The CFO Playbook

Talita Ferreira always dreamed of becoming a CFO before turning 30. She missed this target by five years, but she’s OK with that because she became the CFO of a company far larger than she could’ve ever imagined: BMW Group Financial Services.

Talita spent more than 11 years with BMW, where she managed a team of 45 and landed amongst the top 300 leaders of the company worldwide. She served as the CFO of BMW Group Financial Services before becoming the CFO of BMW UK. And she wasn’t just the CFO. Shortly after her promotion, the company’s CEO approached Talita to also head up the people function (HR), which she admits pushed her entirely out of her comfort zone.

Even so, Talita excelled, and she learned a lot from her experience — so much that she left the company, wrote a book on leadership and launched her own company, Authentic Change Solutions, where she works with individual leaders.

Lately, Talita’s been building online leadership courses, which has involved interviewing 27 of the world’s top leaders. She has distilled her findings into seven shifts and five areas, which she reveals on this episode of The CFO Playbook.

Talita also dives deep into her time at BMW — what she learned and why she ultimately left the company — and explains her approach to leadership. (Spoiler: She was able to cut recruitment costs within her first year of implementing this approach because people were sticking around longer!)

Connect with Talita on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here.

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If you enjoy nerding out over numbers but also consider yourself a people person, Anders Liu-Lindberg, co-founder of the Business Partnering Institute, has a new finance job for your consideration: business partner.

“Unlike other roles in finance, business partnering is an interaction between people — whereas if you're an Accountant or a Controller, you mostly interact with the numbers,” Anders says on this episode of The CFO Playbook.

Another incentive: more companies are hiring CFOs with business partnering experience instead of finance alone, because the skill set lends itself so well to a high-level role.

“You need to be able to influence decisions, communicate assertively, build relationships with people,” Anders says of both the business partner and CFO roles. “That's how you build trust. If you're not trusted, you cannot influence any decisions.”

Anders previously worked as the business partner for the Europe and Middle East region for Maesrk, the largest container-shipping company in the world. For him, the feeling that came from providing real support to stakeholders brought a rush totally separate from career advances.

“It gives you a high on adrenaline: it's a fantastic feeling when you have these successful breakthroughs within business partnering,” he says. “I wish everyone could experience this rush of, ‘I was a great partner, I created value and I got great feedback from our stakeholders — this thing rocks!’”

Also in this episode: the power of a 30-minute lunch, and why good business partners don’t send reports.

Connect with Anders on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here.

If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

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Raxita Kapashi has worked in private equity for more than 15 years. Along the way, she did a stint at fintech consolidator TruFin, where she served as the group’s CFO. While at TruFin, she brought through an IPO and raised 70 million GBP ($96 million USD) in 2018. 

With this accomplishment under her belt, it’s no surprise numerous venture capital firms sought to bring her onto their team. However, it was the inclusive company culture of Dawn Capital that dazzled and ultimately won Raxita over.

An early-stage venture fund, Dawn is Europe’s largest specialist B2B software investor. As the company’s first official CFO, Raxita oversees its $1 billion in assets and 50 investments. That means her day-to-day is filled with financial planning, budgeting and forecasting, cash flow management and performing valuations — plus, tons of meetings. She also monitors Dawn’s portfolio investments to help them get acquired. 

In this episode of The CFO Playbook, tune in to hear Raxita discuss the process of working on an IPO, her daily leadership framework, the challenges faced by portfolio companies and the metrics and KPIs she tracks. 

Raxita also breaks down possibilities for the CFO career path and shares tips for working your way to the top.

Connect with Raxita on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here.

If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

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When Tom Fencl joined the Pricefx team in late 2017, the global SaaS startup had about 70 employees. 

Fast forward and they now have close to 400 employees stationed all over the world and have raised more than $131 million in funding. It’s safe to say Tom has played a key role in this growth.

“As a CFO, it is your responsibility to make sure data, which is clearly one of the hidden resources of every company, is managed well, and that means centralization and consistency and some sort of hygiene around that,” he says.

In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Tom touches on the challenges he has confronted as the CFO of such a fast-growing company, including learning how to develop a team and navigate the global landscape. 

He also dives deep into what data he uses to track the company’s financials, his unique approach to the reporting process, and how he teaches his team to approach these numbers (hint: It’s with skepticism and a good old-fashioned pen and paper).

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here.

If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

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What exactly is behind the skyward trajectory of a fast-growing software company? Turns out that it’s more than just growth.

In this episode of The CFO Playbook, host Rob Norman sits down with Kevin Jacobson, CFO and COO of LogicGate, which develops cloud software solutions for automating governance, risk, and compliance processes. 

As the first business operations employee hired in the company’s early years, Kevin keeps his eyes not only on LogicGate’s rapid annual growth but also on efficiency and — perhaps most importantly — customer retention.

In October 2020, Kevin joined the growing ranks of executives worldwide who combine the roles of CFO and COO. He discusses how his dual role invites him to bring a finance lens to customer service operations, and he shares his insight into slicing the data to learn the most from a company’s financial indicators.

Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here.

If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

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When Patrick Butcher joined Capita more than two years ago, the international outsourcing company was loaded with debt. Sure, from the outside it seemed profitable, but Patrick, who has been a CFO for 25+ years, took it upon himself to financially transform the company and focus on cash — not revenue and profit.

The company generated between $70 million and $80 million in cash. How? A whole lot of change.

But getting your team — and an entire company — to buy into change isn’t always easy. Patrick leaned on leadership principles he calls the 5 C’s: Context, Commitment, Clarity, Connections and Compassion.

On the premiere episode of The CFO Playbook, Patrick dives deep and explains his strategy for repositioning Capita for growth, how he got buy-in from his team (with a little help from the 5 C’s) and some smart ways to become a better CFO.

Full show notes and resources from this episode can be found here!

Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Rob on LinkedIn.

If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

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