The CFO Playbook

After starting his career as a computer programmer, Ronald Hohauser stumbled on a chance to join the entertainment industry, and was excited by the opportunities it presented. In 2004, Ron became Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations at Marvel Studios. He helped the studio transition from licensing its products to independently turning the then-niche comic book character Iron Man into a superhero icon — with the help of Robert Downey Jr., of course.Ron is now the CFO of Legendary Entertainment, the studio responsible for blockbusters like the “Jurassic World” franchise and 2021’s “Godzilla vs. Kong.” As Ron worked his way up the ladder in the entertainment industry, he learned that a CFO doesn’t have to do all the work themselves: in fact, they shouldn’t. Ron has got to a place where he’s comfortable relying on his team members, and mentoring emerging financial leaders is a big source of pride for him.In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Ron talks about how he’s used tough times as learning opportunities, how and why he has to accept that some things are outside his control, and why he thinks being personally connected to your team is one of the greatest assets of a CFO.Connect with Ron on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Catherine Birkett’s career as a CFO started in 2004, when she was promoted into the position at the telecommunications company Interoute. Looking back, she says she sometimes had to struggle to keep her head above water while addressing the large challenges the company was facing. But Catherine pushed forward, and she now attributes her success as a CFO to these experiences. She sees past mistakes and hardships as ultimately putting her on a path to growth. After becoming intimately familiar with her own strengths and weaknesses, Catherine now feels comfortable leading a finance team through tough spots and helping other people grow. At GoCardless, where she has worked as the CFO since January 2019, she was able to take the reins during the COVID-19 pandemic and keep the business-to-business banking service on a growth trajectory as its scope expands. In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Catherine details how she grew from tough experiences early in her CFO career, how she maintained control of GoCardless’ financial growth during a global pandemic and recession and how to balance risk taking and flexibility with keeping your company in line to achieve its ultimate vision.Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Sharon Virag became Chief Accounting Officer of customer service software company Genesys, she had already worked for Fortune 500 companies including General Electric, and served as CFO for NeoGenomics Laboratories.But for Sharon, who loves building out company infrastructure, working with an emerging organization like Genesys was just as intriguing and exciting. With her help, the company has grown and hit financial milestones. Highlights include navigating new regulations and financial reporting requirements, and building strong, diverse teams that work in lockstep with one another.Sharon believes that working on your leadership habits is one of the most important things you can do as a financial chief. This means knowing when — and how — to speak your mind, and figuring out how to delegate tasks to your team, so you can let go of some of the details and see the full scope of the company’s needs. On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Sharon talks about her strategy for being a flexible leader, when to think big picture, and how to work with the systems you have to manage your company’s finances with ease and efficiency.Connect with Sharon on LinkedIn. Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Maddy Devine traded consulting with multinational corporations for building startup finance teams from the ground up — and she’s never looked back.Her first finance job was consulting for Accenture, and she’s now VP of Finance at virtual conference software company Bevy.Maddy believes that the two key components of building a finance department that fuels business growth are the tech and the people. Not necessarily in that order.Maddy looks for people who share the belief that finance should be about more than making sure what’s going out is balanced out by what’s coming in. Her team outsources that work, so they can focus on strategizing.On the tech side, Maddy won’t settle for a tool that can’t scale along with the business. Researching and implementing software is a significant commitment of time and energy, so you need to make sure you’re not going to outgrow your investment within a few months.On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Maddy explains which part of the function startup finance leaders need to tackle first, how to find a balance between protecting your budget and empowering departments on the business end, and the skills she looks for in her team.Connect with Maddy on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Ken Goldman became CFO of Yahoo in 2012, he had more experience in business administration than accounting. But he used his background to his advantage, approaching the CFO role from a globalist perspective. To Ken, the relationship between the CEO and CFO of a company is vital to its success. A CFO’s job is to provide objective counsel to the CEO, who can use that information to make informed decisions about a company’s future. Ken values having positive relationships with everyone in the company, including the board members and the engineering and accounting teams. A strong, company-wide rapport encourages collaboration in administrative and accounting tasks, and ensures everything runs smoothly. In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Ken encourages people to take a look at CFO roles even if they don’t have a background in accounting, and discusses the importance of software system management, maintaining relationships with activist investors, and work-life balance.Connect with Ken on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Pettit joined London-based venture capital firm Connect Ventures in 2016 as Head of Finance. Earlier this year, he was made CFO, and sees his new job as assisting the partners in making strong financial and investment decisions, putting the firm on the front line of SaaS, fintech and digital health.“My role was to come in and take as much of that finance slack away from the partners [as possible] so they can focus on the areas where they can make a big difference,” Mark says.One of his first missions has been driving the team toward using data management software that helps create a more reliable source of truth, which the entire firm can look at when making decisions. Mark has also helped create a KPI framework which Connect Ventures can use when deciding which early stage startups to invest in. On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Mark lays out how he manages day-to-day workflow as a CFO, the challenges of growing a small venture capital firm’s finance team, and his outlook on the future of remote work.Connect with Mark on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don Dixon has held finance positions in startups and established organizations, been through acquisitions and IPOs, and is now CFO at DataStax. In his experience, rising to the CFO position requires understanding something much more complicated than finance: people.Once you’re at that executive position, managing numbers is a smaller part of your daily job than managing the people on your team.Don is so committed to empowering the people in the finance department that he doesn’t even think of it as managing. He sees his role as closer to coaching. Instead of trying to mold each person to fit DataStax, he helps them improve their all-round skill sets so that they can achieve their career goals.Even if that means employees end up leaving for a higher position the organization can’t currently offer, Don knows he’s done his job.On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Don discusses how to help the finance department feel connected to customers and how to give everyone on the team just the right amount of transparency. He also explains why your IPO delivery team should be as small as possible.Connect with Don on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In October 2020, Malcolm Finn followed his conscience to chemicals company Johnson Matthey, which is transitioning its business model to focus on producing clean energy sources. As Director of Finance Operations and Control, Malcolm has been a key figure in that change.Guiding a company through such a major transition would have been challenging even for a seasoned leader at the best of times. But not only was Malcolm new to the company, most of the team was working from home, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.Everyone has struggled with the world-altering impact of the pandemic to some degree, and leaders can no longer afford to ignore this emotional fallout. In addition, in the midst of such uncertainty, confident assertions that everything will be fine don’t carry the same weight they once did.Now, the best leaders are those who treat their employees with understanding and leniency, while also admitting that they don’t have the answers to every problem.On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Malcolm explains the learnings he wants to take from remote work, why companies should question the purpose of digital innovations and why agility has never been a more valuable skill in a leader.  Connect with Malcolm on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paraag Amin’s route to becoming CFO of omnichannel digital marketing company dotdigital isn’t conventional — but he believes it set him up for success. Paraag started his career as an analyst working for investment banks, beginning at Goldman Sachs and including Citi and RBS. These jobs taught him what makes a promising investment opportunity — and the best way to present a company as a promising investment opportunity.His experience on one side of the transaction helped Paraag transition to the other side. He founded luxury lifestyle platform StyleCard in 2011, and in 2018 he was hired as dotdigital’s CFO. Helming the finances of a publicly traded company brings extra pressure, but knowing the company has a strong business model behind it makes him feel secure.On this episode of the CFO Playbook, Paraag explains why analysts make great CFOs, his inside take on pitching investors, and why knowing an industry before you dive in will help you wrangle with the numbers in your first few months.Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn.Connect with Paraag on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, check out Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andreas Melzer joined the consumer research company Quantilope two years ago and is the company’s Associate Director of Finance, which is similar to a Chief of Staff role with a finance focus. An advocate for helping SaaS startups stay on top of their finances, he published a B2B SaaS finance model that has received more than 8,000 downloads. While determining which KPIs and metrics a company should share while fundraising, Andreas believes in being transparent about the state of the business while keeping things simple.  Quantilope leverages a “land and expand” strategy. As a result, net retention is a main KPI that is a centerpiece of its pitch to investors. Additional data, such as how long it takes to upsell, is also included, “but really net retention is what it comes down to,” he says. On this episode of The CFO Playbook, Andreas talks about how he’s scaling Quantilope’s international finance team, why you shouldn’t be tracking more than 10 KPIs, and how he’s carved out a niche as a roving advisor with a finance focus. An avid chess player, Andreas also applies lessons from the chess board to the world of business strategy.Connect with Andreas on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices