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October 27, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 1 Comment

A CFO Success Story: Mark MacLeod

Mark MacLeod – Founder, SurePath Capital Partners

The following is from an interview with Mark MacLeod. Mark left his position as CFO of Freshbooks and started his own advisory firm – SurePath Capital Partners, as announced in CFO Moves Canada. This interview was edited for clarity.

SD: Mark, you’re not like other CFOs. You have gone in and out of being CFO so many times, and because you’ve been on multiple sides of the board table, I felt it would be interesting to hear your perspective. So to start off – which job do you prefer – the CFO Job or the outside advisor job?

MM: It’s not as simple as that. I live to do two things – One is to advise founders and management teams, and the other is to do complex financial transactions. The thing that I liked about being a CFO at start-ups is that they were often in need of both. When I created SurePath Capital Partners, I created a company that only does both those things. When I had been a CFO and had been a close advisor to the CEO’s that I’d served and got to work on lots of transactions, then I’m a really happy guy. If I’m the CFO of a company and it’s well capitalized and were not doing acquisitions, and we’re not being acquired – if we’re just kind of running the ship, then that’s not so great for me.

Quick Takes from Mark on…

Thinking out of the CFO box

You need to go way beyond finance. You need to step up and fill other operating capacities.

Relationship between CEO and CFO

Synergy – if the CEO is the technical founder, take on the more outward-facing aspects; if the CEO is outward-facing and a rainmaker, try to take on as much of the internal operations as possible.

Create an informal network of your peers

There are always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. Branch out to other Venture funded CFOs.

Capable management

The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership need to scale faster than the company is scaling.

Keeping sight of the bigger picture

Remember to not only work IN the business, but to also work ON it. Similarly, to not just work IN yourself, but also to work ON yourself. Delegate lesser tasks to free up time to work on growing your capacity.

SD: Let’s talk about what it takes for a technology CFO to be successful. You’ve played that role, you’ve advised people in that role, what makes a successful Tech CFO?

MM: Well, I’d say it is the ability to go way beyond finance. I think, when a company isn’t fund raising, the financing role is pretty simple, and you have to find other ways to add value. Often the management teams at start-ups are incomplete and so there’s room to go way beyond finance and fill in other operating capacities. I’ve definitely done that a lot. I’d say within the finance realm, first of all you have to have a very clear understanding of all the nuts and bolts in the business, particularly because often those businesses are burning money and so you must understand ‘good burn’ vs ‘bad burn’. Most businesses these days hinges on profitable unit economics, and so even though the business as a whole might be in the red, if these customers are profitable, and you understand the nuances of customer mass, that’s kind of crucial. And then I would say the ability to translate. For example, if you’d just walk in to an exec meeting and rattle off a bunch of numbers and metrics, it’s sort of somewhat useful, but you have to go way deeper. As an example, if “churn” (the number of people who cancel your service) has moved in one direction, its somewhat useful to give the data points on the movement, but it is far more useful to understand the root cause and give good guidance. So again, it’s being able to go beyond the numbers.

The approach I’ve always taken to the CFO world is to define the role in a way that gives the CEO maximum leverage. What I mean by that is – if the CEO is very technical founder, then I’ve always tried to take on some of the outward facing aspects, so that the CEO would be able to be building and shipping product. Whereas if that CEO is a very outward facing CEO and a rainmaker, then I’ve tried to take on as much as the internal operations as possible, so that person could be out of the office and know that things are still running. To me the CFO is the right hand of the CEO, and therefore you have to govern yourself or kind of define the role in a way that has the most impact on the CEO.

SD: You’ve been a CFO on a full time basis and CFO on part time basis. What’s the difference?

MM: Huge difference. Again, take everything I’ve said about taking on more operating responsibility, in the context of full time. If you think about the core of a business – the core of any business in the technology business is building product and selling product, just to generalize. The rest is in support of that. In that context, finance is always important, but it’s not a core thing. It’s relatively horizontal. It can transfer the same functions from one company to the next. And so outsourcing the core nuts and bolts of finance makes all kind of sense. But where you run into trouble is when you outsource finance to someone, but then try to get that someone to do a whole bunch of other things – that just doesn’t work. So the big difference for me is that when I was full time I was going way beyond the finance role, whereas when I was part time I stuck to the core nuts and bolts of running a very tight back office, investor relations, budgeting, fundraising, reporting, etc.

SD: I’ve asked number of tech companies who are looking for finance help “what do you need?” and they said “well, we would like a Mark MacLeod”. You have a brand to you that says “start-up tech CFO”. How would you recommend they find their own Mark MacLeod?

MM: That’s a tough one. You know it’s funny. In retrospect, it might have taken the hard way to get my experience. My first start up was a client of mine and I came in with absolutely no experience and just kind of stumbled along. And because I was very focused on deals and fund raising in particular; if I didn’t feel like that company was on the trajectory to really grow massively, I’d move on. And that resulted in a bunch of things. I exited positively in a relatively short time frame, or me concluding that they weren’t going to be exiting in a relatively short time frame. But the point of all that is my learning and development was compressed and accelerated by moving to different companies and getting exposure to different start-ups, different stages in their life cycle, and that whole bit. So that’s one path.

I was very lucky because I got into start-ups very early, back in the late 90’s when anyone with a pulse was getting funded. The environment was pretty forgiving. So that could be a path today – someone who has kind of hustled around and has been involved in some fund raising, and has shown a propensity and an aptitude to be able to talk about things that are beyond the numbers.

But I’ll tell you… the whole thing about start-ups and venture capitalists is it’s all about the outliers. And while I’ve been part of some great businesses, the biggest learning opportunities and the biggest development, the most scope and the most exposure is when I was part of the outliers. Like Shopify and Freshbooks. So the point of that is hiring someone with that pedigree, even if they haven’t had the CFO title. If you’ve gone through Shopify’s growth, from 100 to 700 people, if you’ve gone through all the things that come with that and you understand how systems scale and you understand how to do really amazing investor reporting, and how to build sophisticated budgets and how to scale a finance function, that’s amazing experience. I’ve learned through trial and error that QuickBooks falls apart when you cross 100 employees. And then you end up having to go to a NetSuite or an Intact or something. Knowing that coming in, because you’ve come from a place with scale, would be pretty interesting.

So it’s really 2 different profiles. It is someone who is really helpful and has had some exposure through a few different companies so that they can pattern match. Or it’s someone who has come from a bigger company, one that the start-up aspires to be.

SD: Am I correct in saying that nobody can really hire Mark MacLeod because Mark learned it from the companies that he did the work in? I mean, you’re beyond that start-up age CFO that is young and has just enough experience but not too much, who’s not looking to take home too much cash and is more willing to put it down for the future. Do I understand that correctly?

MM: If someone wants to hire a Mark MacLeod, well a Mark MacLeod has been 2 decades in the making and is still being made, you know what I mean? They don’t exist. You have to hire someone who looks nothing like what I look like now. Hire someone who I was like 15-20 years ago, which means you’re really taking a chance. I got in because the environment was so frothy. And I would say that I stayed for 2 reasons – 1 maybe as you said, I don’t look like most CFO’s, because it’s never been just about the numbers for me, it’s always been about the strategic context around the numbers. So it was always the bigger picture. I’d say the thing that really helped make me stand out is I had a huge passion for venture capital. And for getting into the venture community and making deals happen. If a company is running out of money and hiring you helps them get money, then that should really sell itself. But in the early days that’s really how I got into a lot of start-ups. When I was doing the part time CFO stuff, the real sweet spot was that I would take companies and get them ready for the next round of funding, I would raise it for them, and then stay on as their CFO. That’s how I was kind of paying my way. So it’s a different context.

SD: What’s the ideal CFO for you to work with?

MM: I don’t know that there is just one to be honest. If I am helping a company fundraise or helping them prepare for an exit, I think that in both cases the deal will very much be driven by the strength of the management team. It’s not like I simply want a technician in there because I can handle the strategy stuff. I’d be more than happy to work with a very strategic deal-making CFO. I think that doing great big deals is a team sport, not like an individual hero sport. I think I’m equally happy to work with an internal deal maker, as I am to work with someone who’s got super tight back office. I think the takeaway is that one way or the other, we need both. So if the person is just the big deal maker and the back office is not super tight, that’s going to make it harder for me to do what I do. One way or another we have to have both the substance and the spot.

SD: What advice would you give to new CFOs who are just at the start of their career?

MM: Talk to peers a lot. There’s always folks who are a little bit ahead of you in terms of scale and experience and complexity, and you can learn a ton from them. You could also create an informal network, talking to other venture funded CFOs and the portfolio. Makes a ton of sense. I think this is true not just for CFOs but for any role. The whole thing about being a C-level executive in a venture backed company is that your competency and leadership has to scale faster than the company is scaling. And so in that context, having a coach who can help you work through issues and help you scale is super important as well.

SD: How did you make time for important things? Things that were related to your career and employer, but there was no deadline attached to it?

MM: I think I have a certain level of self-awareness. So I knew that I needed to not only work IN the business but also work ON it. And similarly to not just work IN myself, but to also work ON myself. I never have been the kind of technician who is always dotting I’s and crossing T’s. As a result I was able to push that kind of work down to the right level and that gave me capacity to work on growing my capacity, if that makes sense.

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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 and CFO Moves Canada, Samuel’s popular and comprehensive weekly report on CFO Movement across the USA and Canada.

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.

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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.

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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January 28, 2015 By Samuel Dergel 1 Comment

Analytics, Shmanalytics? Why the CFO should care

The office and the role of the Chief Financial Officer continues to evolve.

This evolution may cause apprehension in some seasoned CFOs. These experienced financial executives feel this way because, in part, they have worked very hard to get to where they are. They believe that their past experience and success should speak to their future opportunities.

Yet for any executive, especially one in the finance side of the business, resting on your laurels is so 1980s.

The world is changing at a rapid pace, and the business world is either leading this change or trying hard to stay ahead. Organizations that do not continue to stay relevant wither up and disappear into obscurity. Ditto for CFOs.

Cindy Kraft, a CFO career coach, works with CFOs who want to stay ahead of the curve in their career. I like her work, and am always happy to refer senior finance executives to her. As a fellow blogger, she and I agree most of the time. In recent posts (here and here) she discusses technology and its relevance to CFO careers.

The statistics from Cindy’s questions on whether technology should be in the domain of Finance is interesting. I believe the results would be more telling if there was corresponding information on company size. From my experience, companies of a smaller size have CFOs responsible for IT, while larger companies have an executive in charge of Technology.

From my vantage point, CFOs who are able to stay ahead of the changes in the business world, including technology, are able to continue to stay relevant and add value.

So why does Analytics matter to the CFO?

In my book, Guide to CFO Success, I ask and answer “What is a Chief Financial Officer?” in the first chapter (you can preview a copy of Chapter One here). To summarize, I say that a CFO is a Strategist, Leader and Advisor.

Corporate value comes from making great decisions. Decisions based on analysis rather than gut is where Finance and the CFO have the ability to make a difference at the executive table. Technology is just a tool that helps intelligent people make great decisions.

CFOs need to be a Strategists, Leaders and Advisors to their businesses. If a CFO is not helping the company make decisions and adding value to the organization, they are not a Strategist, not a Leader and not an Advisor. In essence, they are not a real CFO.

To continue to be a real Chief Financial Officer today, you need to be able to help your organization make the best decisions possible.

The term Big Data has been bandied about as the cure-all for corporations. Technology vendors are very happy to use the term to get attention and their portion of corporate spending. But data itself is not enough, no matter how big the data is.

The Data Value Chain illustrates that data is only the beginning. It is the usable information that is pulled from this data, viewed through the lens of intelligence, either human or artificial (or both), that wisdom can be obtained.

As CFO, it is your duty to provide wisdom to your organization. This wisdom will lead to the creation of corporate value. Analytics is the point where you turn all that data into valuable decisions.

If you’re not providing the wisdom you would like (or think that you should) to the rest of the business, understand why that is.

Is it because…

You do not have the tools?
You do not have the people? Or,
You do not know where to start?

As CFO, no one expects you to be intimately aware of the available tools and be able to analyse this yourself. However, as CFO, you are only as good as your finance team allows you to be.

As CFO, no one expects you to choose the right analytical tools by yourself. As CFO, no one expects you alone to do the analysis necessary to come to great decisions. However, as CFO, you need to make sure your team can support you in this value added activity. As CFO, understand the power of these tools and information yourself of what they can do. Then you need to guide, lead and develop the team necessary to do so.

I had the pleasure of meeting RK Paleru at the AICPA CFO Conference last May. RK is the Analytics guru (Executive Director, Systems Analytics and Insights Group) to the CFO at George Washington University.

RK blogged about an article I shared with him about the idea of companies hiring a Chief Analytics Officer. While I do not think that most companies are ready to create another seat at the executive table, I do think that Analytics can add tremendous value to the executive table. I am certain that the CFO of GWU thinks that the analytics that RK does bring tremendous value to the CFO, as well as adding significant value to the institution and its mission.

Anders Liu-Lindberg wrote recently about his take on Analytics within the finance function. Anders, from where he sits in his role as Regional Finance Business Partner at Maersk Line, sees corporate value ONLY IF the talent team is built properly within finance is able to partner with the generalist functions. Finance should act as a true business partner to the business, helping make decisions at all levels of the business.

CFOs who do not continue to improve, change and learn will, as mentioned earlier, wither. Resting on laurels is career limiting.

If, as CFO, your response to “Analytics” is “Analytics, Shmanalytics”, you’re not only missing the boat, you’re doing a disservice to your employer and your team.

To remain CFO, both today and tomorrow, both within your company and at your next employer, understand the power of Analytics. Then, ensure you develop and nurture a finance team that can give you the wisdom to help your company make great decisions.

October 1, 2014 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

Thoughts About Successful CFO Hiring

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

Here are some of the things that were discussed. (You can find the listen to, download or find the iTunes link below)

Helping companies hire their next CFO with the correct chemistry for the company.

Key reasons a company needs to work with an executive search firm to hire their next CFO.

The courtship process in hiring a new CFO.

Voice clip of Brad Dickerson, CFO at Under Armour, previously interviewed Jack Sweeney, discussing what he wished he knew at the beginning of his CFO career.

Young CFOs who are “Jumping the curve”.

“Patience is a virtue, and CFOs need to be virtuous.”

“Today’s CFO is all encompassing. CFOs have to be involved and responsible for everything. As CFO, you need to know what you can and cannot do. The importance of the complete finance team allows you to be as successful as possible.”

Private Equity firms and the influence they have over the placement of CFOs in mid-size market.

“The CFO is a significant part of the valuation of a company.”

The CFO career path – jumping to larger ship vs. niching down.

CFO Hiring – from within the same industry or outside the industry?

If any of these topics are of interest to you, you will find this podcast to be worth listening to. (23 minutes)

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

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

February 6, 2014 By Samuel Dergel 2 Comments

3 Lessons Learned: The Failure of Heenan Blaikie

The Canadian legal and business communities are getting over the shock that a storied, successful and well known establishment corporate law firm has decided to shut its doors this week. (Read the Financial Post: Heenan Blaikie partners vote to wind up operations)

Heenan Blaikie has been an icon in the business community in Canada for decades. The fact that it can just disappear and disintegrate in a matter of weeks leaves many lessons to be learned. Here are some of the things that were reinforced for me this week.

#3 – Job security is a myth

The only place that job security exists is in your head. There is no such thing as a safe, life-long, job.

Throughout my career in recruitment, I have always heard from individuals that were looking for the safety and security of a career in a firm that is too big to fail. And every so often, stories of failures, restructurings, refocused strategies and mass-layoffs make the headlines. If you would have asked any employee (and many partners) this past December if they had any fear for their career with the firm, they would have given you a look that would be a mix between being puzzled and that you must be out of your mind.

Don’t ever think you have job security. I don’t care what company you work for, even if you work for supposedly secure jobs in government. You job is at risk. If you don’t want to be unemployed, or to minimize your time in transition, you must build and invest in your network. You can only expect your network to work for you if you have invested in it before.

If you’re a CFO or senior finance professional, you may want to read my chapter on CFO Transition in my upcoming book.

#2 – Beware the multi-headed monster

If you’re my age, you remember Sesame Street well. You will also remember the two-headed monster with a smile.

Professional services firms have a challenge becoming a business like the others. The nature of this type of firm (accounting, legal, engineering, marketing or even executive search) can be very perplexing. In most publicly owned businesses, the boss is the CEO and the Board represents the owners. Managing relationships for an executive in a standard environment can be challenging enough. While there is a chain of command, the number of people to keep happy is limited and controlled.

In a professional services firm, every partner is the boss. Add a number of people with big egos and who are not afraid of litigation and you can find yourself facing a multi-headed monster that is not as cute and cuddly as the Sesame Street version.

Managing relationships is a key component for the success of any executive. From the perspective of a CFO, I believe it looks like this. In my soon to be released book, I discuss the issues of managing these relationships for success, and dedicate one chapter to the challenges of managing the relationships of the people you report to.

#1 – The world is changing. Are you?

This applies to all businesses as well as individuals.

The post-mortem on Heenan Blaikie will continue for a while. When a personal relationship breaks up, there is his story, her story and the truth. In a partnership that has many heads and egos, the story can only be more complicated.

From an informed outsider’s perspective, the legal industry has been going through changes in the past years and decades, mirroring the changes that have been going on in rest of the business world. In today’s world, business needs to grow to keep their competitive advantage, needs to assess strategic opportunities and threats, and must take on a more global perspective while keeping a local flavor.

All businesses must adapt to the changing realities facing them. Failure to do so can lead to doors closing.

On a more personal note, each one of us needs to be aware that to continue to stay relevant and employable, we must continue to improve, change and adapt so that we can thrive. Sitting at your desk while the world changes outside your window will only leave you dazed, confused and lost when security leads you outside the building.

What are you doing to:

Create your own job security?
Get the best out of your work relationships?
Stay ahead of the curve in a continually changing world?

January 16, 2013 By Samuel Dergel 17 Comments

CFOs: Do you want to become a Controller? This CFO did just that.

Non-CFOs might think that CFOs are people that look backwards, not forwards. I speak with Chief Financial Officers every day, and I can tell you that they look are interested in moving forward with their careers. They want to improve, grow and succeed. They want their next career opportunity to be bigger, better and have more responsibility. Many CFOs want to be able to grow into the CEO role, and as I report each Monday morning in my CFO Moves blog, a number of CFOs do just that.

Cindy Kraft wrote a blog just yesterday called CFOs Really Can Move On and Up! which deals with how a CFO can position themselves for the CEO role.

So this CFO Move last week really caught my attention.

Courtesy of Xerox Corporation

Luca Maestri, CFO of Xerox, let his company know that he would be taking a position with a new company. This is not an uncommon occurrence.

He also informed his employer that he will be taking on the role of Controller at his new employer. This does not happen often.

Now you need to keep in mind that the new employer is Apple. But it is not like he was working for a small company either as CFO. He was working for Xerox!

So why would a CFO at one company become a Controller at another company?

I have not had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Maestri about his decision. I’m sure he had good reasons. If Mr. Maestri was consulting with me about the move I would most probably tell him that I think it’s a great move.

However, most CFOs are so focused on moving forward in their career and getting promoted that they often lose sight that the best opportunities for them may require ‘stepping down’ a little.

Luca Maestri did just that.

As CFO, what can you learn from Luca Maestri?

January 9, 2013 By Samuel Dergel 5 Comments

Different companies need different CFOs

CFOs are capable people. Sometimes, when a CFO is actively looking for their next opportunity, they are less selective in the type of company or CFO role that they choose. When they make a career choice that is not appropriate for them, they can spend years trying to repair the choice they made.

2013 has just started, and already there is new CFO oriented research that can help CFOs and the companies that hire them. Today’s CFO: While profile best suits your company? (Note: there is no charge for the report, but registration is required to download) by McKinsey & Company, identifies four profiles of today’s CFO:

The finance expert
The generalist
The performance leader
The growth champion.

The McKinsey report, authored by Ankur Agrawal, John Goldie, and Bill Huyett, identifies which companies can best benefit from each of these profiles.

Agrawal et al. do realize that most CFOs do not fit precisely into each of these profiles, and have provided questions that CEOs and Boards should ask when beginning their search for their next Chief Financial Officer.

As an executive search specialist helping companies hire their next CFO, I find the report clear and concise. Reading this report can help CFOs better position themselves for the remainder of their career, and help CEOs and Boards hire the right person they need in the CFO chair.

What type of CFO are you?

December 11, 2012 By Samuel Dergel 11 Comments

From Blogger to Author

I have been writing Samuel’s CFO Blog for the past year and half. The goal of my blog is to connect with and make a difference to CFOs, those on the path to CFO, as well as those that work with CFOs. I am grateful to have found an audience that appreciates and is interested in what I have to say and share on the topic of the Chief Financial Officer.

Is ‘being CFO’ an art or a science?

I believe that ‘being CFO’ is more social science than pure science. Yes, math is a key part of the delivery of the finance group, but success at the financial leadership level is more about building successful relationships. Numbers that balance are a given. Getting things accomplished in a multi-stakeholder environment is what makes a successful CFO stand out from his or her peers.

I am about to embark on a project that will challenge me in ways I have never been challenged before.

I will be writing a book.

The book, unnamed as of yet, will focus on what it takes to become a successful CFO. The goal is that my upcoming book will benefit the CFO of today and tomorrow. CFOs who read my book will not only be able to become better CFOs for their current employer, it will help them with their career as well.

So, as I embark on this new and exciting project, I would like your input. I am writing this for you.

What would you like me to include in your new book?

Please email me and let me know what you would like to be included in your new CFO book.

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