Navigating Financial Growth in Tech

How do finance leaders enable growth while fostering a culture of partnership, positivity, and saying yes? In this episode, CJ interviews Ed Park, Head of FP&A at Facebook during its explosive hypergrowth years, Head of Finance and Internal Operations at Asana, the current CFO of Daffy, and a “glass-half-full” finance leader. Ed shares stories about working at Facebook in the early days, how he brought finance into the company’s engineering and product-first culture, and how he built trust while navigating rapid user and infrastructure expansion. He talks about his role at Asana, why the company plans in episodes, not quarters, how they discovered their unique “three user” metric, and how they transitioned from bottoms-up to sales-led growth. Ed also gives an introduction to donor-advised funds and how Daffy, his current company, is disrupting this field. The conversation covers how a company's business model shapes its destiny, finding the balance between what’s urgent and what’s important, and Ed’s glass-half-full approach to being a finance leader who enables teams by saying yes.

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LINKS:

Edward Park on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwardypark

Daffy:

https://www.daffy.org

CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222

Mostly metrics:

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TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(02:16) Sponsor – Aleph | RightRev | Navan

(06:43) Ed’s First Job at a Startup: Head of FP&a at Facebook

(11:35) Bringing Finance Into an Engineering and Product-Led Culture

(16:42) Sponsor – Rillet | Pulley | Brex

(20:34) Balancing What Was Urgent Versus Important

(25:02) Monetizing Facebook

(26:48) Becoming a Glass-Half-Full Finance Leader

(33:27) Managing Four Chefs at Asana

(35:38) How Asana Plans in Episodes, Not Quarters

(42:48) Monetization Model Intuition and the “Three User” Metric

(48:13) Transitioning From Bottoms-Up to Proactive Sales at Asana

(53:24) Daffy’s Monetization Model and Donor-Advised Fund Innovation

(57:34) How a Business Model Shapes Destiny

(1:00:02) Ed’s “How Might We” Approach to Being a CFO

(1:01:56) Long-Ass Lightning Round: A Big Mistake

(1:04:38) Advice to Younger Self

(1:05:44) Finance Software Stack

(1:07:57) Craziest Expense Story

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#FacebookBusinessModel #FPandA #StartupFinance #MonetizationStrategy #DonorAdvisedFunds

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