EP 008 - Finance as a Growth Driver with Mika Kasumov

08/05/23 • 50 min

Our guest today is no stranger to the complexities and challenges of the startup world. He is a master of navigating transformative change, especially when it comes to scaling startups and optimizing the intricacies of business. He's an entrepreneur, a strategist, a financial expert, and even a go-to-market leader.

Mika Kasumov is the dynamic founder at Abacus & Pencil Consulting, where he's made it his mission to guide Series B & C startups through the intricate mazes of business transformation as a fractional Chief Performance Officer. He's been the cornerstone of various consulting engagements with emerging giants like Mux, Rallyware, Trusted Health, and Sparks Rowing.

His seasoned journey has also seen him as the Vice President of BizOps & Strategic Finance at the renowned MasterClass, the Chief of Staff to the CEO of Pantheon Platform, and the strategic force behind businesses like Upwork, Pandora, eBay, and Sears Holdings Corporation.

But Mika isn't all business. He values growth not just in the boardroom but in life. Whether it's refining financial strategies, mentoring fellow leaders, diving into the nuances of the French language, or exploring the world of fiction, he truly embodies the spirit of continuous learning and growth.
Ladies and gentlemen, a master of transformative change and a passionate learner at heart, please extend a warm welcome to Mika.

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Quotes:

“I really approach the finance function as a driver for growth as opposed to an accounting-oriented cost center.”

“Don't let hubris around your evaluation number get in the way of building a long-term company.”

“Early on in my career, remote work would have actually hindered me.”

“I think that finance can be a competitive advantage. The way successful companies differentiate themselves is when they use the function to be a bridge between departments, to be the connective tissue between what is the investor narrative, how are we pitching, and what are you actually delivering to your customer, how are you measuring the customer outcomes, right? And there's a ton of things in between, like you have all the different teams whose operating priorities need to stack up, need to align, for you to have both a good employee, a customer, and an investor outcome. And I just simply can't think of any other function that can deliver that outside of finance.

“It's about having this parallel track of, here are the things I'd like to do when I have the opportunity to, here are the things I can do today, and here's how I'm gonna create an opportunity for myself to act on the rest of it in 18 months or 12 months or whenever the opportunity arises.”

“The CFO's role is to respectfully challenge, but also support the vision. And there's a delicate balance to play there between saying no to everything, and uncovering and front running risks so that the rest of the company doesn't have to worry about.”

“Strategic finance is fundamentally business partnering. And you have to go meet the rest of the business where it's at. If you have a rev ops team, you partner with your rev ops team. If you don't, you go and build those capabilities within a strategic finance org. And in the best cases, strategic finance is setting the operating case...

...ultimately, the idea (strategic finance) is that you're filling the void between departments and you're doing that by being a good partner for each one of them.”

“As a founder, you need to be concurrently data-driven, like searching for your product-market fit, and have the ability to ignore 90% of the data points out there. And that creates cognitive dissonance, right? The idea is that it's really hard for us as humans to hold to contradictory beliefs in our heads. That's a huge emotional toll, that's a huge mental toll.”

“Technology helps wherever you have a recurring process that just needs to run correctly 99% of the time.”

“It's (technology) not so much about saving time or saving costs of replacing humans with software, it's about replacing human error with software predictability.”

“The best CFOs I've seen often bring in a team member into that (1 on 1 with Founder / CEO). Maybe it's a different person every time, but they know that if founders see the strength of the talent they have on their team, he actually builds credit. They give opportunities for their team to grow.”

“If you have an opinion, if the data says one thing, go out and state it. Don't try to be artificially balanced and play both sides. And if you're wrong, admit it that you're wrong. Be open to feedback, of course.”

“If you're going out to pitch today, my view is that you wanna go out with a simple deck that doesn't necessarily try to answer every possible question. Every inv...

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Quotes:

“I really approach the finance function as a driver for growth as opposed to an accounting-oriented cost center.”

“Don't let hubris around your evaluation number get in the way of building a long-term company.”

“Early on in my career, remote work would have actually hindered me.”

...ultimately, the idea (strategic finance) is that you're filling the void between departments and you're doing that by being a good partner for each one of them.”

“Technology helps wherever you have a recurring process that just needs to run correctly 99% of the time.”

“It's (technology) not so much about saving time or saving costs of replacing humans with software, it's about replacing human error with software predictability.”

“If you're going out to pitch today, my view is that you wanna go out with a simple deck that doesn't necessarily try to answer every possible question. Every inv...

Previous Episode

EP 007 - Inspire, Communicate & Empower with Pete Boyes, Operating Partner at Thoma Bravo

I'm thrilled to introduce our guest for today's episode. With a rich experience of over two decades in the realm of operational excellence and value creation, Pete Boyes is currently an esteemed Operating Partner at Thoma Bravo, which is amongst the best investment firms globally focused on Software or SaaS companies.

Today, Pete works hand-in-hand with multiple Thoma Bravo portfolio companies and guides their CFOs and finance departments on strategic as well as tactical matters.

In my view, Pete is the perfect example of a successful private company CFO. Being a serial CFO, he has scaled his experience along with his companies with each role. His impressive track record includes influential stints at companies such as Zego, which was notably acquired by Global Payments, SOASTA, taken over by Akamai Technologies, and ID Analytics, which found its new home with Symantec through LifeLock. Before these standout roles, Pete honed his skills as a technology Investment Banker, facilitating a multitude of M&A and Corporate Finance transactions across a vast spectrum of companies.

In his last role as a CFO, at Zego, a company backed by Vista Equity, Pete was a key catalyst in orchestrating both organic and acquisition-driven revenue growth, culminating in a successful exit to Global Payments. Demonstrating his adaptability and leadership, Pete seamlessly transitioned to the role of GM post-acquisition, spearheading Zego's integration into the Integrated Software division at Global Payments.

An alumnus of the University of Southern California, Pete did his BA in International Relations and then pursued an MBA.

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Quotes:

"I think as we talk about CFOs today, half of the time, you could say the CFO was acting as a COO. And there's a lot of operational chops."

"When you do one-on-ones with your CEO, I would always ask that question, what can I take off your plate?"

"The controller of today is a CFO 15 years ago in some ways. They're doing two-thirds of the work that CFOs did 15 years ago. That allowed the CFO to become more modern, where not only are they doing your standard FP&A work and work on the accounting side, but they could have the renewals team underneath them. They've got legal underneath them. They may have HR underneath them, and they may even have certain operations underneath them. The role of the CFO has become much more broad and operationally focused."

“Whether or not HR rolls into that function or not, you tend to spend a lot of time in a positive way working on people issues. I don't mean it as a bad word in issues, but people opportunities, if it's coaching and learning.”

"Ultimately, I got much better at this when I started to inspire, to empower, to communicate, to coach, to guide team members, not just on your own team, but throughout the organization, listening to other folks vent about challenges they're having in their organization, trying to solve people problems."

"The more we created a lot of the infrastructure and built the systems in place that would enable this business to scale and grow and create value, the better opportunity you have for a buyer to pay more for it when it's their turn. That's what I learned."

"In some respects, recurring revenue, SaaS, subscription models, the cloud enabling that have all, really changed the modern CFO to be more operationally focused and definitely metrics focused to enable not just to meet public market expectations, meet their lender expectations and then ultimately valuation expectations."

"The best finance leaders and the best finance employees are well-rounded within the entire organization. They're not siloed and just sitting in their office banging away at models. That's a large part of their job in many ways, but you'll be better at looking at trends, seeing where things don't make sense."

"It's listening to your stakeholders, it's understanding the business from the perspective of the functional leaders, and then it's sort of evaluating your team." - First 100 days plan for CFOs

"We're facing today a lackluster macro environment, drastically increased interest rates, and a tough funding environment. You kind of have almost triple headwinds."

"It's fair to say COVID gave the modern CFO, a taste of what one or two of those headwinds could look like. No doubt, in a short period of time, you had to react quickly."

"On integration, I think lessons learned here is, do it fast, do it faster, do it fastest. Do it soon, do it sooner."

"The CEO press release strategy, make sure it fits management buy-in at the next level down, and focus on quick integration." - Recipe of successful M&A

"If you're constantly learning and you're constantly wanting to learn, you'll never get bore...

Next Episode

EP 009 - Confidence, Prepare, Execute, and Repeat with Joy Mbanugo, CFO at ServiceRocket

I'm super excited to be speaking with Joy Mbanugo today. She is a Chief Financial Officer and Qualified Financial Expert, known for her work in financial governance and structure across organizations ranging from $200 billion to pre-revenue startups.

Currently serving as the CFO at ServiceRocket, Joy's responsibilities encompass finance, accounting, revenue operations, treasury, and more. Her focus areas include enhancing profitability, cash management, scaling the business, and leading digital transformation.

Joy joined ServiceRocket from Google where she held several finance roles. At Google Cloud, she analyzed deals worth between $25MM and $1B related to Google Cloud Partnerships and Industry Solutions. She developed a process to provide monthly financial results to the Cloud Partnership and Industry Solutions leadership and monitored annual revenue growth of up to $1.5B. She also designed and implemented a cash management system for Alphabet Treasury, transforming intercompany transactions and funneling over $100B in assets. Additionally, she engineered the Tax and Intercompany workstreams for the most extensive U.S. ERP conversion from Oracle to SAP. Joy managed a team of more than 80 contractors and over 40 staff members and orchestrated investment and risk management strategies to influence business decisions.

Her previous experience also includes working at BlackRock, where she handled taxation of securities lending, and at Ernst and Young, where she worked in both audit and tax.

A leader, a mentor, and an innovator, Joy has also been a voice for empowerment, leading employee resource groups at Google and served as an Advisor on the Finance Committee for the Northern California Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. She has also written for various publications, including Forbes and Huffington Post.

In her spare time, Joy enjoys local markets, spending time with family and friends, and investing in crypto and private companies. With a rich educational background, including a Juris Doctorate and a Masters of Accountancy, Joy's insights are backed by a profound understanding of the financial landscape.

Join us as we explore the mind of Joy Mbanugo, her approach to finance, and delve into her strategies, philosophies, and the experiences that have contributed to her success so far.

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Quotes:

“I would just encourage women to speak up because it's really hard.”

“For the modern CFO, data is everything.”

“Thinking strategically about growth, no matter what size you are.”

“Don't be afraid to say what you want to do.”

“A CFO should look at themselves as a servant to the business. And so you are there to enable the business and you are there to be a great partner to the business.”

“I think [AI in finance] is gonna be revolutionary. I feel like it's been here for a while. I think we're just now seeing it.”

“I am a very organized person in the sense that once I put my mind to something, I kind of tried it out. But I took a lot of data points.”

“If people talk about investing in things, investing in yourself always has the highest return.”

“That was a pivotal point for me because seeing women who had been, not are, but were very successful CFOs on corporate boards, I was like, okay, I think I can do this.”

“Get to know the people. And that, you know, that's very cliche, but I think when you get a big title, your ego can take over.”

“Well, you leave Google if you want to get a higher title, right? So Google's great. But one thing Google is really good at doing is hiring people who are really good at one thing and keeping you in that one thing. And so if you want to expand, you can move around, which I did. But if you want to expand and move up, it's kind of hard because you're competing with super-talented people.”

“I'm into the weeds and numbers and not the technology. And I'm glad I moved from finance treasury to tech because, like, tech is the future. Well, it's not just the future, it's the present and the future.”

“You know if you meet someone who's in your profession and you just admire them, and I've had that a few times in my career and I was... I really admired him, and I was like, I really like to be like that someday.”

“I know finance and sales people have a very special relationship, but I think you can't be a successful CFO without having a good relationship with your sales team or at a minimum head of sales.”

“I think [quick wins are] important, but I would not put it over. It depends on the company. What does the company value? And my CEO values relationships.”

“I would say do something broad and maybe go to one of the accounting firms. If you don't go to an investment bank. Go t...