CFO Yeah!

<p><em>When I hear that this is like 2008 or the dot-com crisis, I’m not sure. I believe there will be only more and more work for tech businesses. We saw during Covid that people still needed to buy online and find services, and businesses needed budgeting or e-commerce tools. </em></p><p><em>"There’s no other place I’d rather be right now than in tech.”</em></p><p>What makes a company culture more than mere bluster? And what role does a CFO and their finance team play in nurturing this culture? In this episode of CFO Yeah!, we go deep into Netguru’s growth journey to find out. </p><p>Gosia Madalińska-Piętka is CFO and board member at Netguru. Gosia joined as Head of Finance in 2016, having previously served in senior accounting and controlling roles at Tech Data and Hewlett-Packard.</p><p>Netguru provides consulting services in product development, software solutions, and product design. Since being founded in 2008, it has completed more than 600 projects for clients including Volkswagen and IKEA, and has more than 850 employees all over the world.</p><p>We spoke about what makes Netguru one of the fastest growing companies in Europe, Gosia’s work to modernize its finance processes, and the focus on culture and community for a largely remote team.</p>

<p><em>“During the seed round, it's a lot about the story you tell, and your market conditions. How is our software going to fit into the trends that are happening outside? It’s about telling your founder's story, what you believe in.”</em></p><p>After working as the Head of Global Pricing at Uber, where she managed weekly budgets approaching millions of dollars, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosezhong/">Rose Punkunus</a> worked as CFO for several tech startups. There, she encountered the same issue many times: although she and her teams needed technology to accelerate their work, the only tools available were costly, enterprise offers.</p><p>So she created her own: Sudozi.</p><p>In this episode of the CFO Yeah! podcast, we discussed her experiences moving from large companies and finance-specific positions to founding her own business from scratch. She shares her insights on securing seed funding, working towards growth, and how CFOs can communicate more effectively to their teams.</p>

<p><em>“Obviously, as the company leader, I have to think three chess moves ahead - I'm watching the world. And I think that the world is a really exciting place. I feel like it's 1994 all over again, when the internet was born. Web3 opens up so many opportunities.”</em></p><p>Rob Whalen studied accounting in the 1990s and planned to join a major firm. Instead, he began a career in sales.</p><p>25 years later, Rob co-founded PTO Exchange, an innovative employee benefits platform. Since then, he’s successfully built a healthy business and a thriving work culture. </p><p>In this episode of the CFO Yeah! podcast, we discussed the challenges of founding a company, the right approach to building a healthy culture, and his predictions for what’ll come next for finance professionals and businesses.</p>

<p><em>“When I look at finance and accounting teams, I think ‘wow, we’re one of the biggest bottlenecks here.’ The way we interact needs to be the next significant evolution of workflow and optimization at work.”</em></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/davesellick/">Dave Sellick</a> believes the finance and accounting world could use more empathy. In his view, accountants have been stuck with dehumanizing processes for too long. Technology can free them from repetitive, machine-like tasks, and help them bring more value to their organizations.</p><p>But what exactly does the future look like for finance professionals and accountants, if their heads are no longer buried in data and Excel spreadsheets? For Dave, it promises more creativity, innovation and human connections. We just need to learn how to better interact with machines, and then each other.</p><p>In this episode, we discussed the need for more empathy and human connections in finance and accounting, and how automation will get us there. But first we need to learn to code.</p>

<p><em>“When you start working at a growing company, it’s hard to understand or drive every topic. But I believe that personal trust enables the CFO to come in, once something is burning or close to burning, and to help solve it.”</em></p><p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-veronika-von-heise-rotenburg/">Dr. Veronika von Heise-Rotenburg</a> is a digital finance expert and startup CFO, with extensive knowledge and experience in both the automotive and IT sectors. Having led finance at Cluno, Cazoo, and now ‘Device-as-a-Service’ company <a href="https://www.everphone.com/en/">everphone</a>, she’s found a niche in asset-heavy businesses, debt financing, and building highly efficient finance operations.</p><p>In this episode of the CFO Yeah! podcast, we discuss Veronika’s behind-the-scenes role in the acquisition of Cluno (a “Car-as-a-Service” startup) by Cazoo, her 90-day plan for any <a href="https://blog.spendesk.com/en/new-cfo-checklist">new CFO role</a>, and the best practices and experience she gathered from working on a large exit deal.</p>