CFO Peer Group - Samuel's CFO Website

May 10, 2018 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

PODCAST: The Hiring Triangle – CEO, CFO and the Board

I was recently interviewed by Jack Sweeney for his podcast series called CFO Thought Leader. This was the fourth time I was interviewed by Sweeney, and I enjoyed our conversation once again. I believe you will find the conversation interesting and relevant.

Here are some of the questions addressed in this podcast. (You can listen via the Youtube window on this page, you can download the file or find the iTunes link below)

How involved is the Board when hiring a CFO?
How can a CFO hire go wrong?
How can a CFO going through a hiring process work through the CEO/Board dynamics?
What advice do you offer CFO candidates before their first interview?
If a CFO hire is going to happen, what is the time frame to make it happen?
How do you help CFOs with executive coaching?
What advice would you give a CEO trying to evaluate a CFO candidate?
What part do part-time CFOs play in the market today?
When is the right time for a company to hire their first real CFO?
Who engages an executive search firm for a CFO hire?
What advice do you have for senior finance executives that want to build relationships outside their business?

If any of these topics are of interest to you, you will find this podcast to be worth listening to. (29 minutes)

Which comments resonate most with you? Let me know what you think below, or email me.

Download | Subscribe to CFO Thought Leader Podcast series on iTunes | Link to the CFO Thought Leader web page with more details about this podcast

December 5, 2016 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

Things CFOs Say

It may not surprise you that I truly enjoy speaking with CFOs.

This November, I sat down with members of my CFO Peer Group for our one day in-person meeting in Chicago.

I am always impressed, that my CFOs, who are busy busy people, take a full day out of their schedules to sit down and talk with each other about the challenges they face and opportunities before them.

Some of the things they said were brilliant. I jotted them down to share with you.

“It’s easy to default on being busy all the time”

“We need to Uber ourselves before we get Kodak’d”

“Financing is more available, but funders now have tight requirements and short cycles”

“There is complexity in simplicity”

“ADD is deadly to the organization”

“Glassdoor is the best thing that happened to us”

“It’s tough dealing with a CEO that has ‘AAD – Attention Abundance Disorder’”

“I don’t look good in Orange”

Which of these quotes speaks most to you?

My CFOs are very smart people and I love learning from them and helping them become more successful.

You can learn more about our CFO Peer Groups by reading the following links:

A Solution for Lonely CFOs

The Challenges CFOs Face Alone (But They Don’t Have To)

About CFO Peer Groups

If you are interested in becoming part of a select group of Chief Financial Officers in 2017, reach out to me and we can schedule a time to talk.

June 7, 2016 By Samuel Dergel 9 Comments

CFOs Under Pressure

I speak with many CFOs in my role as executive recruiter, CFO Peer Group facilitator and executive coach. Each CFO, without fail, expresses that they are busy. The scale starts at ‘busy’ and goes all the way to ‘overwhelmed’.

So I was not surprised to see the results of this recent report from EY. I appreciated this infographic, as it helps to explain why the Chief Financial Officer is feeling overwhelmed and under pressure.

These four survey results identify two areas of pressure facing the CFO today.

Weak finance team (Ability to delegate, Concern over finance function)
The day to day gets in the way of the strategic priorities (Tension between old and new, Role stretch)

I showed this graphic to member of my CFO Peer Group, and here is some of the feedback they gave:

Weak finance team

We have under skilled people in place as we cannot “afford” to recruit at the experience level we need
The CFO is being asked to cut staff significantly while taking on additional responsibilities and regulatory burdens. This all needs to be performed while changing and upgrading staff to meet more strategic priorities

The day to day gets in the way

We are so transaction heavy we need more staff to keep up with the day to day
Under increased pressure to meet compliance demands with no legal or other support
The CFO often lacks along with his organization an understanding of the business is one I see quite often from business partners
While there has been an evolution in what else the CFO is responsible for, the CFO is still the defacto compliance officer managing accounting, legal, HR, Facilities, and broad administrative responsibilities.
The CFO is under tremendous pressure today to “do it all”

I also asked my CFOs what can be done to resolve these pressures. Here are some responses.

From a CFO disciplinary viewpoint, you need to define the stands where you say: “this is a MUST to have, and this is a NICE to have”.
Ultimately, the role is CFO is defined by what expectations are.
The CFO often lacks along with his organization an understanding of the business is one I see quite often from business partners. They just don’t visit customers, spend time with sales or other functions.

As CFO, it is your responsibility to deliver what is expected of you. To do so, you need to get the buy in necessary. While platitudes reign, yet not enough CFOs have the ability to change the expectations. Too many times I hear “this is the way it is – I cannot change it”.

As CFO, you have accepted this job in this environment. Either fix it, or find a more reasonable environment. It may not be the environment that’s the problem, but the person in the mirror who accepts the problem environment.

No one wants to just do the best they can (certainly not you). You want to thrive and achieve more, better, further, faster.

You can fix your team – you just need to have a plan and get buy in. As executive coach for CFOs, I have worked with Chief Financial Officers to help them accomplish this. While not an easy task, it will not get better by itself.

You can move from the day to day to the strategic – you just need to make sure you have the people, process and technology that can take care of the day to day to give you time to be involved with the strategic issues.

Here are my recommended steps to break the cycle:

Prepare a vision of how you can focus on the strategic while your team properly covers off the day to day.
Prepare a plan to meet the vision
Sell the plan (classic change management)
Implement it
Deal with exceptions as they happen, yet if exceptions happen regularly, they are no longer exceptions and you need to have the people, process, technology to deal with it.

Sounds simple? It’s not. But unless you are going to tackle this head on, you will be unable to move beyond these challenges and continue to be stuck like most of your peers.

What’s your plan to break the cycle?

January 26, 2016 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

A Solution for Lonely CFOs

Being CFO is a challenge.

CFOs are expected to be key contributors to the success of a company. They are regularly are called upon to make tough decisions, at times without the support of a sounding board.

Being CFO can be lonely but it doesn’t have to be.

Last year we launched a CFO Peer Group. CFOs from across North America meet in person and virtually. They have regular conference calls and spontaneous one-on-ones. In November they all convened for a day in Chicago. These CFOs found a comfortable setting in which to learn and share together with their peers.

In 2016, we are expanding our group. Members of this exclusive CFO Peer Group will have access to:

Annual in-person one day meeting in November 2016. Our first in-person CFO Peer Group meeting in Chicago this past November was a great success. These CFOs took time out of their busy schedules, spending one full day out of the office to meet their peers and discuss issues that were top of mind while networking and learning from others (just like you).

Regularly scheduled phone calls (8 times / year) where you will have an opportunity to speak with, interact and network with fellow CFOs. The topic of conversation will be what interests you. You will have the opportunity to discuss the challenges you face as CFO with your peers, and to listen, learn and network.
CFO Questions Forum, where you will be able to submit questions to your peers at any time. This could be helpful when looking for a template, facing a challenging relationship situation in your business, or need assistance to access a referral. Your CFO Peers will help you and you will be there to support them.

The opportunity to reach out spontaneously and confidentially to peers who you will come to respect and trust.

Unlike other CFO-oriented programs you may have attended in the past that spoke to you from a podium and a PowerPoint, our CFO Peer Group allows you and your peers to discuss topics that interest you, that are current, immediate and relevant to you. You drive the conversation – our role is to facilitate.

You can learn more about Samuel’s CFO Peer Group here and here.

There are only a few spaces available.

Meetings start in February. If you are a CFO and this interests you, please email us.

August 12, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

A CFO Success Story: Aidan Cullen, CFO of CliQr

Aidan Cullen, CFO of CliQr

The following is from an interview with Aidan Cullen, recently hired as CFO of CliQr, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

What has helped you become a successful CFO over the years?

I’ve always been a long term planner and thinker. I started my career in public accounting getting the fundamentals. I then went into internal audit consciously thinking about where I need to go for my success. That gave me an understanding of what’s underneath the hood of a company. From there I started to specialize in the functional roles and business partnerships, so I went to engineering and managed an engineering group worth about 120 million dollars. After that, I went into another company and managed a sales organization and was a business partner for sales services and support.

When you start to get into a specialized business like engineering, you look at all the portfolios and investments and really begin to understand how things roll in a company. Similarly, with sales you start to understand what incentivizes salespeople, what motivates them and how you get the most productivity out of them. Then you become more of a generalist and you start to move into and become more eligible for a CFO role. At that point you really have the depth to be able to go down a thousand feet and then come back up specifically when you’re dealing with the executive level management.

Quick Takes from Aidan on…

Growing from Controller to CFO:
A lot of us are very technically and operationally qualified and the next part of that is the chemistry and the synergy that you have with the executive team.

How to move upwards and onwards:
If you build up and broaden your experience and your accomplishments and consistently perform… I think that will open any door.

Networking and a new job:
We spend so much time trying to build a network and then when we get into a new job we tend to forget about that network.

Why CFO Peer Groups are important:
It’s very important to keep a close check on what challenges other CFOs face in the market these days.

Building your network:
You should value your network and you should always think about building and expanding on your experiences.

You went from an engineering organization to a sales organization, both of which have very different requirements and very different world views. How did you transition at an early age to those perspectives? What did you learn from that?

I suppose I was just fortunate. I got in to the engineering role and the engineering VP at that stage got promoted to the general manager of a business unit that had a value of $1.7 billion dollars. So I was fortunate to move in with the VP and become the general manager’s number one finance person – the CFO. When I moved into the sales company, I specifically moved in as the number two. They didn’t have a CFO at the time and I moved in with the COO. The main concerns they had, operationally in the company, were in getting the financials restated due to the software changes that were going on, specifically around revenue recognition. In the company that I joined, several of the competing companies had their financial statements restated. Fortunately, because of my operational background in external audits and looking at the business side of things, I was able to take that role on and I spent a good year really reengineering the sales organization – specifically from an operational perspective. So that was just a bit of fortune and I just stepped up to the role. And when you actually have a bit of experience behind you, it’s nice to have that exciting challenge.

I’ve seen that a lot of CFOs who – while they were certainly smart – were at the right place at the right time. What was it about you that helped you get to that first CFO role?

I think it’s my assertiveness. It’s a little bit of planning and being willing to step up – having the energy level to step up to the next level and perform. As you start to get in, a lot of us are very technically and operationally qualified and the next part of that is the chemistry and the synergy that you have with the executive team and also with the CEO. It’s that business partnership that makes it all gel together.

What were some challenges you faced when you and the CEO thought differently? What have you done in your career that has made that CFO/CEO relationship work?

I think there are a few you areas that I would look at. The first that comes to mind is the ability to scale a company from, say, a 20 million dollar company to a 100 million dollar company. There are certain roads and paths to take. You would first look at the financial portfolios system or the ERP system and ask: which is the best one to scale? What are the key resources that you need to have? Each time you have to make some decision it impacts the business and may impact the CEO and executive team. So they’re truly critical decisions because they have a long term impact. That’s more the long term side of it.

On the operational side, I have the skills that I need from a sales operation perspective that I can use to go underneath the sales organization and understand the key issues associated with productivity, the sales model, the pricing and so forth. Because of this, sometimes the CEO or the VP of Sales do not see eye to eye with me. Through my perspective on certain things, I can justify it from the numbers, from looking at the facts, looking at trends, building them out and being able to start to perfect models and sales projections. Because of this, I started to gain respect from my peers and especially the CEO and then I moved forward and it got better. Everything started to get better.

What can you share about the process that moved you forward to your new role?

I think the key is networking. If you build up and broaden your experience and your accomplishments and consistently perform – especially in the CFO capacity – I think that will open any door. I think that’s the key to success. In my case, I’ve worked in many companies and I’ve met a lot of VCs and board members. I consistently keep in contact with them and these doors remain opened and the friendship and partnership are there.

One of the VCs on the board here opened up the door for me and connected me with CliQr. From there it just took the normal steps to get the position. I have kept in contact with all the top financial recruiters over the years – whether I am looking for an opportunity or not. If I can touch base, even if it’s only once a year, I’ll try to keep an eye on them and say hello. We spend so much time trying to build a network and then when we get into a new job we tend to forget about that network. And it doesn’t take much to maintain these relationships.

What tool do you use to ensure that you stay in front of everyone you want to stay in front of on a regular basis?

That’s a difficult one. I don’t have any specific tool. I kind of identify it and put it in my calendar on a quarterly basis. I do like sports, though. I tend to see if I can play golf with some of the executives. I might go to an event with them. Some of the banks that I deal with invite me out. For example, one of the financial recruiters is having an event here and it’s typically at an event like that where I catch up with my peers in the industry and have a drink and socialize.

Another process that has worked for me in the past is I will meet with CFOs on a semi-annual basis.We go to lunch and without getting into numbers we discuss the business process and we go into networking. The world of finance changes an awful lot. Technology changes and business and financial market changes. It’s very important to keep a close check on what challenges other CFOs face in the market these days. I enjoy that. We spend time together sitting around the table and then we reconvene in another six months’ time. It’s a great forum for keeping pace with what’s going on in the markets.

What are you excited about joining CliQr?

CliQr represents a fundamental shift in the IT market. We’ve seen the internet bring a lot of change. It has changed almost everything. The cloud is today’s internet in my mind. It has the ability to change everything about the way business interacts with information technology. CliQr is pivotal in this change. It plays a major role. It’s a transformation from the old rigid data centers to today’s desire to logically place applications across diverse environments and include the data centers across private and public clouds all in one place. This is what CliQr does. In my mind, the market’s real, the product is very very real and we’ve got really smart investors in the company (like Google Ventures and Foundation Capital -to name a couple). My colleagues here are very smart. It’s a nice working environment. To me, these are all key ingredients to success.

What are some of your objectives to help the company along and make a bigger impact in its success?

The major one is to scale the company. CliQr is at the point where it has gone through with a Series C and financing and we’re at that stage of growth. The next stage is global expansion and building out the enterprise and the sales into the various geographic regions. Those are the major challenges and in confronting them I bring in head counts and business processes. I did the same thing at Gigamon, where I expanded and brought in a new ERP system for a manufacturing company and broadened the sales geographic regions.

Where do you hope to take this?

I think one would always love to take it to IPO. Companies are not sold now, they are bought. So the strategic intention is to build this up to a company that can go IPO. I have not brought a company to an IPO process yet. I’ve filed an F1, but I’ve never been on the other side as a public CFO.

What advice would you give people trying to build themselves up on a path to success as CFO?

You should value your network and you should always think about building and expanding on your experiences. Try to look at the end of every year and assure that you’ve added some accomplishments to your resume or background. I think it’s important to meet regularly and get a pulse check with your peers to see if you’re keeping touch with how things are working out. Specifically, your skill set versus the market. Finally, I think it’s good to follow smart money. These days we’ve got some super VCs in the Valley. They do an amazing job and when you can actually get a line through to these VCs, they truly do mitigate the risk that we have as CFOs. In looking at opportunities, these are the people you should start to follow.

+++++++

A CFO Success Story is a feature of Samuel’s CFO Blog, where Samuel Dergel follows up on his book, Guide to CFO Success, speaking with CFOs featured in CFO Moves, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA.

July 14, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 1 Comment

The Challenges CFOs Face Alone (But They Don’t Have To)

CFO Peer Groups: A mid-year update

Since the release of my book, Guide to CFO Success in 2014, I have been reminding CFOs that they need to build and develop their relationships within their organization.

Last fall, when speaking with some of my key Chief Financial Officers that I keep in regular touch with, I was reminded that while CFOs are lonely, there is a solution to their loneliness. These conversations with my Chief Financial Officers led me to develop my CFO Peer Groups.

Starting this past winter, I created 3 groups of 10 CFOs from across the USA and Canada, with the express goal of getting them to talk, learn, share and network with each other. Each month we had scheduled conference calls, with questions from CFOs sent to the group in advance that prepared the group. These CFOs were able to call on their peers both during and outside of our meetings on the issues and challenges facing them.

This fall, we will have our first in-person meeting in Chicago. At this meeting we will take our phone conversations to the next level and set the stage for where we take this in 2016.

Here is a sample of some of the discussions we have had so far this year in CFO Peer Group.

Topic addressed	Question discussed
The ability to grow while stabilizing the core business.	How to grow while investing in the core and changing the culture?
Scaling the organization to handle growth efficiently and profitably.	What changes have you made both to the finance organization and encouraged throughout the organization to deal with top line growth year-over-year in the 20%+ range.
Having sufficient cash for all initiatives and not wasting time or money to get there.	What strategies have you used that have had success or failure? Why?
Integrating 4 recent acquisitions	How have you dealt with integration challenges? Staffing, IT, timelines, etc.
Scaling without rapidly increasing costs and maintaining quality	What systems, processes or frameworks have they utilized to be successful in the past?
Best practices for managing tight cash flow.	How do you redirect the culture of an organization to be conscience of tight cash flow when the CEO wont.
Describe your day to day activities and how this has changed over the course of your tenure	What are your thoughts on how the role of the CFO evolves over time and how do you build your team such that you focus on the highest priorities? What functions report to you?
Outsourcing of non-strategic functions	To what extent have you outsourced? What did you outsource? What was kept in house? Which outsource partners would you recommend?
Acquisition Process	Do any of you have a well defined non confidential process around acquisitions that cover everything from target evaluation, negotiations, financing, due diligence and all legal documentation through purchase? Or is it more ad hoc project planning as circumstances warrant? In either case are roles and responsibilities clear and what role does the CFO and his / her organization play?
The Finance Team	How do you ensure a strong, engaged team? How do you ensure they are treated with the respect they deserve by the non-finance departments? What are some good tips and tricks for finding and retaining a strong team? How do you prevent burnout and staff turnover? How to you create a culture that values the finance staff and the role that they play?
Building your Finance and Accounting team	Do you have separate Accounting and FP&A functions? Do you lead each of those functions or do you have a #2 Executive in your department that manages these functions (or others?) If so,
Business Unit Structure	Have you structured business units in a complex multi-product environment? If so, how did you do it and what worked well and what didn’t? Would also like to know how you structured the management of the business units
I am currently focused on CyberSecurity and efforts to be in front of the issue.	What best practices have you put in place recently? Have you reviewed insurance coverage for security breaches? Recommendations for Outsourced CTO services.
Asia expansion.	Anyone have experience with hiring/establishing a local presence in Asia?
Budget Planning	Has anyone used Zero Based Budgeting as a means to get deep into spending areas? If so, was it worth the time and how did the process
Internal Audit Process	Curious on rigor of Internal Audit Process and role of group within your company (financially vs. operationally focused, approach to audit planning, consultative vs. enforcers, etc.)?

These are only A FEW of the discussions we have had in CFO Peer Group so far in 2015.

As the year progresses, my CFOs will be sharing, learning, growing and networking, both in our continued conference calls, as well as at our first in-person meeting this November in Chicago.

My questions to you

As a CFO, wouldn’t you want to be able to share these types of questions with your peers?

As a CEO or Board member, aren’t these the types of things you want your CFO to have the support for?

There is help for the Lonely CFO.

Create your own CFO Peer Group. Or ask to join mine. I might be able to make room.

June 30, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

A CFO Success Story: Christine Russell, CFO of UniPixel

Christine Russell, CFO of UniPixel

The following is from an interview with Christine Russell, recently hired as CFO of UniPixel, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Congratulations on your move to UniPixel. What are you excited about in your new role?

CR: I have been a Silicon Valley CFO for 30+ years and I’ve been involved in all kinds of different technologies. I’ve worked in many different industries, but there is a fundamental formula consisting of three elements for success that I’ve found in my companies and if they have this formula to start with, then they are going to meet with success.

First, the company really needs to be serving a large market (in the multi-billions) and that way in your growth cycle if you’re capturing only 10% of market share, you’re still a company with hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. I’ve never enjoyed going to companies that are targeting a niche market where you don’t need 80% of the market and you’re a 200 million dollar company and there’s nowhere to go from there.

The second criteria is the product needs to be something that’s really useful and can be differentiated in the market. It can be either technological advantages, cost advantages, usability or some combination of these. It has to be something that people really need, and not something that we need to go out and convince everyone they need. Finally, the CEO needs to be a leader – somebody thoughtful, decisive, and with a bias for action. They need to have an impeccable reputation in the industry. Someone I’m really proud to present to investors and who customers can stand beside. To me, UniPixel has all of these elements – a multi-billion dollar addressable market in touch screen devices that have both technological and cost advantages and a CEO with a deep background in display and optical and who has run public companies before with great success.

Quick Takes from Christine on…
The formula for a great company:
1) Serves a large market.
2) Creates a useful and differentiated product.
3) Has a really well-rounded CEO.

Networking: Successful networking means making lifelong friends and giving back.

Successful Female CFOs: Executives need to make their career a priority. There is no such thing as balance. It’s a compromise. It’s what you choose to do with your life.

Females on Boards: Recruit your board by individual, irrespective of race, sex, country of origin. Hire the best for the board. Period.

Managing your Board: Over-communication and transparency creates trust.

The Best CEOs for CFOs: Confident CEOs are able to share their powerbase with the CFO and treat them as a trusted partner.

Advice to up-and-coming female CFOs: Be absolutely fearless. Brainstorm with your other executives, and shut up and listen – you will learn a lot.

SD: How do CFOs get matched with great companies? What did you do to get to this company?

CR: I was approached for the UniPixel opportunity by a colleague who I knew in Silicon Valley for many years. He introduced me to the CEO, Jeff Hawthorne, and told me that he had worked with Jeff before and that he was an excellent and effective CEO. He told me that Jeff was respected for his deep knowledge in the display and optical industry. So a personal recommendation is extremely valuable. Always.

The way I joined my prior company was through a board member who was a committee chair who I knew from professional organizations. So again, it’s about who you know.

SD: How did you become so well networked?

CR: First of all, because I don’t really like the concept of networking, I think of people as friends. Friends help one another. I’ll tell you a little story about how I came to know some of these people, especially the gentleman who recommended me at Vendavo: I belong to a professional organization called Financial Executives International and I always enjoyed attending the Silicon Valley meetings. One day they approached me and asked if I would be willing to become the president of the organization. I was doing an IPO for a company at the time so I said I was too busy. I was set straight by one of my corporate outside lawyers. He looked at me and asked if I enjoyed going to the organization and if I found it helpful. So I said oh yeah, the people are wonderful. And he said, so when do you give back? I left his office and I immediately called up the board and told them I would accept the position. I have no idea how I did that while I was doing an IPO, but I did it, and then those people went on to become very good friends of mine and they really helped me. They help you and you help them.

SD: Most Senior Finance Executives don’t do enough networking.

CR: No they don’t, and I think they’re missing an opportunity to meet people who can be a lifetime friend and find out about opportunities that go both ways. They look out for you and you look out for them. And I will say that executive recruiting certainly has its own place. A search firm located me through my LinkedIn profile for a previous position that I held at Evans Analytical Group.

SD: If you look at the percentage of women at the CFO level, it’s not representative of the number of females in finance. What is your take on that?

CR: First of all, I think there are more women in HR and finance than there are in many other positions. I think that you have to have a certain amount of ambition and time that you’re willing to devote away from your family if you want to see the executive staff table. I was once on a panel where one of the panelists got a question asking a woman how she balanced her work and home life. Her response was you don’t. She devoted a lot of time to her work life at the expense of her home life. There is no such thing as balance. It’s a compromise. It’s what you choose to do with your life.

SD: What are your thoughts on the social discussion about females on boards?

CR: I’ve always thought that you should recruit your board by individual, irrespective of race, sex, country of origin, or anything that is unrelated to finding the best people you can who will accelerate your business. I know I’m going against the grain by saying that, but I think that a board member has to be highly qualified to be a board member. Especially in these times of challenges and activist investors. You need to have the very best qualified individual you can find.

SD: How have you as CFO managed to get the best relationship possible with the board that you had at various companies throughout your career?

CR: I have learned to over-communicate with the board. I will communicate very regularly and frequently and I wait for people to tell me “Christine, quit calling me!” Then I know that I’ve done enough communicating. I’m very transparent with them if there are problems or issues. If there is anything they don’t like about something, they can talk to me about it. But over-communication and transparency create trust.

SD: Some CFOs have said that the CEO can sometimes get in the way of effective communication with the board. What’s your take on that?

CR: I think that’s a valid comment. Just as there are all kinds of personalities of people in the world, there’s all kinds of personalities of CEOs. Some are very transparent and some are very controlling, but you’re not going to have someone become CEO if they don’t have a controlling personality. Some are more concerned about protecting their relationship with the board and trying to keep that relationship exclusive, seeing as it’s about power. More confident CEOs are able to share that powerbase with the CFO and treat them as a trusted partner.

SD: Where do you get the energy for all of the many accomplishments you have had in your career?

CR: I don’t know what else to do! I don’t have hobbies, I don’t play an instrument, and I can’t sing or dance… I’m a working cat! That’s what I do. And I’m good at it and I think as long as I have the ability to contribute and help create jobs, companies and ROI for investors, I’m going to keep doing it.

SD: What advice would you give to a young female CFO?

CR: I would say that you have to be absolutely fearless. One of the things that I did wrong earlier in my career was I thought I had all of the answers, but if you don’t get buy-in with some of the other members of the executive staff, it doesn’t really matter. Enter in the brainstorming conversations with the executives. Ask for everyone’s ideas, no matter how crazy those ideas may be. Create a common mind rather than coming in with all of the answers. Shut up and ask others what they think!

SD: What are you most excited about in your new role?

CR: I’m really excited about this being a pivotal time for UniPixel. We just acquired the Atmel touch film technology and the production facility in Colorado Springs. We are combining the best aspects of the UniPixel technology that we worked on with Kodak and the Atmel technology to come up with something that is more than just one plus one. I’m also very excited about the CEO I’m working with. The number of people he knows and who greeted him at a recent information display convention in San Jose was very heartening for me.

I recently visited the newly acquired Colorado Springs facility and the energy level there is amazing. These people are now able to work with a much smaller, more nimble and flexible company rather than being under a small vision of a large company. The energy level there is still like a start-up.

SD: What is the top thing you need to accomplish in this new phase of the company?

CR: Finance and admin are thinly staffed. I have to get comfortable with a minimum amount of support and identify the positions that I need to upgrade, as well as bringing in proper software and processes for finance. Even though that’s a lot of work, it’s an advantage because you’re not inheriting someone else’s ideas for a business.

SD: Is there something that you feel you would like to tell the CFOs who read this blog?

CR: Stick together! Form groups and partnerships. Join professional organizations and become a cohesive group so that if you’re ever in a bind –finding yourself in need of a boilerplate template for a sales commission plan for staff delivered software, for example – you can pick up the phone, email or text another CFO and ask if they have ever dealt with something similar. Those kinds of professional contacts and friendships are amazingly helpful and allow you to shortcut so many of the things that you would otherwise be handling alone.

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April 23, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 3 Comments

A CFO Success Story: Ken Goldman, CFO of Everbridge

This following is from an interview with Ken Goldman, recently hired as CFO of Everbridge, as announced in CFO Moves. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Ken, congratulations on your recent hire by Everbridge as their new CFO.

KG: Thanks Samuel. This is my 10th CFO assignment in 34 years. I had the advantage before joining Everbridge of having known Jaime Ellertson, the CEO, for 8 years. I had lots of points of reference that allowed me to come in with more information than most people have when they join a company.

SD: What is it about the tech space that keeps you coming back again and again and again?

KG: Of my 10 CFO assignments, 8 of them were in technology (new world), 2 in the old world.

What I like about technology is the fast pace, the amount of innovation that takes place. It is higher risk, higher reward. I love the feeling of the wind in my hair. I like the idea of driving fast. This is one of those opportunities where my only frustration is that there are not enough hours in the day. I feel very fortunate that 34 years into my career I am very excited to go into work every day. I get up at the ungodly hour of 4:45am and I’m in the office at 6 o’clock. Not because I have to but because I love what I do.

SD: It’s great to be in such an environment. You mentioned ‘higher risk, higher reward’. I’d like to touch on that just a little bit. Imagine you weren’t a CFO and that you only had general business experience, and you would say the words “Chief Financial Officer”. The perception of such a CFO would not fit who Ken Goldman is.

KG: If you think about, going back 20 – 30 years ago. CFOs were thought about as the Chief Accountant, Green Eye Shade, Risk Manager. They were someone to protect the company. While protection is part of my mandate, I would say that it really starts with enablement. My job is to enable the company to achieve success and greatness. I spend all of my time thinking about “How to do I do that?” Yes, protection is important, limiting the downside. But nobody ever built a company by just limiting downside. It’s about investing in upside.

SD: I’m interested in learning from you how you bridge the gap in a technology environment where you have visionaries and creatives that are running around you and coming up with hair brained schemes that can or cannot work, that needs to be thought through. How do you deal with being the grounded business person in an environment of giddy creatives?

KG: I’m not always the most popular person at the cocktail party being the voice of reason. The good news is that having done this a few times I can strike the appropriate balance between yeah, let’s jump out of the plane and put the parachute on the way down vs. let’s jump with 2 parachutes on firmly in place.

Part of the reason a company like this hires somebody with my amount of grey hair is because they want somebody who can do this. When I talk about risk / reward, downside, risk mitigation, alternatives, it’s from a position of having done it before, I’m not just thinking about it for the first time. I have the scars and the failures to prove it. It’s all about balance. You can be a gambler or put it all on red or black, you can win everything or lose everything, or you can be more conservative and take a more thoughtful approach.

As a good CFO, it’s about understanding the upside potential compared to the downside potential. It’s about making informed intelligent decisions as opposed to just rolling the dice.

SD: You talked about not enough hours in the day. In my peer group recently, I asked my CFOs how they are doing. They all say that they are busy. I have never met a CFO who ever said that they weren’t busy. How do you manage? What is your key to dealing with ‘there is not enough hours in the day’?

KG: It’s about being really good at juggling lots of balls at the same time. It’s about understanding the concept of triage. It’s about hopefully seeing around corners and out of the back of my head and hoping that in the 100 things that I have to do in any given day, I get the most important 99 done. I have what I call 51% days, where I consider it a good day because I got 51% of what I had to get done, done, but I’m frustrated that I didn’t get the other 49% done. In some ways I call it job security, because it’s not like I am going to die of boredom, but the other side of it is worrying about what was that one thing I didn’t get to today that was mission critical?

And a lot of it is because I am 3 weeks into the job and I’m still developing relationships with my team and making sure that they understand that if something is mission critical, don’t just send me an email along with the 150 that I got that day and assume that I understand the mission criticality of that email. If it is really important, come see me. If it is really important, text me. If it is really important, find the appropriate channel to communicate so that it does not get lost in the fray. Eventually I am going to get to all 150 emails, but like everyone else I use emails for time shifting. Some emails I’m going to take care of tonight when I get home. Some of them I will not get to when I clean up my emails this weekend when I get to the 400 emails I didn’t get to this week. I try as best I can to look at the header on every email as it comes in to try to figure out ‘is this something I need to drop everything else for’? Some of that is luck, some of that is skill, and a lot of it is experience.

SD: You talked about team. Most CFOs agree with me when I say that a CFO can only be as good as the team they have allows them to be. What is your approach to ensuring you have the best team possible to support you?

KG: In an ideal world, you get to go out and hire all superstars. Start with the fact that the hiring process is imperfect, all the people that you’d like to hire are not necessarily available at the time you’d like to hire them, and there is a time to ramp up. There is a lot of value to incumbency. I am very fortunate coming in to Everbridge that I have a team, some of whom have been here 5 to 7 years, They have incredible institutional knowledge, a good core skill set, and in some cases it is a question of the right management and mentorship. I believe that great employees are not necessarily hired, they are developed over time. I believe based on what I have seen so far, the people that I have today are keepers.

Even in my own job, in my own career, I believe I earn my job every single day. If I do a good job today, I get invited back tomorrow. If I don’t do a good job today, I probably don’t get called back tomorrow. It’s not that you are at risk every single day. The number one thing I look for in an employee beyond being qualified and capable, is work ethic. I want employees who have that solid work ethic, because to me, that is what gets you through the times when you don’t have enough hours in a day.

Again, I’m fortunate here to have a good core team. I think one of the things that experience teaches me is how to assess that pretty quickly. I said before hiring is imperfect because everyone puts on their best suit in the hiring process, we sell the candidate why are a great place to work, a candidate tries to sell us on why they can walk on water and turn lead into gold. It’s not till you’ve worked with someone for a while that you realize their strengths and weaknesses. If you’re lucky, you make a reasonably good choice. Perfect choices, sometimes happen, sometimes don’t. You try to do the best you can.

SD: Let’s switch over to what you are excited about at Everbridge. What’s on tap for you to accomplish going forward?

KG: Every time I look at a job opportunity I start with thinking at it from the standpoint of “if I were an investor, would I invest in this company”. As far as I’m concerned, if I’m taking a job, I am making an investment. I can either invest my money or my time, my career and my reputation.

I look for 4 things. Large addressable market, good financial results, company with a leadership position and elements of their business plan that make them / gives them a strategic competitive advantage and a great team.

At Everbridge, this is a team with a proven track record. They have all worked together multiple times. Jaime Ellertson, our CEO, is probably among the best CEOs that I have ever come across. We have a great team, with a large addressable market, great financial results, and lots of development that give us a strategic advantage. If I wasn’t given the job opportunity, I still would have invested in this company.

What I’m excited about is, we’re moving fast, we’re growing quickly, and that doesn’t happen just by momentum. We’re growing quickly, not because we are doing everything right, but almost everything right. I can say we are doing everything right, but nobody is perfect. We’re getting market validation, we’re growing at a rapid clip, picking up signature accounts, and rolling out new products. At the end of the day, the market votes with their dollars. If your revenue is growing, you’re probably doing something right. And we’re doing more than something right. That’s the most exciting thing because we have that growth, and that gives us options.

When I say options… I describe the role of the CFO – create, maintain, increase and ultimately realize shareholder value. At the end of each day, I measure each day by whether I helped create, maintain, increase or realize shareholder value. If I can check that box, than I can probably come back tomorrow. To me, this opportunity is about creating great shareholder value. We are a for profit company, we have investors, we have stakeholders besides outside investors (employees and customers). Increasing shareholder value benefits everybody.

SD: Ken, thanks for taking the time to share you CFO Success Story with my readers. Your passion for what you do comes through, and I wish you continued success and fun.

KG: Thanks Samuel.

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December 19, 2014 By Samuel Dergel Leave a Comment

2014: Top 5 of Samuel’s CFO Blogs

As we wind down 2014 and get set for the holidays we all take stock of the year past.

In 2014, my blog turned into a website, led to the publishing of a book for CFOs, and multiple speaking and training sessions during the year. For my CFO blog itself, these were the 5 most popular blog posts visited by my readers.

5) Road Map to Successful CFO Relationships

This original posting was the beginning of the thought process that led to my first book, Guide to CFO Success.

4) Negotiating your CFO Employment Contract

What is interesting about the popularity of this post is that the visits have been mostly from Google searches and other blog postings. Posted in 2011, this is still going strong. Ideas from this blog were further developed in Guide to CFO Success.

3) Introducing: The Strong CFO Program – 1st session FREE

My first blog on financial executive coaching continues to be a point of reference for senior finance executives looking for guidance and support to grow and succeed.

2) The First 90 Days of a New CFO

It seems that CFOs are looking for onboarding advice, because this continues to be a popular topic with search engines. The popularity of this topic ensured that it was addressed further in Guide to CFO Success.

1) Presentation Links: The Road to CFO

My presentation in Vancouver in 2012 continues to be a popular point of entry into my blog and website. Someone somewhere referred to it, and this person must be very influential.

With 2015 about to start, I am pleased to continue the development of content and programs that benefit the CFO and the organizations they are committed to. I am excited about the CFO Peer Groups I will be facilitating this coming year, as well as having the opportunity to help organizations hire and develop the best senior financial talent for their needs.

I am also looking forward to making a difference to you.

Best wishes for continued success in 2015!

Samuel

December 16, 2014 By Samuel Dergel 3 Comments

CFOs: Make 2015 the year you take your game to the next level

With 2015 approaching, many senior financial executives are thinking about what the new year will mean to their workload; deadlines, projects, bonuses (both to pay and to be received), staffing concerns and loads of other stresses. The thoughts are all about what needs to get done and what they are ultimately responsible for.

For the busy and stressed Chief Financial Officer with the weight of the world (or at least their company) on their shoulders, the approach of the holidays and the New Year should give you pause. Think about how to make things better.

There are 24 hours in a day, and, whether you plan for it or not, they will always be filled. As my CFOs told me when writing Guide to CFO Success, more than three-quarters of CFOs are putting in more than 110% of their effort into their role as senior financial executive in their organization.

CFOs are expected to accomplish more than just the day to day accounting and finance tasks. They are expected to be leaders. They need to lead their finance team, lead their colleagues at the executive table and lead the company as a whole. You need to remember that, as CFO, your input is needed to help the company make sound strategic and operational decisions.

As the noted in this 2014 study from American Express:

For eight out of ten respondents, the finance function is a strong, if not dominating, influence on strategic and operational decisions. (See Figure) The finance function is involved with strategic and operational decisions at nearly every company, and 80% of respondents say that the finance viewpoint is either an influential factor or the determining factor.

The expectation is that, as leader of Finance, your opinion counts. What you have to say is influential within the company. Yet too many CFOs feel that they are getting stuck in the details.

How can a CFO get unstuck and take their game to the next level?

Formal training

As an experienced professional, you know you can benefit from continued education that makes a real difference to your career and your employer. Options that can benefit you while meeting your busy schedule can include:

An Executive MBA – This could be an excellent tool to move you beyond the technical you have relied upon to date. Many Executive MBA programs are tailored to the busy executive and should not impact your work schedule much.

CFO oriented Leadership Programs – An executive training program focused on taking a CFO to the next level might be ideal for the senior finance executive that either already has an MBA, or feels the need to build their career knowledge based with a group of similarly experienced individuals. Programs like the Queen’s CFO Leadership Beyond Finance Program, in partnership with FEI Canada, can be an ideal solution.

Online training – When you know what skills you need to improve on and which you need to learn for the first time, online courses can be an ideal solution. If your company has access to leadership and soft-skill courses, make sure that you take advantage of this opportunity. You could also look at service providers like Proformative Academy to give you a choice of options that will suit your training needs, as well as those of your finance team.

Peer Groups

Chief Financial Officers are positioned at the intersection of their finance team, their executive colleagues, and the CEO and the Board. Being at this junction in their organization can make it difficult for them to learn from and share with others. Many CFOs have told me that they feel lonely in their organization, and don’t have people to discuss their challenges with.

The solution to this loneliness can be being part of a group of CFO peers. I recently discussed C-Suite Peer Groups in a blog on BlueSteps. You can become part of an existing group, or create your own.

For 2015, I am creating CFO Peer Groups for a select group of CFOs across the USA and Canada. These selected Chief Financial Officers will commit to work together, learn, share and network with each other. I am excited to facilitate these groups in 2015. I expect that the participating CFOs will take their game up to the next level.

Executive Coaching

Each of the CFOs that I have worked with as their executive coach has been able to step up their game. Executive coaching for the CFO (or future CFO) can be very beneficial to the executive and the company they work for. It is my experience that, like athletes, CFOs perform better with a coach who is well suited for them.

As we approach 2015, it is time to take your game to the next level.

Whether you choose to take the formal approach to learning, get together with your peers to learn, share and network, or engage an executive coach, any step you take to improve yourself and your game is a good step.

What will you do to improve your game in 2015?

Being CFO is a challenge.

Being CFO can be lonely but it doesn’t have to be.

There are only a few spaces available.

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