Startup CXO

Chief Financial Officer

There's no one path to the role of “startup CFO” and it's likely that anyone with that title could have taken one of many paths to get there. Some come from an accounting background, they have a CPA and possibly have experience as a controller, mastering accounting systems, GAAP rules, and providing accurate and timely financials. Other startup CFOs have had experience in investment banking, focusing on mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, and key performance indicators (KPIs) before jumping over to the finance team of a company. And some, like myself, come from an unrelated field. I came to the role of startup CFO from consulting where I learned strategic analysis, competitive benchmarking and, most importantly, helping clients as a partner to solve problems. I also had a two‐year experience starting a company, where a friend and I tried to start a business creating corporate finance software. There were a lot of learning lessons there as well, especially that I should not be a primary coder in the business. Overall an effective CFO has to eventually master all of the basics—the accounting and finance requirements of the role—but often your early days as a startup CFO will focus on where you came from. And more often than not, a first‐time “Head of Finance” has to learn the areas they do not have expertise in on the fly.

Coming from the consulting world, I was missing a lot of the standard skills that CFOs need to have. I had never made ...