The Invisible Vault

This episode features an interview with Ross Tennenbaum, CFO of Avalara, the leading provider of automated tax compliance software with a market cap of nearly $15B.  

Over his more than 20-year career, Ross has served in operational and financial leadership roles for companies like Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs.  He’s an entrepreneur and investment banker turned software executive, with an MBA from The Wharton School.

On this episode, Ross discusses how to harness skills from previous finance roles to become a strategic partner as CFO, when to bring on a treasurer, and leveraging modern technology to drive growth.

Quotes

“There are many different types of paths to be CFO. There are many different people with different experiences.  But really understanding how to run and operate a business and how it works is a key differentiator to being a great CFO, beyond the accounting nuts and bolts.  The question is how do I help my team make this company the best it can be?”

Time Stamps

*[0:36] Intro

*[1:47] Interview begins

*[8:56] The importance of understanding all aspects of the business as CFO

*[12:27] Cash Crossroads: How the pandemic shaped the world of finance

*[23:56] The Playbook: Finance strategy

*[24:41] When is it time to get a treasurer?

*[42:42] Report from the Future:  The future of the CFO

*[47:23] Quick Hits

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Hamza Benamar, CFO of Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions.

Hamza has spent more than 20 years driving financial performance, 12 of which were spent internationally, in Europe, Asia and Latin America.  Before Kyriba, he served in leadership roles in finance, operations, consulting, and pre-sales at companies like Amgen, Wolters Kluwer and SunGuard.

On this episode, Hamza discusses the importance of being attuned to the global market, how we’re coming closer to full digitization of payments, and how the pandemic is redefining talent acquisition as well as the workplace.

Quotes

“We are in an organization that is by definition across borders.  Cash knows no limit and no borders.  The fact is you have to think about global solutions that have local flavor, that takes into account the specificities of the countries.  Whether they are regulations, i.e. can you actually send money without XYZ between one country or another? Which currency can you transact in and, and keep and send over? Those are all the little things that over time you start learning and you become much more aware of the questions that need to go into these decisions.”

Time Stamps

[0:47] Intro

[1:58] Interview begins

[9:33] The importance of international experience

[14:13} Cash Crossroads

[15:01] The pandemic: remote work and digitization of payments

[20:14] Redefining talent acquisition

[24:10] The Playbook

[25:46] Risk: A major pillar of the CFO's deliverables

[36:50] Harnessing data and automation

[41:40] Report from the Future

[46:01] Application of AI

[49:53] Winners make the most of uncertainty

[51:00] Quick Hits

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Ann Dennison, EVP and CFO of Nasdaq, the global electronic marketplace for securities. 

Ann has more than 20 years of experience in corporate finance and financial reporting and analysis.  At Nasdaq, she’s responsible for accounting, FP&A, budgeting, planning and procurement.  Prior to joining Nasdaq in 2015, Ann was a managing director and head of financial reporting at Goldman Sachs.

On this episode, Ann discusses market resiliency, cutting-edge topics like ESG and the digital asset space, and the transformation of the CFO from a numbers person to a strategic advisor.

Quotes

“There’s a lot of power in sitting on a ton of data at the corporate level in finance. So how can we harness that power to help provide information to the businesses to make the best possible decisions?”

Time Stamps:

[0:22] Intro

[1:31] Interview begins

[1:56] Career path to CFO

[7:36] Cash liquidity challenges amid the pandemic

[11:40] IPO listings grow despite pandemic

[14:00] Post pandemic hybrid work

[17:43] How to be strategically impactful as CFO

[20:02] Managing risk and weighing investments

[22:27] Tech tools to lean on as CFO

[23:51] Harnessing the power of data

[31:16] The CFO of the future

[34:05] Emerging hot topics in finance

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Wolfgang Koester, Chief Evangelist at Kyriba.

Wolfgang has spent more than 30 years in currency markets, with experience working for Fortune 1,000 companies and government entities.  He is the former CEO and co-founder of FiREapps, and was named one of the “100 Most Influential People in Finance” by Treasury & Risk Magazine.

On this episode, Wolfgang discusses the importance of knowing your exposures, defining risk, and the possibility of a global electronic currency.

Quotes

“Companies need to embrace actually digitalizing the financial part of their corporation, or they will fall behind.  You need to be digitally ready.  And if you're not, you're going to be more expensive and slower paying than your competitors.  And therefore you will actually have serious competitive negative impact.  Due to not having digitalized your financial systems.”

“Every business is in the business of taking calculated risks.  Some pay off, some don't.  But they need to be calculated.  And calculated by definition means you need to know what the risk is to make a decision of whether you take that risk or not.”

“We say let the data tell you the story.  And we obsess on helping companies get at all that data, clean that data, and give them full visibility towards exposures.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Katherine Edenbach, CFO of Emburse, a billion dollar platform for business expenses and vendor payments.

Katherine has an impressive career of over 20 years in accounting and finance.  Before coming to Emburse, she was CFO of Certify, Inc., VP of finance at CashStar and served in various senior accounting and finance roles at Fairchild Semiconductor and WEX, Inc.

On this episode, Katherine talks about the latest in fraud trends, the renewed importance of cash management amid the pandemic, and how accurate data leads to better decision making.

Quotes

“The CFO is no longer just managing finance and accounting. Really, it's taking that next step up and understanding how the numbers pull together and how you're going to drive strategy. Because obviously if you had bad data coming in, you could have a bad decision coming out. So it's important to understand accounting and finance, but the CFO also needs to have that strategic mindset.” 

“We are definitely a data-driven company.  We have a significant amount of both structured data and raw data. And we've been working really hard to pull that data into more of a usable format. That means making that data consistent and easily accessible. Because inconsistent raw data could be interpreted incorrectly. Using new data analytics tools is helping us drive visibility into spend patterns and identify areas for improvement.”

“Automating controls takes the onus off the finance team to sometimes be the bad guy or the enforcer. When you have the controls built into your systems already, there's no interpretation. It's the system that’s enforcing the controls and people aren't getting involved at all.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Niklas Bergentoft, Principal at Deloitte & Touche LLP. 

Niklas has been at Deloitte & Touche LLP for 15 years, and currently leads the company’s treasury practice in the US. His multifaceted role involves setting strategy and building capabilities for business growth, shaping the firm’s methodologies, relationship building, and client delivery.

On this episode, Niklas discusses how he helped his clients navigate the challenges of the pandemic and how 2020 emphasized a greater focus on controlling all aspects of liquidity. He also shares his thoughts on the expansion and evolution of the treasurer’s role, automation and digitization within the CFOs office, and he offers some poignant managerial advice.

Quotes

“There are a few things that I saw some of my clients do very efficiently and effectively [to navigate the pandemic]…A lot of the organizations that I was around had a much greater focus on controlling all aspects of liquidity. That was cash at hand, becoming way more dynamic in forecasting, and being able to support various business scenarios around forecasting the outlook for liquidity.”

“We’ve seen both CFOs’ and treasurers’ roles have evolved quite a bit over the past five years, but in this past year, we've seen the role of the treasurer evolve…And we're seeing treasurers get involved in broader areas of liquidity… and really becoming more of a change agent in finance, to control liquidity and drive value through treasury.”

“Quite a few of my clients…as part of one of their rotations on their way to round out their experiences before they become a CFO, is actually moving through the treasury function. And we're seeing that more and more. I think part of that is because treasury has been elevated again, and there's a lot of recognition that it requires a highly specialized skill set and a very important skill set in order to help sort of steward the finance function.”

“The role of the treasurer as a leader, I think, is to help get those technology elements in place, get the right skill set for tomorrow in place within the organization, and then really, reinvent what work means for treasury in the future.”

“If [an ERP-type system for liquidity] existed I think it would be extremely powerful…I think there is a lot of opportunity to really bring the liquidity ecosystem together…It’s not just being able to see the cash but being way more dynamic and integrated in how liquidity is being viewed going forward. How does FP&A or financial planning and treasury come together for one integrated view of liquidity that's needed. It's one integrated story around what's important.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

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This episode features an interview with Jaye Connolly-LaBelle, Chairman and CEO of RippleNami, Inc., a global technology company that has redefined a simple-to-use technology platform leveraging artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data visualization, and currently has a keen focus in Africa.

Jaye boasts an impressive 35-year career in finance, technology, audit, healthcare, and M&A, with extensive leadership experience including key C-level roles at both private and publicly traded corporations. 

On this episode, Jaye discusses why successful CFOs embrace data and technology, why traceability and transparency are the buzz words of the future, next-gen applications for blockchain and cryptology, and why Africa is a greenfield opportunity that will have the largest marketplace in the world by 2030. 

Key Quotes

“Right now CFOs are probably at about a 50% digitization rate…I think in order to be a successful CFO, you need to have everything at your fingertips. Being a CEO of an international company, every system we use, everything is cloud-based, and at any given time, whether I'm on an airplane or in the middle of the jungle, I can look and see where we are from a sales perspective, from a project perspective, from a cash perspective, all on my phone.”

“Covid shined a light on the importance of digitization. And I do think you're going to see a very large adoption trend to that end…Leveraging technology is the only way to go forward…I think people are intimidated by technology sometimes, [but] I think Covid has helped out digitization, and the global economy and the fast pace that we're moving with technology has helped to get CFOs more apt to adopt digitization.”

“I do think [without tech adoption] there's a blind side, and there is risk because you don't know in real time what's really going on...As the CFO, you're the organization that keeps the lights on in a company. It's the most important part of the organization.”

“[Data] is everything. I'm a believer in data…data on a spreadsheet is meaningless, but data in a real-time dashboard is powerful--if I have to go hunt and look for what I need, versus if I can build an AI business intelligence tool that tells me what I need…You have to have your finger on the pulse, and it is data-driven.”

“I'm a former auditor, so I like to look at the whole entire process and see how I can improve it. Process improvement--whether it's a technology, whether it's a person, whatever that resource is--to streamline your process from top to bottom. I think that's important for a first-time CFO.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

Links

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This episode features an interview with Michael Dinkins. Michael is a finance industry executive with more than 40 years of experience, and currently serves as President and CEO of Dinkins Financial and on the board of a number of publicly traded companies. Over the course of his illustrious career, Michael earned numerous awards during his tenure with GE and GE Capital, and served as CFO for five different public and privately held companies, the most recent being Integer Holdings Corporation, from which he retired in 2017. 

On this episode, Michael discusses how the CFO needs to think about liquidity and access to capital, how to assess risk, why times of trouble reveal the true health of your business, and how to position your company to survive a crisis.

Key Quotes:

“A lot of people think of liquidity as ‘how do I get past the next 30 days?’ I think it's more of a five-to-seven year timeframe. You’ve got to plan your access to capital…[and your] ability to finance the strategy of the business over time.”

“I think the most important thing a CFO does is to make sure that the company has access to capital to execute. 90% of companies can't self-finance their game plan. They're going to need some type of external source of capital to execute the strategy. The CFO's job is to say, ‘I will get you that access to that capital on a timely basis, at good rates, with covenants that are not going to restrict you from executing your strategy.’”

“I serve on three different public boards, and I can assure you that [when Covid hit] no director came forward and said, ‘Oh, I've seen this before.’ This was unique…And the first reaction was liquidity. What many businesses did was draw on their revolver lines and put cash on their balance sheet–despite the fact that they know that the yield on that cash is virtually zero–just to be on the safe side because they could not predict how this was going to play out.”

“I think that before you go into a crisis, if you know what KPIs to look at and you know what things to really pay attention to that are going to forecast how your business performs…as soon as the crisis happens, you can say ‘Okay, I need to look at A, B, and C and I can kind of figure out how this thing's going to turn out for me.’ Some people know how to do that and therefore, when a crisis happens, they adjust.”

“People ask me ‘What’s the most important thing about a successful CFO?’ and I say it’s communication skills. Because they sit at their desk and they have an aha moment–so what? If they can't leave that desk and go convince the CEO and the rest of the management team and the board to go and execute, it doesn't work. They can have an aha moment but they've also got to be able to package and communicate it.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, the global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

Links

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This episode features an interview with Jennifer Ceran. Jennifer boasts an extremely impressive 35-year career in finance, and recently retired as CFO of SmartSheet in January of 2021.

Prior to Smartsheet, she was the CFO of Quotient Technology (formerly Coupons.com), VP of Finance for Box, and held various leadership positions at eBay and PayPal. She has been named one of the 100 Most Influential People in Finance, and received an award as CFO of the Year in 2017.

On this episode, Jennifer shares the lessons she learned managing companies through three different financial crises, why the office of the CFO is still in the early innings of its digital transformation, and why your visibility into cash and liquidity will control your destiny.

Key Quotes:

“In the world today, you really have to be able to address change quickly. Of course, none of us plan for a global pandemic…the reality is that you can plan and you should plan as best you can, but there are going to be some things that just happen where you have to be able to pivot quickly.”

“I’ve lived through the dot bomb and the financial crisis, and one of the big lessons I learned is that if you want to control your destiny, you need to have that capital structure and your cash and available liquidity front and center at all times.”

“What's been really exciting the last 10 years is how much software has been built in the cloud to help finance organizations have that visibility that they need…This whole technology evolution is so exciting and so needed because business is moving so fast, and it's a competitive advantage if you have at your fingertips the data you need to make decisions and to know what's going on.”

“The CFO role is very, very stressful. I keep awake at night on all sorts of things. And it reduces the dissonance that I have when I know there's good technology out there that's watching out for the company. It gives me confidence that I don't have to be checking every payment that goes out, because there are rules in place that I know will alert me if something is needed or something is done that’s odd.”

“Another hat the CFO wears is that of being a risk manager, and the best way to manage risk is to know that you have it, identify it, plan for it, and track it.”

“in the last few years, we've moved away from the accounting person as the CFO. Oftentimes when I get headhunter calls they’ll say ‘we don't want an accountant, we want a strategic CFO,’ but I actually think accounting is important. It's complicated. The rules change all the time. There's heavy reliance on SOX and internal controls, and I think CFOs should be conversant in accounting.”

“We're in the early innings of this digital transformation. There is just so much opportunity, and I think it's going to be very exciting for CFOs and their teams to really explore those opportunities and make those investments, because ultimately we're here to serve the business. We're here to help the business achieve its strategic objectives. And it's really hard to do that when you're not using technology.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, The global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

Links

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This episode features an interview with Eric Ball. Eric is a technology finance professional, investor, and board member. He is Co-Founder and General Partner at Impact Venture Capital, and previously served as CFO of C3 AI-- which went public in December-- and he spent ten years as Senior VP & Treasurer at Oracle, where he was named one of the 100 most influential people in finance. 

On this episode, Eric discusses how the concept of liquidity has evolved, what 2020 revealed about the importance of liquidity, and how to manage cash in times of prosperity as well as times of crisis. He also shares insights on the digitization of the CFO’s office, the importance of having someone who functions as a Chief Liquidity Officer, and tells some fascinating stories from his 10 years inside Oracle.

Key Quotes

“March of last year was kind of an ‘Oh crap’ moment for CFOs…I think it ended up being like September 2001 or September 2008, where it was a crisis that forced CFOs to look at cash and liquidity...liquidity became not something that we probably should track. It became, for a lot of folks, the absolute key to survival.”

“When 9/11 happened, it was embarrassing but not career threatening to not have answers in a crisis, because the board members were not getting better answers at their other companies. There's no excuse now. In 2020, you should know how COVID was impacting your liquidity and your cash in real time…Using these tools, it's no longer something that's nice to do or makes you look good--you better have these answers.”

“Elements of liquidity are purely in the treasurer's purview, but elements of it cut across all of finance....Somebody has to look holistically across those lines. Everybody can't just be looking down at their own function. So I think there does have to be a Chief Liquidity Officer, if you will. That person may be the CFO, but if they're not the CFO...if the CFO doesn't make it a priority, it's not going to happen.”

“I think CFOs are going to spend less time collecting information and more time acting on it. They're going to have more information available in real time and rely less on the financial statements from the last quarter. In effect, financial statements should be generated almost in real time. Finance leaders have to know where their cash is, how much of it is accessible on short notice, what's their ability to increase liquidity in other ways…and all of that needs to be even more true in 12 months than it is today.”

“I think that a lot of finance professionals need to spend less time collecting data, and they’re valued more for how they can act on data than simply their ability to play scorekeeper. I think that the types of people who are becoming CFOs now are those with more of a strategic mindset and less of a score-keeping mindset.”

Sponsor

The Invisible Vault is powered by the team at Kyriba, The global leader in cloud treasury and finance solutions, empowering CFOs and their teams to transform how they activate liquidity as a dynamic, real-time vehicle for growth and value creation. To learn more visit www.kyriba.com

Links

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