This week, the SphereCast team speaks with Matt Hagel, Chief Financial Officer at Freshly. Freshly is a meal delivery service that delivers fresh-made meals straight to your door that are ready to heat-and-eat in three minutes or less. Freshly has been featured in The Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Glamour, TechCrunch, and other high-profile publications and has experienced an explosion of popularity over the past year due to the pandemic, given less people wanting to leave their homes.

Over the course of his career, Matt has held a variety of leadership positions at some of the world’s most respected brands and fastest-growing startups — Deloitte, Sony Music Entertainment, AppNexus, and Bark & Co., to name a few. And, as you would imagine, Hagel has become a wealth of knowledge on issues of effective leadership. On the podcast this week, Matt deep dives on issues of keeping a team inspired and efficient — both in and beyond the finance and accounting disciplines.

Noteworthy Quotes:

"As a leader, I've learned to effectively delegate. And in order to delegate, you have to build up the team. But more so than that, it's about the process. When you join a company, you must first establish a process... There's some pushback here sometimes because it feels like you're going slower. But while it feels like we're going slower, it will enable us to go a lot faster. If you have good process design, it should make you more effective."

"Saying 'thank you' is free. Recognition comes in many forms... Gratitude means a lot. Recognition is a lot."

"Good leaders are good listeners."

"Sometimes mentorship is just about having an ear to speak to. It just helps talking some things out. We all deal with very similar problems, both personally and professionally. And it's not like we're recreating the wheel every time."

"Teamwork is key. You can't solve all of this yourself."

"You want to use tools to enhance the work you're doing... Excel will still always be a part of the formula. Now, we're just more of a gourmet meal, using other tools."

"There's no typical day; I learned that a long time ago. But that's really something I enjoy. Each day poses a new challenge that keeps things interesting."

"I think your past is a sum of all the parts, and you really learn to rely on your gut based on all of your prior experiences."

Bullet List of Resources – 

Matt Hagel

• LinkedIn
   
  
  

Freshly

• Company Website
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