-: It sounds like you need to get conviction
and almost say from day one, "Hey,
we're going to be a leader in what's happening
in this business transformation more broadly."
-: When I became CFO, it was very clear
that we had the tiger by the tail.
The company was rapidly scaled from about 15 million
of revenue a quarter up to over 700 million.
We could keep growing at the pace we had been growing,
only if finance really led the charge.
-: You have to have your house in order.
The finance foundation
has to almost be operating at like an eight out of ten
because when you challenge the business,
some people will embrace it,
some people will be defensive.
The defensive people will look
for any chink in finance's armor.
-: We had to change.
We had to be able to grow the team more efficiently.
We had to embrace automation and really enable the change
and drive the change throughout the organization.
-: I think it's a very unique situation
when transformation starts at the top
and trickles its way down,
that's not usually what happens, right?
You need to figure out how to create that first push,
and if you can't do it in in another area
because they need the cost resizing
or something like that, you've got to stand in as the CFO
of the business and drive your own transformation.
-: You're going to ask the organization to go
through an enormous transformation no matter what industry
or what function, being out in front
and showing how you lead, how you set the vision,
how you motivate, where you win,
and where you've got opportunities that didn't work so well
or to regroup a little bit.
I think it's always helpful to have credibility,
to be the first one out and saying,
"Hey, I'm willing to take this
and we're going to learn this together."
-: Being the chief performance officer, you're going to have
to push the other functions to a level of discomfort.
That's your critical role.
You can't know as much as they know,
but you have to make sure that they're pushed to the point,
right, where it benefits the shareholder
because that's one of our primary jobs.
-: You need truth-tellers
to tell you exactly what's going on, when to participate,
what questions to ask, and what to press on.
-: I found one of the best sources were the front line,
staying in constant touch with the front line,
whether it's within accounting or analytics,
or more broadly within the operations,
that front line is often the the best source for the insights
of things that are working or not working.
-: So many companies don't have
what I call an operating mechanism.
How do they come together and develop a strategy?
How does that strategy turn into operations?
How does the operations turn into a budget?
Those three very large things can be a catalyst
for the finance team.
You use those three very large business processes
to your advantage.
You can drive tremendous change.
That transformation will then drive
the rest of the business,
and you will then become an expert
in that area for the whole company.
And that way you'll get the resources you need
and the attention you'll get from the board will be
the way you'll be able to drive the rest of the company.