Building Trust and Credibility with Chitra Balasubramanian, CFO at CircleCI
The CFO Playbook
Growth at All Costs
In a period like last year, it was almost growth at all costs. Is that the way that you might see it as well? Yeah, absolutely. When things are in a high growth period, from my perspective, I think it's still important to maintain that view on efficiency.
This episode of the CFO Playbook features an interview with Chitra Balasubramanian, CFO at CircleCI, a continuous integration and continuous delivery platform that can be used to implement DevOps practices in the cloud or on private infrustructures.
With more than 20 years of experience accelerating business growth through data analysis, Chitra is best known for scaling technology startups. As the current CFO, and one of two C-suite females, at fast-growth unicorn CircleCI, she's led the company through major wins to establish it as a leader in the space. Chitra has been critical to the company’s fundraising alongside CircleCI’s CEO, Jim Rose. She has led the company through multiple rounds of financing, raising more than $215 million throughout her tenure.
In this episode of the CFO Playbook, Chitra talks about her interest in being involved in technology forward finance, which led her to the startup world. She speaks about using data to identify and model the impact of change to a business, how her company increased its global employee headcount amidst a pandemic, the importance of remaining agile as a CFO, and why you need to remain empathetic and ensure open communication with your company and investors.
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Guest Quotes:
“The way I've sort of tackled agility is by really trying to take a long-term view and at the same time paying attention to the short term planning horizon. How can we think about what's really best for the company over the long term, but also make sure to invest in a way where we can remain nimble over the course of the shorter term time horizon, where there's a little bit more global uncertainty around us.”
“I think it's important to be proactive. You should be a leader that educates your teams and provides guidance in an advisory role to the CEO. In this type of market for CFOs and other finance leaders, you don't necessarily know what are the right questions to ask, how to make sense of what's going on in the market, or how to navigate through these cycles. But, financial leaders are really in the best spot one because they have access to the information and that analytical horsepower. They've got a team with that economic mindset and can understand different business relationships.”
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Timestamp Topics:
01:20 Career Path
06:00 Comparing Crises and their Effects
07:50 Changing of Tech Sector Capital Markets
10:05 Navigating Current Market
13:20 Managing Investor Relations and Expectations
16:20 Leading Teams Through Change
18:20 Maneuvering the Market and Employment
20:20 Being a Partner with the CEO
25:50 Hiring, Retention, and Networking
28:20 Use of Technology
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Sponsor:
This show is brought to you by Soldo, the brighter way to manage business spending and expenses. With Soldo, you can control every expense, track spend in real time, automate financial reporting, and then use those insights to fuel growth. Learn more at Soldo.com
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Links:
Connect with Chitra on LinkedIn
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