CEO Interviews

Direct Quotes from CEO/Founders on Reasons for Hire and CFO Tips 

To keep this project grounded in reality, I asked CEO’s and Founders for input. I summarized their feedback in the Worthy Journey video. Below are the full responses.

CEO/Founders were asked to answer two questions:

  1. Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

  2. What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

I received responses from the nine CEO/Founders I worked with. In no particular order, below are their unedited responses:

 CEO/Founder #1:

 I'll gladly answer your questions, providing you will forgive/permit a 20+ year haziness on how we connected.

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

I hired you for very simple reasons, unfortunately uncommon in many CFO's, so I genuinely appreciate your interest.  You were (are) highly intelligent yet equally humble.  In small ($80 million) manufacturing companies we were beyond fortunate to capture someone of both your intellect, skill set, and capacity to TEACH: both up and down the change of command, I never understood the intricacies of accounting and how policies dictate results until you arrived.  Equally important, you shared that info equally up and down and across the company.  You possessed an accessible gravitas.

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

Don't be smarter than everyone.  Measured by IQ, you probably are.  Measured by the competitive world in which Sales and Marketing people like me compete, you always provided a safe haven to bring back the market--good or bad.  You helped us digest it and formulate how to react.  You never scared people with your intellect, so that made them open to come with you with their challenges.  For me personally, you helped me understand how the Income and Sheet came together in a highly leveraged company and what options we had if we did or didn't meet our growth projections.  You also took care of all banking relationships, which I didn't care about but now understand are critical.  Your knowledge of P/E and their (BS) reporting requirements proved invaluable so I could focus on company growth.

I know more about the market and am a greater risk taker than you are.  Strike a balance that maintains entrepreneurship without killing the company's financial position.  That requires YOU getting inside my head and figuring out where I want to go.  I'm not an idiot, although it may appear that way, but I have a risk perspective you don't that likely will result in growth.

That, in short is why I hired you.

CEO/Founder #2

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

You were the right person at the right time in our evolution. You joined us with a wide breadth of skills and experiences that we hoped would help take us to the next level.

We were in need of a veteran who had been an instrumental part of high growth companies in the past- someone with experience in raising institutional investment and the processes/systems needed to grow into an IPO-ready company. Although you would be joining us as our CFO, we valued your extended experiences in other leadership roles (outside the traditional role of a CFO).

 We valued your past experiences helping organizations focus on the most important things, both at a strategic level as well as accountability through key metrics.

I was thrilled about your excitement and alignment around our cause and our core values and I could sense your authentic interest in enhancing the lives of our customers. Because of that alignment it was obvious you were going to be a great culture fit.

You were excited to really dig in and join us in the trenches.

Ultimately, I left those initial conversations with you genuinely excited at the prospect of working together.

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

Truly understanding the core business drivers, user journeys, and key product functionality will lead to strategic insights that are the foundation of financial breakthroughs.

Catering communication styles and techniques to your audience will enhance organizational understanding and alignment. Just because you're at home in a spreadsheet doesn't mean that everyone else "just gets it" at a glance. What are some ways to visually show the data for easier interpretation and understanding?

Put in the time building authentic relationships. This takes time and effort- but these relationships are the cornerstone of trust, which will help your team move exponentially faster while feeling more fulfilled in their work.

CEO/Founder #3

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me? 

Listed below are the top seven reasons that I selected you for the CFO, they are listed by rank.

  1. Personal fit with CEO and the rest of Senior Management

  2. Integrity and Honesty

  3. Listening Skills

  4. Communication Skills

  5. Leadership Skills

  6. Strong Analytic Skills

  7. Past Public Company Experience

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

I would add that a CFO joining an emerging company needs to believe and buy into what the company is trying to do. As you know at times it can be a challenge growing and building a small company.

CEO/Founder #4

Well, Dan, this was no easy assignment, especially for a guy who has been retired for 20 years.  You haven’t heard from me because I’ve been letting my subconscious process your two questions.  Here is what I came up with.  I’m sorry I couldn’t limit question #2 to just a few tips.  There was just so much more to be said.  My tips are brief probably needing far more elaboration than I included.  

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

Dan, it was a long time ago that we hired you; perhaps 28 or 29 years ago.  My memory is a bit too vague to be as specific as you might like.  My title was President and Chief Operating Officer.  Others were the principle decision makers at the time regarding financial matters.  I did have input into the hiring process however.

I relied upon others to judge your technical abilities.  I evaluated your potential and fit from a qualitative standpoint.  That is, I evaluated your fit to the organization, your character, integrity, interest, willingness to put team above self, motivation, commitment, drive, results orientation, etc.  Clearly, others thought you were technically very capable.  I thought you were a good fit to the organization, better than other candidates.

I played a larger role when I promoted you to Chief Financial Officer.  I took this step because we had had some issues with losses (I can’t remember the details) others lacked the drive and sense of importance and urgency that the issues demanded.  On the other hand, I saw you as a budding manager.  You were motivated.  You had proven yourself in preceding months, having garnered my confidence.  You understood risk management and the urgency associated with it.  You were competent in all the elements of accounting and finance.  You were positive, enthusiastic, driven to succeed and a good team player.  I never regretted the change.

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

  1. Know what is important and be focused on it relentlessly.

  2. Focus on cash management as a lack of cash can kill you even if you are successful.

  3. Focus on growth over profitability.  Profit will come with time and volume.

  4. Know your costs.  Focus relentlessly on minimizing them.

  5. Demand teamwork.  No matter how smart you may be, the collective wisdom of the group is far more powerful.

  6. People:
    Hire the best people you can afford.

    Hire people better than you.

    Trade up when you can.

    Don’t settle for mediocrity.

  7. You can’t over communicate.  Communications is the glue that enables an organization to function efficiently.  Get everyone on the same page.  Don’t assume that they get it.  Put it in writing when possible.  Verbal communication is extremely flawed.

CEO/Founder #5

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

Our meeting was kind of an arranged marriage if I remember right.  Finance was not my strong suit (though thanks to you I am much stronger in the discipline) and our board chair did the search.  He had appreciated your backgrounds at and rightfully believed you had the requisite skills to do the job.  When you and I met for the first time at The Times (now Ginger Hop) it seemed like we just needed to not hate each other- which was easy for me. 

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand. 

This one I feel like I can answer way better! 

  1. Be a business partner (not a finance partner) to the CEO and other exec staff.  There have been a number of times when I have seen finance execs (CFO or VP Finance) over represent the function and see their role as protecting the business from itself.  A quick recitation of the rules doesn’t solve business problems- work with the business and your external bankers/ auditors to creatively help the business do what it needs to within the bounds of regulation.

  2. Have one of your measurables be organizational financial literacy.  Top table all the way down to newest employee.  Many workers do not have a full grasp of how many instruments work.  Do workshops on: How options work, what is recurring revenue and how is it recognized, how to read a P&L, how to construct a budget, bring in personal finance professionals to hold workshops, etc.  People are often ignorant of these topics and don’t want to embarrass themselves by asking questions they think everyone should know.  These are such powerful tools for your staff- don’t leave it up to their internet research!

  3. Study, Study, Study recurring revenue metrics and break your GAAP habits! Share this knowledge and be the source for your team!

CEO/Founder #6

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

In the finance role more than any other, experience in similar situations is critical. While we were open to on the job training for leaders in marketing, sales, engineering or product, the CFO role needed to be filled by somebody who had raised capital, scaled a company, built processes and developed a team. In the finance area, there is no allowance for mistakes, and experience was the best proxy for error free finance leadership. Second, but still critical was the cultural fit. The finance role is pivotal culturally, as the role must dance the line of adult supervision mixed with startup pace and passion. You clearly demonstrated that your past roles and it came through clearly during our interviews and in our reference checks. Hearing past employers describe you as that exact hybrid was the deciding factor. 

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand. 

My top pieces of advice would be as follows:

  1. Strive to be a great cultural fit, but never at the expense of finance excellence. Performance is paramount and while founders and employees care deeply about cultural fit, investors and acquirers care only about performance. 

  2. Be prepared to be an asshole at times, for the good of the business. Founders are necessarily eternal optimists. It is important for you to hold the budget with an iron fist and to say NO often to all of the business line leaders to ensure that the budget, especially the expense budget is nailed without exception. You must be the bad cop and build a reputation as such. Founders and the business need you to play that role. 

  3. While doing the above, you must also be occasionally open to hair brain growth ideas. 95% of the time, you need to be the bad cop...but once in a blue moon, you need to support the vision of the founders and agree to risks to drive growth. You can only do this once or twice a year in most cases. 

  4. Cultivate a great team and be in the trenches with them. Employees come to a startup to be part of something. That is a heavy burden for the leadership of the business. You need to provide them with mentorship and a special and unique work experience to cross the high bar they have set for the company. In every department, finance included, you need to be shoulder to shoulder with them at almost all times. Big companies are for ivory towers...they kill culture at a startup. 

  5. Be a world class recruiter. Make it a core personal competency. In a startup, things change so fast that new roles are created constantly. Having a team of rockstars makes it more likely that you can promote from within when the need arises. 

  6. Be vulnerable. Let the other execs, and even the employees get to know who you truly are. Build deep friendships and personal relationships. Never be afraid to get too invested. Business at that stage is too hard to do it alone and doing it with friends makes all the difference. 

CEO/Founder #7

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

I felt you had a quiet maturity, good focus, good experience as I needed help running the company. The biggest key, and it’s rare to find in our industry, is that you are a grown up. My former CFO said you always where one to help others which I liked too.

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand. 

Help the CEO cover all the bases, be the CEOs business partner and free the CEO up by making sure all the leaders are doing the right things. That plans are created and managed, the budgets are followed, that people are held accountable but are also treated well. 

The CFO can take a broader view because they, as the CEO, are on the hook for the overall company and not just one department such as sales or product development. The CFO also controls the money and both of these things require 100% trust between the CEO and CFO. 

The CFO and CEO should leave nothing unsaid between then.  A CEO needs someone they can talk to about any day to day or strategic topic, at any time and with complete trust.  That should be the CFO.

CEO/Founder #8

I’ve spent a bit of time trying to remember back to this. 

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

I think it was your interest in the business beyond the numbers. I think that many of our candidates were strictly interested in numbers. We were looking for somebody that could be excited about the mission, the people, and the community.

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand.

Understand the entire business, what makes it unique, and what decisions that may seem “abnormal” are critical to the success of the business. Culture and mission need to be front of mind in every decision inside the organization. 

CEO/Founder #9

Why did you decide to hire me as your CFO? You had many others you could have selected. What tilted you towards selecting me?

Hiring a great CFO is one of the most challenging recruit efforts for a non-financial CEO, especially for an early stage company. There we several important traits beyond your finance qualifications that drew me to you over other candidates:

  1. Your desire to play a bigger role in the company was important

  2. You understood the market, solutions, channel and other critical aspects of the business that allows you to excel in the role of CFO -- I call this "intellectual curiosity"

  3. I felt that you were a great compliment to my skills, giving me a force multiplier

  4. You had VC as well as other capitalization experiences, which was essential

  5. You did not approach things as an "accountant", you were a true business partner

  6. Your passion was infectious and played a big role in building the culture at Gearworks

What advice would you give to a CFO of an emerging growth company to improve their effectiveness? Top few tips would be grand. 

  1. Every executive has to wear multiple hats, so find a CFO that has played or desires a broader role

  2. Fund raising experience is a must. Even if the company is boot-strapped, having an appreciation how to prepare the company to take advantage of the different forms for capitalization (profit, debt or equity) is essential to ensuring interrupted success.

  3. The journey from early stage to growth stage is challenging, so look beyond the financial credentials to find a business partner that you're willing to "go to war with". 

  4. Impeachable trust

My deep thanks to each of these individuals. They took a chance on hiring me. They shared their never-ending passion for their causes. And, they helped me to grow as a professional and to become a better person.