On the podcast today, Vikram welcomes James Solomons, an entrepreneur, renowned speaker, business leader, and enthusiastic podcast host. James currently serves as the CFO and C0-CEO of Xref, a global reference checking and identity verification platform that empowers organizations worldwide to make great people decisions. James has spent most of his time in public practice, evolving from a tax accountant to a CFO, and today, he shares with us this remarkable career journey and the importance of the evolution of CFOs and organizations as a whole.

James begins by discussing the origin of Xref, how Xref eases the hiring process in the workforce, and the transformation of his career, starting out as a tax accountant but growing to become a CFO. He also reviews the rules he follows as a CFO, and explains one of his favorite phrases, “Humanize the numbers”, which essentially means breaking down numbers in languages that teams aside from finance can clearly understand. Being a hiring company, the great resignation affected Xref significantly and James shares some of the changes that he had to make as the CFO in response. The show rounds off as James advises those in the workforce to always invest in referenceable relationships.

The Finer Details of This Episode:

• The story of Xref
• James’ career journey
• His evolution from accountant to CFO
• Becoming a cyber-resilient CFO
• The impact of the great resignation on James and Xref
• James’ interesting statistics
• Investing in referenceable relationships