The CFO Playbook

This episode of the CFO Playbook features an interview with Mark Freebairn, Partner, Head of the Board Practice, and the Financial Management Practice at Odgers Berndtson a global executive search, interim management, talent assessment, and leadership development firm based in London.

Mark focuses on advising Odgers Berndtson’s Board as a whole and others, while maintaining the track record the Financial Management Practice has built working with the finance function to identify and develop talent. Mark led the CFO Practice for 18 years before broadening his area of focus to lead the Board Practice. He benefits from seven years of experience as a Non-Executive Director on the Board of GlobalData plc and also sits on the Remuneration Committee for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

In this episode of the CFO Playbook, Mark talks about his current role as a CFO headhunter, his unique approach to solidifying his place as a knowledgeable expert in the finance area, and the importance of building relationships. Given how the role of CFO has evolved and expanded overtime, he explains what it takes for aspiring CFOs to achieve success, and defines the current market availability for senior finance positions in a post resignation world.

Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You’ll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.

--------

Guest Quotes:

“If you want to create a long term sustainable relationship, you create a circular relationship where you advise people when they want help in developing their career and you advise people when they want to hire people that will help them do better and develop their career that way. And if you create this circular relationship where every individual that you deal with benefits wherever they sit on that circle,  think you provide a full service offering, which as a consultant is all I wanna do.” 

You've gotta be bright. You've gotta be numerate. You've gotta be analytical. You've gotta be independent of thought. You've gotta be robust in terms of your personality because you won't always be popular. 

“Work out where you want to get to, and then understand the experience you need to get there. Work out the roles that give you that experience, work out how long you need to do them for,  work that backwards to where you are now. If you are on that path, you're heading in the right direction, keep going. But if you are not on that path then, first and foremost, go and talk internally to your boss and your HR partner and say, I wanna get there, I'm currently here, I can't get those two paths to link up which means I've gotta do something different, help me. And if you can't get help that way, because you will always do better internally because you've got your career, your reputation, your network, your knowledge to exploit to get the move you want; if you can't do that internally, then start thinking about how you do that externally.”

--------

Timestamp Topics:

01:48 Mark’s role as a CFO headhunter

04:53 Getting started at Odgers Berndtson

11:24 The evolving role the CFO

18:48 The process of becoming a CFO

29:37 Defining the current market for CFO roles

40:06 Advice for aspiring CFOs

--------

Sponsor:

This show is brought to you by Soldo, the brighter way to manage business spending and expenses. With Soldo, you can control every expense, track spend in real time, automate financial reporting, and then use those insights to fuel growth. Learn more at Soldo.com

--------

Links:

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

This episode of the CFO Playbook features an interview with Chitra Balasubramanian, CFO at CircleCI, a continuous integration and continuous delivery platform that can be used to implement DevOps practices in the cloud or on private infrustructures. 

With more than 20 years of experience accelerating business growth through data analysis, Chitra is best known for scaling technology startups. As the current CFO, and one of two C-suite females, at fast-growth unicorn CircleCI, she's led the company through major wins to establish it as a leader in the space. Chitra has been critical to the company’s fundraising alongside CircleCI’s CEO, Jim Rose. She has led the company through multiple rounds of financing, raising more than $215 million throughout her tenure.

In this episode of the CFO Playbook, Chitra talks about her interest in being involved in technology forward finance, which led her to the startup world. She speaks about using data to identify and model the impact of change to a business, how her company increased its global employee headcount amidst a pandemic, the importance of remaining agile as a CFO, and why you need to remain empathetic and ensure open communication with your company and investors.

Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You’ll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.

--------

Guest Quotes:

“The way I've sort of tackled agility is by really trying to take a long-term view and at the same time paying attention to the short term planning horizon. How can we think about what's really best for the company over the long term, but also make sure to invest in a way where we can remain nimble over the course of the shorter term time horizon, where there's a little bit more global uncertainty around us.”

“I think it's important to be proactive. You should be a leader that educates your teams and provides guidance in an advisory role to the CEO. In this type of market for CFOs and other finance leaders, you don't necessarily know what are the right questions to ask, how to make sense of what's going on in the market, or how to navigate through these cycles. But, financial leaders are really in the best spot one because they have access to the information and that analytical horsepower. They've got a team with that economic mindset and can understand different business relationships.”

--------

Timestamp Topics:

01:20 Career Path 

06:00 Comparing Crises and their Effects

07:50 Changing of Tech Sector Capital Markets 

10:05 Navigating Current Market 

13:20 Managing Investor Relations and Expectations 

16:20 Leading Teams Through Change 

18:20 Maneuvering the Market and Employment    

20:20 Being a Partner with the CEO 

25:50 Hiring, Retention, and Networking 

28:20 Use of Technology

--------

Sponsor:

This show is brought to you by Soldo, the brighter way to manage business spending and expenses. With Soldo, you can control every expense, track spend in real time, automate financial reporting, and then use those insights to fuel growth. Learn more at Soldo.com

--------

Links:

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

Connect with Chitra on LinkedIn

The CFO Playbook Listener Survey

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of the CFO Playbook features an interview with Gemma Castle, CFO at Cult Wines, which blends heritage, expertise, and innovative technology to transform the fine wine industry for producers, wine enthusiasts, collectors, and investors alike. With over 20 years of experience, Gemma Castle is well versed in delivering nuanced and sophisticated financial strategies in the fast growth SME sector. 

As CFO at Cult Wines, Gemma has been pivotal in providing financial leadership and guiding the company through critical stages of growth, including navigating the implementation of North American offices. Before joining Cult Wines, Gemma worked in the leisure and hospitality industry for 10 years, where she served as Director of Finance for Travelzest and Yotel Limited Global Hotels, as well as CFO for Light Cinemas Limited.

In this episode of the CFO Playbook, Gemma talks about the process of investing in wine and how her company ensures a high level of quality control. She explains the importance of collaboration among the finance team, while providing avenues to give them the best chance to be productive and successful. Gemma also gives insight on why she thinks embracing and investing in technology is critical for efficiency, progress, and connection when it comes to employees, clients, and recruiting.  

Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You’ll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.

--------

Guest Quotes

“I think it's all about having good support. My department’s success is not just down to me, it's down to the people I employ and if they work well, then that's obviously a good reflection on me. And if they don't, then obviously I have to carry the can for that. So I think, balancing the demands means having the right people in your teams so you don't feel the need to micromanage. You want to feel perfectly secure that everybody's doing their job.”

“To get to be a CFO, I think you have to learn from your mistakes because you are going to make mistakes, but it's how you then move on from them. It includes listening to people. You shouldn't profess that you've got all of the answers and, if someone else does have a good suggestion, don't be scared of acknowledging that person. Because, I've been in a number of roles where some people have made some very good ideas and perhaps more senior people have taken credit for it. So, it's all about giving credit where it's due.”

--------

Time Stamp Topics:

01:50 Professional Journey 

05:30 Fine Wine as an Investment

09:00 Quality Assurance for Wine Investors

09:00 Cult Wine’s Finance Function 

14:45 Finance Team Development and Collaboration

17:30 Hiring and Retention Challenges

20:30 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

23:48 Technology, NFTs, and Blockchain

30:30 Technology as a Tool for Efficiency

34:30 Time Management, Team Reliability, Being a Good Leader

--------

Sponsor:

This show is brought to you by Soldo, the brighter way to manage business spending and expenses. With Soldo, you can control every expense, track spend in real time, automate financial reporting, and then use those insights to fuel growth. Learn more at Soldo.com

--------

Links:

Connect with Ross on LinkedIn

Connect with Gemma on LinkedIn

The CFO Playbook Listener Survey

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With 7 years of leadership experience, Navpreet Randhawa has a passion for Enterprise SaaS businesses with focus on the financial technology sector. He found himself on the path to being a self-described “accidental CFO” by having a drive to help build companies and be successful. Navpreet has leaned into prioritizing what is best for his business through the help of using technical tools and outsourcing many traditional aspects of a company’s finance department. As CFO at Minna, he strives to be as efficient and effective as possible by being a strategic finance leader that is open to any options that may help the bottom line.

To be a successful CFO, Navpreet feels you need to be practical and honest with your time and responsibilities. If you are stretching yourself too thin, then you need to reassess how your role is functioning. He thinks it is important to be open to using outside resources to make your job easier and better supported, searching out the best specialists to handle tasks. This means you need to admit to what you are and are not good at to help you face and solve problems to ensure growth at your company and in your role.

Navpreet believes it is important to be willing to rediscover and reinvent the wheel for how finance functions have been run in the past. He thinks you need to try avoiding feeling insecure. If you work hard and continue to educate yourself then you won’t ever fail, you will just be able to learn new things and apply those to new opportunities.

In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Navpreet talks about why it is important to crawl before you walk and walk before you run. He provides insight on his path from accounting to founding a company, and ultimately taking the learnings he gained from those experiences to be a forward thinking and open minded CFO. Navpreet explains the importance of prioritization, outsourcing, and why always being driven to achieve success are keys to being a great financial leader.

Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You’ll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.

Connect with our guest Navpreet on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bijan Moallemi has nearly a decade of experience building and leading finance functions at companies like Qualcomm and Palantir. He knew CFOs deserved access to better tools, so he co-founded Mosaic Finance to build the next generation of finance software for CFOs and their teams. Born out of their own experiences in finance, Bijan and his co-founders have built the Mosaic platform as a resource that combines big data and machine learning to provide powerful predictive reporting capabilities.

To be a successful CFO, Bijan feels you need the tools and basic technical skills to support your business now and to plan for the future, while reducing the effort required by your team to achieve your goals. He thinks CFOs have historically been underserved, and financial professionals deserve accessible tools that save time and money, while providing key insights and analytics to better your business.

Bijan believes that improving workflows that are self-serving, rather than adding to your list of responsibilities, will free up your time and provide more information to make more educated decisions. He feels it is important to have an application like Mosaic that can accomplish that by providing real-time analysis and reporting, giving you perspective on your company’s past, present, and future. Adding automation to data ingestion and processing can help focus your business forecasting and scenario planning to be ready for anything that may come up.

In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Bijan explains why it is more important than ever to understand the financial ins and outs of a business to make sure you know exactly what's going on within your organization. He talks about how Mosaic offers a tool that can help financial professionals as they process through pain points with data and analytics, allowing for a faster and more focused financial team that can make a bigger impact on the business. Bijan also explains why he thinks communication, collaboration and culture building are keys to success, and talks about the benefits of opening up your company to a remote workforce as a way to ensure you have access to the best talent pool.

Take The CFO Playbook Listener Survey to help us improve the show. You’ll also be entered to win your choice of the latest iPad Pro or a Samsung Galaxy S7.

Connect with our guest Bijan on LinkedIn.

Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices