CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Among the many flights that CFO Stefan Schulz has taken between Minneapolis and Houston over the years, few are etched in his memory better than a certain return flight to Minneapolis—during which he created an ambitious list of Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) action items. The list that Schultz created in the air that day was long and detailed, and while he may not have ever used it as such, the list was the muscle behind an ultimatum.

"I was thinking about all that I would need in order to get things fixed. Basically, I was thinking, 'If I don't get these, then you need to find somebody else,'" explains Schulz, who at the time had not yet been a month into a new job with Lawson Software when he determined that it was time to alert Lawson's board and upper management to its snowballing SOX compliance challenge.

"To my surprise, they told me, 'We want you to do exactly what you said' and 'We've got your back.' This really changed how I approached problems and how I would recommend solutions going forward," explains Schulz, who had earlier earned his SOX street cred while a controller at BMC Software.

Fourteen years and multiple tours of duty as a CFO later, Schulz is still flying back and forth between Houston and Minneapolis and still making lists. These days, his action items are more likely to highlight the priorities of a SaaS CFO for whom the new rules of customer-centric finance loom large and customer success is increasingly top-of-mind. –Jack Sweeney

It was late for a workday (perhaps after 9:00 p.m.) when Seb Martel shared his team's candid findings with a collection of top managers tasked with assessing the economic downturn's likely impact on BRP's business. As a manufacturer of popular vehicles for snow and water, BRP had a management that was naturally concerned that the downturn could wallop BRP's recreation-minded customers, depressing sales and raising doubts about whether BRP would meet its debt covenants.

Still, the question that remained top-of-mind for Martel was a question that the downturn posed to industry at large: "Is management prepared to listen?" Today, Martel believes that his forthrightness served him well that night—along with an unflinching confidence in the numbers. BRP's management listened and responded to Martel's clear-eyed message by taking steps to better manage all areas of business, while battening down any unnecessary risk-taking.

It's no secret that CFO careers are built on decades of experience that every so often yield unique places in time where an executive is permitted to transform before the eyes of others. So it was, perhaps, for Martel, who entered the CFO office within four years of the fateful night that he says even his CEO still likes to recall: "Remember that night when Seb presented the numbers?"

"The beauty that we have in finance is that we get to convince the organization by using a powerful tool called numbers. And if you know how to communicate a message with numbers, you can steer an organization in any direction," says Martel, while highlighting what many agree is the essence of CFO leadership—its very own lightning in bottle. –Jack Sweeney

TrainingPros CFO Jill Vogin describes her early-career public accounting experience as a “virtual master’s degree” in corporate finance and accounting. It was also something of a good omen, given that Vogin now leads the finance function of a highly specialized staffing company with virtual offices throughout the country and (more recently) around the world. It’s also fitting that Vogin oversaw the implementation of a cloud-based ERP system. Vogin discusses how she’s adapted her leadership style to suit the virtual environment while resetting her team’s expectations concerning performance and collaboration.

G1 Therapeutics CFO Barclay “Buck” Phillips set his sights on the CFO position on day one of his very first job back in high school. After he hustled home to share the great news about landing the part-time gig, Phillips’s father, a stock broker, shared some prescient advice: Son, always make sure you’re the guy whose hand is closest to the cash register or the cash flow—that way, you’ll always have the opportunity to add the most value. The advice struck a chord. Today, with close to three decades of capital markets, financial strategy, and business development experience in life sciences and venture capital under his belt, Phillips remains as close to the cash flow as possible. He owns responsibility for all finance operations, including treasury, as well as for investor relations, business development, and strategic transactions at the clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company that develops therapeutics to treat cancer. Phillips discusses the value that he’s contributed via innovative projects during his career, as well as the joy that he’s gained from those unique experiences.

A Chief Story Officer’s Legacy

Given that finance executives are the top number-crunchers in the organization, it’s fascinating to hear Traction on Demand CFO Corinne Hua describe people, conversations, and narratives as crucial factors in her strategic calculations at her consulting and software development firm. Hua views her function’s primary role as crafting a compelling story around the company’s financial results. Her team’s success in doing so has resulted in some interesting assignments, such as leading an effort to assess and rebalance the pace of hiring within an industry where new hires—consultants who produce billable hours—help to drive top-line revenue. The finance group's data-driven detective work produced three metrics that the business now monitors to ensure that the pace of hiring supports revenue growth objectives without negatively affecting organizational collaborations or workplace culture. The work marked a “great moment for us to act strategically” outside of traditional corporate finance boundaries, Hua reports, while helping each hiring manager throughout the entire organization to make better decisions.

Guidance for your C-Suite Ascent

A global finance executive with a passion for healthcare, Constellation Pharmaceuticals CFO Emma Reeve offers straightforward advice to aspiring finance chiefs: continually add new experiences to your backpack and take them with you to your next role. She’s certainly demonstrated that her approach works. Reeve’s 20-plus years of industry experiences extends across pharmaceutical, medical device and bio-pharma companies including big-name corporations (like Novartis, Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb) as well as development-stage biotech companies (Inotek Pharmaceuticals and Aton Pharma). While she methodically sought out experience in FP&A, accounting, investor relations and just about every other corporate finance function, Reeve credits her work outside the  finance and accounting realm – interacting with patient advocacy groups, partnering with business leaders and collaborating with the marketing function – with helping her reach the CFO office for the first time in 2002.

Chanticleer Holdings CFO Patrick Harkleroad knows how to distinguish between signals and noise. That’s evident when he’s helping colleagues mine an expanding trove of data for customer insights to improve customer experience at the company’s fast, casual, and full-service restaurant brands. It’s also the case when Harkleroad assesses his varied career experiences in investment banking (both capital markets ad mergers & acquisitions), the restaurant industry and while guiding struggling companies through turnarounds as a consultant to CFOs. He’s learned to pair his dogged determination and true-north focus with larger dose of empathy to better understand the unique perspectives of all stakeholders involved in difficult decisions and tough deals. Harkleroad also discusses the value that finance executives can derive by dedicating themselves to the “day-top-day grind” required to perform as an elite CFO.

From a career development standpoint, one of the best things William Acheson did to reach the CFO office was stepping away from corporate finance and accounting for 15 years. After coming up on the public acconting track, the GWG Holdings finance chief immersed himself in investment banking, the residential mortgage industry, capital markets, risk management, credit management and more while taking on a variety of operational roles. He also accepted long-term international assignments for Merrill Lynch and GMAC-RESCAP.  Acheson credits his accounting training and skills for helping him add value in his many operations positions. “As I got older and my career progressed, I found myself perfectly suited for the CFO job because I [had gained] that breadth of experience.” Now as the 30-year veteran mentors rising finance and accounting talent at GWG Holdings, a leader in the fast-growing secondary life insurance market, he advises those interested in the CFO track to “leave accounting, but always keep in touch with it.”

Arvinas CFO Sean Cassidy caught the high-growth bug early in his career. Shortly into his stint with Deloitte, Cassidy transitioned from a massive global financial services company to work with middle-market clients. He felt he could make a more tangible difference for those companies by supporting them as they raised capital and made acquisitions. His passion led him to the life sciences industry where Cassidy has served as the finance chief of a number of high-growth biotech and biopharma companies. In a previous stint, Cassidy helped CuraGen subsidiary 454 Life Sciences get its back office in order for a potential IPO. During his two years guiding that effort, the business grew from 20 people to 150 employees and from zero to $70 million in revenue.  “It was a very exciting time,” Cassidy asserts. “The company almost went public, but in the end it made more sense to do a strategic transaction.” The experience helped elevate him to CuraGen’s CFO office and, more recently, to Arvinas, a biopharmaceutical company focused on developing therapeutics for cancers and other difficult-to-treat diseases. Cassidy discusses how his approach to corporate finance leadership pivots on flexibility. “You can’t be too rigid in your planning,” he adds. “Science changes on a dime.”