We have been speaking with Hoang Vuong for little more than a minute when he mentions the CFO mentor whom he credits with having influenced his early career decisions.

“Hey, what do you really want to do when you grow up?” was the question that Vuong remembers being asked by the CFO, who had gotten to know Vuong personally while the young techie had served as an IT troubleshooter for his company’s ambitious SAP implementation.

Fast-forward a few years, and the same CFO introduces Vuong to the management of an early-stage Internet search firm in the travel space, known as SideStep. Vuong joins the young company and subsequently focuses his troubleshooting skills on the firm’s mounting growth obstacles.

“I had started reading a bunch of blogs where I began learning about this little company called Google and the interesting things that they did,” recalls Vuong, who says that he quickly began to grasp how Google offerings could help SideStep to address some of its nagging growth challenges.

In fact, Vuong was so convinced that Google offerings would unlock new growth for SideStep that he ignored the doubts being flung about by his management peers, negotiated a contract with Google’s bus dev team, and presented it to SideStep’s CEO.

Vuong says that the CEO responded by asking: “Are you so sure about this decision that you would risk your career on it?” At the time, Vuong says, he felt that careerwise he had little to lose—and besides, the Google offerings were pretty impressive.   

“Google was just getting started, so at the time they would provide search results on the portals of other companies and do a rev share,” explains Vuong, who says that SideStep’s monthly revenues quickly ballooned from $50,000 to $1 million.   

Having successfully addressed one of SideStep’s most formidable growth hurdles, Vuong saw his responsibilities at Side Step grow over time to include sales, online marketing, operations, and, of course, finance—where he served in the first of his several CFO roles. –Jack Sweeney

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