemic, which meant investment sales professionals had to find other means to connect quickly. “When the pandemic hit, all that changed. Travel was essentially halted for quite a period of time. People were not taking in-person meetings. The vast majority of people were not working in offices, and it just required a very quick, fundamental shift in terms of how you could continue to be effective in that role. I think our team adapted really well, the industry adapted really well–as did a lot of industries. You can't meet live, you meet over Zoom, you meet over some of these other means where you cannot be in the same location, but still have effective discussions. Certainly, it's an adjustment. If you've spent your entire career on the road, and then all of a sudden you're not able to do that, that’s a pretty significant adjustment. I think the software side of our business actually gave us a little bit of a tailwind. Dakota Marketplace was a means that could help bridge that gap between what investment sales professionals were used to, to what the current situation was.”8:07 – Lead with culture during the hiring process It can be challenging to maintain a consistent culture, especially through periods of growth. Transparency into the important parts of your company culture during the hiring process helps build a strong, well-aligned team. “Culture has always been very important at Dakota. When I joined about four years ago, there were roughly 10 people, many of whom had been at the firm for quite some time. It was very evident from day one what that culture was. As our business has started to grow, we doubled the size of the team in the last 18-24 months. So, coinciding with the pandemic, it's been very important for us to not only formalize or write down, for lack of a better term, what those cultural components are (as opposed to just people understanding what they are), but to lead with [the cultural components] during the hiring process. I think each firm will have a slightly different culture. For the most part, no culture is better than another. I think it's knowing yourself as a human being. It's knowing who you are, knowing who you are as a company, knowing what attributes are important to everyone at that company, and that really helps you identify people who fit well and have similar outlooks of the world, and are likely to be great teammates.”9:48 – Emphasize what’s important to your company Recognize which components of your culture are most important to the company. That way, potential hires know what to expect from your business. “I do a lot of the initial interviews of candidates that we're meeting with. Inevitably, culture is one of the first things that’s brought up. It's one of the things that we like to emphasize. ‘These are the things that are important to us.’ It's just really recognizing what are those components of your culture that are important that you want people to come in and sort of add to and build on. Like I said, for us, it's really led to a greater degree of success in bringing on new teammates. One of the challenges a lot of companies are facing is retaining talent, and it's really helped us retain employees as well. Because we're doing a better job, upfront, of laying out what's important to us and our culture, people are self-selecting into that.”11:05 – Be a true business partner to your team and CEO CFOs are no longer just experts in finance. Today, the modern CFO is the strategic confidant to their CEOs and a driver of sustained culture to the rest of their teams. “For most companies, gone are the days where the CFO is just the expert in the finance organization. I think those are table stakes for any CFO. I think that a modern CFO is really that true business partner of the CEO and the management team in helping to lead a lot of different components of the organization, not necessarily just the finance component. Certainly, culture is a key component of it. A lot of larger organizations will have separate HR departments, but at smaller organizations like Dakota, that CFO will wear multiple hats and the HR recruiting aspect is a big part of that.”14:33 – Pinpoint where your investors’ incentives and your company’s culture intersect “A family office of a very wealthy family that may have made money under a certain industry, et cetera, may have a very different perspective in terms of what's important to them than a foundation that's geared towards a specific purpose and is utilizing their investment portfolio to help drive income or other value creation that they can then flow through the foundation towards their purpose. So, each one is going to certainly have different things, but I think there's a component of that, of macro long-term trends, ESG being one of them. Then any given day, week, month, year, there's going to be more components that are pressing for that time. Not that those other things aren't pressing, but what I mean by that is in an environment where we sit today, where everyone's looking to the Fed to raise interest rates, and how people look at their portfolios or what the mix of those portfolios are is ever-changing.”16:10 – By investment sales professionals. for investment sales professionals If you want to add value for potential customers, find the tools that will help them be more successful. “Our target customer for all of the products and services we create is an investment salesperson–A person who wakes up every day to raise money for the investment strategies that they represent. Dakota has a number of people at the firm, including our founder, who have been in that industry their entire lives. I think we have a very good perspective as to what types of tools and services can help that person be more successful in their job. One of the things that's exciting to me about Dakota is that we're never short of ideas of other things that we could do, or other ways that we could help our customers grow their careers. So what's exciting to me one year, three years, five years out is just looking at our product pipeline, seeing what's coming, and knowing that there's a bounty of ideas that will come after those that will continue to help us continue to add value and drive value for our customers.”17:39 – Give your ideas a shot Even if you don’t have all the details of your idea worked out, give it a shot. Failing fast is better than not trying at all. “Not everything has to be a fully-baked idea before you're going to try it. If you have an idea and you have the basics down, give it a shot! What's t... | |||
| 08 Mar 2021 | How John Collins of LivePerson operates as a data-driven CFO | 00:36:18 | |
John Collins is the CFO at LivePerson and the very definition of a modern CFO in every way. His career journey spans a job at the New York stock exchange, grad school at MIT, inventing a fully automated trading platform that he wrote from scratch, managing the portfolio for a 10 billion AUM fund, co-founding his own company, and joining LivePerson. As CFO at LivePerson, John is passionate about the role of data in the CFO world, the possibilities of “conversational commerce,” and the vision of combining algorithms and social justice. Show Links
Key Takeaways John’s journey to LivePerson After getting introduced to LivePerson’s CEO Rob by chance, the compelling encounter led John to join the LivePerson team. “After I met Rob, he gave me his vision for LivePerson and how the company’s innovations are changing the way that we communicate and do business. And the value proposition really resonated with me on a deep personal and professional level. I mean, who hasn't experienced frustration waiting on hold or dialing 1-800 numbers to get some intent, some need resolved with the brand? So being able to send a message and then go about your day and feel confident that your need would be taken care of without putting you on the brand or the agent’s schedule is super compelling. And then leveling that up into what we call conversational AI and specifically conversational commerce was a really compelling vision that I was pretty sold on from the beginning.”Navigating data constraints John describes how the data that most companies collect is inherently messy. “I distinguish data from information. Data needs to be transformed in some way. It needs to be normalized. It needs to be cleaned in order to produce some kind of useful information for decision-making purposes. Many companies have a lot of data, but they have trouble accessing it. They have trouble reconciling. It's not clean, it's not reliable. I call these data constraints. And so there are many constraints you need to overcome in order to leverage data effectively.”Conversational commerce The future of commerce is conversational: two-way engagement that takes place on the customer’s terms. “LivePerson is really a cloud-based platform that the largest brands in the world use to converse with their customers through messaging...You can, let's say, change your flight, order a burrito, arrange contactless, commerce services, like curbside pickup, all from the convenience of iMessage or WhatsApp or Facebook or any other channel that we prefer to use today. And messaging-based transactions like these I think represent a modern engagement model for brands and consumers that we call conversational commerce. The company has really evolved from synchronous web chat for customer care applications to asynchronous communications for a wide range of use cases, including two-way proactive notifications. So, no longer do you get this email that says “do not reply.” The LivePerson ethos and the essence of conversational commerce is that it's always two-way.”LivePerson’s vision The ability to converse with a brand in real-time will be a game changer, supplanting historical physical sales interactions. “The vision of the company is that conversational commerce will really supplant the types of commerce that we've seen: historically brick-and-mortar, sort of physical retail sales, e-commerce where you're pointing and clicking on a website. The ability to converse with a brand to get questions answered increases confidence, increases the satisfaction of the experience. And ultimately, as the results show, it drives more sales for it for brands.”CFO as a data scientist John sees data transformation as the primary goal of the modern CFO - a departure from previous perceptions of the CFO as purely a financial professional. “The CFO operates at the intersection of all the company's data flows, whether it's sales, product usage, finance. That's a vast sea of data. And fundamentally the role is to transform that data into useful information, right? As we mentioned for strategic decision making purposes, spreadsheets and traditional financial analysts are simply not capable of effectively utilizing the volume of data that's available in our increasingly quantified world. And from this perspective, the CFO sounds, I think, more like a job for a data scientist than a classically-trained finance professional.”Navigating information silos When information systems are fragmented, the entire company suffers. Creating efficient workflows is what allows companies to truly succeed. “Most large companies’ internal operations run on a fragmented network of siloed spreadsheets and enterprise software where humans actually perform the equivalent of ETL jobs - that is, they manually extract data from one system. They transform it in a spreadsheet combining with other data or whatever the case may be. Then they load it into another system. And that creates the link, the connection between systems to make, you know, to make workflows happen; to complete processes is incredibly inefficient...the result of all this is severely constrained flow of reliable data that renders even the simplest automations very hard to deploy. So in order to move faster, in order to be smarter and take on the kinds of challenges and opportunities that were presented to us by the pandemic, you have to solve these data constraints.”Statistically Sound Decisions As humans and companies, we are predisposed to do things the way they’ve always been done. Analyzing data can help reveal whether or not those patterns are valuable. “When you can bring to bear hard evidence that is statistically sound, it can change the way that we might be predisposed to think about a problem or an opportunity. You know, as humans, we have many innate biases, some of the most profound being availability bias. You know, what have we seen most recently that works? Well, let me just apply that same tool to this problem, which may not be the appropriate way or the optimal way to solve the problem. And so I think being more quote-unquote “data-driven” has allowed us to make more objective, higher quality, in other words more predictive decisions that ultimately lead to higher ROI.”The importance of empathy 2020 was a year of stress. John says that recognizing that stress and supporting team members on an emotional level is a necessary task. “Empathy is a clear trait that is needed in times of great uncertainty and in times of emotional stress. And certainly many people in the world were experiencing uncertainty and emotional stress. And so I think that putting yourself in the shoes of your employees and empathizing with them in a genuine way to find solutions to their problems, not just ... | |||
| 06 Sep 2022 | Centralizing Software Solutions for CFOs with Sudozi's Rose Punkunus | 00:39:43 | |
Finance and accounting processes are vital elements of any business. In many cases, business leaders expect the finance and accounting department to run as smoothly as possible to ensure that payments are processed swiftly and reports are made on time to gather insights and inform decision-making. But what if there was a way to improve the efficiency of these vital business processes? That’s exactly what Rose Punkunus set out to do with her seed stage startup, Sudozi — a software platform designed to help finance and accounting teams automate workflows, keep track of vendors and budgets, and improve financial decisions. In this episode of The Modern CFO, Sudozi Founder, CEO, and CFO Rose Punkunus talks with host Andrew Seski about her experience starting her own firm—a software platform designed to help finance and accounting teams automate workflows, keep track of vendors and budgets, and improve financial decisions. Show Links | |||
| 24 Feb 2021 | Welcome to the Modern CFO Podcast | 00:00:57 | |
Hello and welcome to the Modern CFO podcast. I'm your host Andrew Seski. Join me as I go behind the scenes with top CFO's to share the stories of how this pivotal role is changing in today's business climate. The full show notes and every new episode can be found at nthround.com/podcast. | |||