When Stéphane Berthier joined Uniphore of Palo Alto, CA, as CFO this past January, the move no doubt raised more than a few Silicon Valley eyebrows.

For more than two decades, Berthier had served a list of prestigious Bay Area tech companies as a top audit partner for PricewaterhouseCoopers, where his impressive tenure had originally been kicked off by his relocation from France to better serve one of the firm’s most coveted Silicon Valley clients: Hewlett-Packard.

During the next two decades, Berthier would become inducted into Silicon Valley’s coterie of familiar advisors and consultants known to provide sound advice to IPO-minded technology start-ups as well as software firms struggling to replace “on premise” customer revenue with new cloud-driven funds.  

“I stayed 20 years and loved every aspect of client service—this was a tough decision for me, but I think that it was the right time,” says Berthier, who describes Uniphore as being uniquely positioned to pursue the fast-growing tech opportunities in conversational AI.

Asked what his priorities are when it comes to the CFO role, Berthier doesn’t hesitate to tell us what he believes distinguishes great CFOs from good ones.

“From the accumulated knowledge gained from my experience in dealing with CFOs, I would say that a great CFO is someone who not just can report the numbers but also knows how to influence them,” he observes.

He continues: “It’s like landing a plane on time: People expect that, but what sets an airline apart is the customer experience. For CFOs, it’s insight into how to influence the numbers.”

Certainly, the notion that Berthier was vacating his esteemed industry practice to become one of the very CFOs he had for so long served came as a surprise to both past and present CFO clients. For some, Berthier’s January appointment begged the question of why the CFO advisor’s aspirations had not surfaced sooner.

Says Berthier: “There had been other opportunities to leave along the way, but I finally realized that I needed to be in the driver’s seat—so it just became a matter of finding the right company.” –Jack Sweeney

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