What happens when an international affairs enthusiast with a passion for humanitarian aid transitions into becoming a leading financial strategist? Janice Stucke, CFO and Foundation Treasurer of CREW Network, joins us to share her unique journey from restaurateur roots to spearheading global digital transformations. On this episode of Secrets of Rockstar CFOs, Janice reveals how she navigates financial leadership across 50-plus global entities, her mission to empower women in commercial real estate through “The Finance Sisterhood” and how she balances a demanding career with completing a full Ironman triathlon.
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Welcome back, everybody, for another great episode of the show. I hope you can follow us online at www.RockStarCFOs.com. Great guest. She’s been a member of the CFO Leadership Council for some time. Janice Stucke is the CFO and Foundation Treasurer for CREW Network, a global association for women in commercial real estate. Janice, welcome to the show.
Thank you, I’m so excited to be here.
Me too, it’s been a while since we’ve been planning it. I’m glad we were able to finally pull this together. I know you’re relatively new to the CREW Network and we’ll definitely explore that later. For the moment, can you give folks the 10,000-foot view of your organization?
CREW Network is a global association for women in commercial real estate. We have about 14,500 members in 13 different countries. We’re an international group of women. The mission of CREW is, although women dominate the real estate space and commercial real estate, roughly 8 percent of representatives are women. Our mission is to grow that by supporting a global network of women in their career development and deal-making, and help elevate them into higher-level leadership roles within the industry.
It’s only 8 percent?
Only 8 percent.
It’s interesting. Any time you hear a number like that in any profession these days, that is only 8 percent , but it just hasn’t been my own experience either, though. It hasn’t been even. That’s interesting. I think that’s great that you’ve such a very important mission. We’ll absolutely get back to that a little bit. Before we do, I always like to talk about the early years for our guests. Can you share with us where you grew up?
I grew up in Richmond, Virginia. My parents owned restaurants and bars around the VCU area. I had a very interesting upbringing. Learned a lot about business in the early years. My whole mission in middle and high school was to move to Japan and speak fluent Japanese. I had absolutely no thoughts of finance or accounting. My whole goal was to get abroad, and that is what shaped me in the early years and was my main focus. I was learning about business, but not focused on it at that time.
Early Years
I’ve noticed that kids from restaurant families bring two things. They bring an incredible work ethic because people who don’t own restaurants don’t realize quite how hard it is. They also bring a passion for whatever it is that they end up doing in their career. I think that’s probably fair to categorize you as both of those things.
Definitely. When I was younger, it felt like we were forced to be there. I’m not sure I valued the lessons I was learning. I feel like everything I needed to know about business, I learned in the restaurant. This was in the ‘80s. There was a cash register, and there was the tape, and we had to count inventory by hand and manage margins. As you said, the restaurant industry has a huge focus on margins, and they’re very tight, and cash management is key, and labor management. I learned all that in middle and high school and saw the effects of that on our own family, yeah, everything after that was just extra information. I had gotten the gist of it in my formative years.
There you go. Did you have brothers and sisters, and did they also work at the restaurant?
I have a brother and a sister. We were all there. We went there after school. We knew the customers. I knew the menu inside and out. The restaurant was part of our family, and I spent a significant portion of my time there, helping out as well. I did a lot of the reconciliations of the cash register. I was quite good at it. If you can do that down to when we used to have to count change, I know those days are gone, but I learned a lot about accounting and finance in that time.
It’s interesting. You mentioned that when you were young, you wanted to live in Japan, and did that ever work out for you?
It did. I spent fifteen years studying Japanese. Part half of my college years. I went to Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto. I worked for the Japanese trade bureau after that. Yes, it did come true. I did get to live abroad and learned a lot about international business that way, which was also hugely helpful. Having to do business in another language, that’s also a very formative set of lessons about communication and just cultural aspects, and just understanding how everything is not U.S.-centric was also very helpful.
I grew up in Massachusetts, and my dream was to live in New Hampshire. I was less ambitious than you in that sense. By golly, I made my dream come true as well. No, that’s fantastic. I have to think just the opportunity of living in a foreign country, which not a lot of Americans do that. That must shape your business philosophy. Just what you’ve learned and just appreciation for such a different culture.
Definitely it has. Also worked with refugees and spent a number of years in East Africa. When you’re abroad, understanding how the banking regulations and the banking system work differently, understanding business regulations differently, just as they impact your day-to-day life, logistics. You just have a much broader perspective on what the options are in problem-solving. I think that an international perspective definitely sharpened my problem-solving skills. I think also my soft skills, now called power skills, are just how to communicate and communicate a message effectively and bring people in. Sometimes I didn’t have the right words, but it’s all about like energy and expression and enthusiasm. I think that’s been key to my transition into finance and growth.
A Non-Traditonal Accountant
It’s interesting you referenced soft skills. I think for a lot of CFOs, those are the hard skills. I’m probably typical of a lot of CFOs by my educational background, CPA, and MBA. The finance, the accounting, the quantitative stuff, it’s pretty intuitive to somebody like me. It’s the empathy, the leadership, the team building. Those are the areas that I struggled with. Even to this day, and I’ve been working for decades, I’m probably pretty good at it, but it’s not exactly natural to me, even after all this time. I’m guessing you have the inverse skill set on some levels.
I definitely started off more in the hard skills, power skills, whatever we want to call them. In my 30s, I went back to school and got my CPA. It was the inverse, although in my undergrad, I did economics. I had some touchpoints, but yeah, it was definitely, think the team building and how to manage systems and manage programs. I just added on the finance and accounting skills, which probably have just been the tangential piece of my success rather than the core of it.
“I see finance and accounting as really the greatest pivot to helping people and humanitarian aid, and helping individuals in the world. Resource management is key to everything.”
No, that makes a lot of sense. I did notice that you have a master’s degree in international affairs and public policy, as most CFOs do.
Definitely, I’m a non-traditional accountant. In my 20s, I never dreamed of going into finance and accounting. It was not, I wanted to be abroad. I wanted to focus on international development. It was once I was there, seeing on the ground, that you cannot help people without resources and funds behind it. I wanted to go back to figure out how to manage the resources and funds better. I see finance and accounting as really the greatest pivot to helping people and humanitarian aid, and helping individuals in the world. Resource management is key to everything. I think a lot of people don’t think about accounting and finances as being so humanitarianly focused, but it is. Even for me now at CREW, like having a strong company that pays employees well with good benefits, that’s a mission and a focus to help. For me, I see that as helping make the world a better place.
I feel the same way about my company and all the companies I work for the most part. That’s great. You went back as a, not college students, not as adults, but it’s a little bit older than the conventional, and developed your accounting background, and became a CPA. Tell us a little about your career path since that moment. I know you worked for a couple of tech companies out of the gate.
I started off in tech. I had done international trade, legal things early out of college, with the Japan focused and people I knew from once I decided to go back to school, they asked me to come over and work for their company. I started off in a legal tech company. I knew the legal space well, which definitely strengthened my accounting skills. I went over to a sampling company, a tech company that has since grown. Both of those had investors, VC, PE, and I had to sharpen my skills at both companies in the finance and accounting side. That’s where I did my first ERP implementation. That’s really where I started to gain savvy and implementing new systems and the process change management and process management behind it, which became my niche starting there.
That makes sense. You worked for a couple of tech companies, and then you were the finance director at SHRM, which, for those who don’t know, and I might be off on the Society for Human Resource Management.
That’s it.
That was your first foray into nonprofit from the finance and accounting perspective. What was that transition like to go to a good company, but it was a for-profit to one that is more mission-centric?
I think that there are a lot of people don’t realize and I say it all the time. The not-for-profit space is often just a tax status. We still have to focus on profit and margin and run a business. It’s the same business principles from the tech side that I applied at SHRM, and I was there during COVID. We were obviously in a big pivot on how to replace revenue, and we’re looking at several investments and all the things that I was doing on the tech side, there wasn’t that big a shift, honestly, cause it’s just the same business principles. It’s just what you’re doing with the margin at the bottom, which typically is reinvesting it back in the business as opposed to going to dividends.
It makes sense. A friend of mine spent most of his professional life in the for-profit world, and then he became the CFO of a food bank. He said, “It’s just the exact same issues. It’s distribution, it’s inventory management, it’s all of the things.” He said the only difference is it’s legally incorporated as a not-for-profit, and it is a little bit more mission-centric, perhaps, but the fundamental business is not as different as he would have thought before he did that.
Definitely not at all. If you have donations or grants or memberships, you’re accountable to those people, you’re spending their dollars essentially. Just as investors want to have insight on where those funds go, so to people that are giving you their money, they want to have insight on how you’re spending those funds as well. You’re still accountable on both sides for sure.
The ‘Finance Sisterhood’
That makes sense. I want to chat a little about, you’ve had this great path. Why don’t we talk a little bit? You had one other company before the current role, which is Achieving the Dream. Maybe you can tell us a little about that organization’s mission and what your role there was.
I was fortunate after SHRM that I was able to become the CFO at Achieving the Dream. Achieving the Dream focused on bettering community colleges throughout the United States. Definitely a great mission. I did not realize that any graduation or receiving any certificate from a community college is pretty low. It’s in 30 percent. The focus is on bettering the system. There’s a higher level of graduation or receiving some credentials to help better individuals that enter those systems. It was a not-for-profit, but it was essentially a consulting model. We went in and did consulting at the community colleges. I did a full-scale digital transformation there. Upgrading all of the accounting systems, which was a big transformational project and also key to my growth.
That was your first CFO job, right?
My first CFO job, and I became a CFO at 39. I’m a millennial, definitely felt very isolated being so young in that role when a lot of the peer organizations, individuals were much older. It was definitely like learning how to carve out a space for me and find that network of people and mentors to help guide me. Grateful I reached the role young, but definitely I needed a lot of support and advice from the outside, which was how I ended up at the CFO leadership council in order to get that support.
That’s great. I know you’ve said, you shared with me in the past that mentors have played a critical role in your career growth. There are some that, when you look back, it’s like, “They stuck out.” One thing I’ve learned, Janice, is that a lot of the mentors that I’ve had weren’t even aware that I thought of them that way. They just thought we had a friendly relationship. They didn’t realize I viewed them as a mentor that I was sucking up knowledge. When you look back, are there any critical people who made an impact on your professional journey?
Ten years ago, I have an amazing mentor. She’s still my mentor, Joy Sistrunk, with Premier Group. She heads an accounting firm in Maryland. We met ten years ago, and I told her my story. I was trying to get my CPA license. Since I’d never officially been an accountant, most people said, “There’s no way you’ll never pass the test. This is crazy. Why even try?” I told her and she said, “No, I’m here to support you. Let’s do this together.”
She has stood by me over these 10 years. She supported me through the exams and through each role. She has been just pivotal in my growth, and she’s really taken the time out to anytime I’ve had an issue, I call her and she always calls me back as soon as she can. It’s been the main source of support, and making sure I’m able to grow. We’re great friends now, but yeah, I cannot imagine this journey without her. I cannot thank her enough for having been there these past ten years. In the corporate finance, you don’t have another CFO mentor to mentor you when you’re the CFO. She’s been key to that.
Truthfully, that’s why I started, it was the CFO round table initially, but the organization that’s now the CFO Leadership Council is like you, I was a youngish CFO. There was no one I could go to to ask for help within the company. It’s probably not a good thing to tell your boss or the board of directors that you don’t understand something. I started the group, and instantly, a hundred meant to us. I’d love to understand your own philosophy on being a mentor. I know you have an interesting story here, and I’m going to allow you to tell it, if I may.
Sure. Being a non-traditional accountant, I felt very alone coming through that path of going back to school in my 30s and trying to enter the field. I’ve definitely opened myself up to men and women who’ve been on that path, and I mentored quite a lot of individuals who were trying to make that pivot in their 30s and 40s for various reasons. I have several groups that I’ve supported, whether they’ve been internal to the company, and I still mentor anyone I’ve worked with.
Also, I’ve helped develop something called the finance sisterhood, which is those in a similar age bracket who were in finance at various levels, various-sized companies. We have a WhatsApp group, we meet at conferences and we support each other on the journey of juggling family. The demands of being in the sandwich generation of your own kids and your parents, and trying to navigate ambitious career goals. It’s been amazing to be a part of so many different groups and help support so many different people.
That’s amazing. The finance sisterhood is what the group is called?
Yes.
I’ve somehow never heard of that one. Is it a formal group like you apply for membership, or is it more like a grassroots?
It’s very informal. It’s just people we meet at conferences, we’re in the same space of life, and they just get added to the WhatsApp group. Just people, I have this issue at work, or I’m navigating this challenge and family life, and just having that support system. We’re all spread out across the country, and some in Canada, so just to have that ability to reach out and not be alone, I think, is really key, especially for women who want to keep accelerating in their career and juggle all those different venues. It’s not easy, and not everybody understands that exact place. It’s good to have each other.
That makes a lot of sense. One of our conferences, you’ve been to our events, so you know that we have a large number of female members and attendees at the conferences. I found out that they were groups of women who met at the conferences, and they were, of course, across all of our 30 or so chapters, and they formed a WhatsApp group, and they keep in touch with each other that way. Just with technology, it’s pretty easy to form a formidable network.
It is. I think that’s the best part of conferences. Yes, there’s the content, but I think so key to the conferences is that it can be very isolating when you’re in the C-suite and you have to make all the decisions. It’s hard to be honest, like, “I’m struggling right now when X, Y and Z are due.” It’s just really key to have those networks to champion you and have you build that outside support. I’ve definitely found that in the CFO Leadership Council as well.
I always steal the quote from CFO Brew. They said that our event set the world record for hugs at a financial conference. There’s probably no official record.
Definitely true.
CREW Network
It is no world record that I know of, but if there were, I’m pretty confident he’s right that we would have that. I want to chat with a little about CREW Network. Sounds like a really exciting company with a great mission, but how did the opportunity present itself to you, and what was it about the opportunity that attracted you to the role?
I got a message from a recruiter on LinkedIn, and I happened to respond. What attracted me is that it’s a 35-year-old organization run by women. The entire board is women. Being a woman, it’s just that we don’t get a lot of opportunities to see women run organizations at every level. It’s nice to be a part of a majority. All but one member of the executive team is a woman. We have a female CEO, an entirely female board. It’s just great to be surrounded by that vision, which we don’t get often as women, and be a part of building that network and being a part of that learning group and having that model of what female leadership looks like. There’s not a lot of times you get that full-scale view of women and leadership, and it’s been instrumental and very wonderful to be a part of.
That’s fantastic. You’ve been there six months, roughly?
I think we’re in eight. Time is flying.
It does go by pretty quickly. I remember the announcement on LinkedIn, actually. How has it lined up? What is the ways you’ve been able to make an impact and put your own imprimatur on the financial leadership of the company?
I was hired for my digital transformation skills. I came in fast and furiously, and I’ve done that before. I have a good vision on what that takes. Here we have significantly more entities than I’ve ever worked with. We have about 50 business entities, and some of them are global. It’s a significant number of entities. I haven’t done an ERP-like entire transformation with that many entities on a global scale.
That’s some nuance in it, but if you’ve done it once or twice, you have that vision where things have gone that I wasn’t expecting is really influencing the entire IT strategy of the company. We take the majority of our revenue on our website and pivoting towards multi-currency and how that interplays with our online shopping cart experience. Definitely, I’ve been able to strengthen my global perspective on IT as well from the CFO seat, which has been a great learning experience and also a very drinking-from-a-fire-hose type experience as well.
That’s a beautiful thing. At times, people come in, they take a new job, and it’s the first 90 days or the first 100 days, whatever it might be, just to understand the business and make an impact, did you approach the role with that in mind?
I did approach the role with that in mind. I definitely was a listener, but I knew I needed to have to get started on the digital transformation. At the end of the 90 days, we started, which is pretty soon in a company to already make a decision on that pivot forward. We got going. I think the learning curve has been in understanding all the different 50 entities. They’re all doing something different. There are the main entities, which I’ve had to learn. I did a deep dive quickly, but also meeting with staff to get that bigger picture. It’s been a slower learning curve for some of the smaller entities. I’m still catching up to speed on those.
How many entities did you say you had?
Fifty.
That’s quite a bit of entities. I wanted to chat with you because it’s not only a large number of entities on a relative scale, but it’s a truly global organization. I can see from their perspective, given some of the digital challenges you just described and, obviously, your global vision for business. Tell us a little about the global shift and what some of the operational challenges and opportunities were behind that.
We have a pretty significant presence in Canada. It’s over ten percent of our membership. We’re now also in Mexico and the UK. There was a discussion around do we want to start accepting multi-currency in order to make it more equitable for our global members. There are a lot of views on that. Ultimately, the board has made a decision to make that more equitable. The trickle-down effects of that goes to finance because we need to be able to manage that. That has its own nuance. That’s been the learning curve I’m in the middle of, and making sure our operations can handle that shift.
Do you see further global expansion, perhaps back even to Japan, but some other countries as in the future, or are you likely to be a North America-based organization?
I think we’ll always be heavily North America-based just because that’s where we started and we have the majority of our members, but we do get a lot of outreach from all over, places I never imagined that are interested in joining the network. We do have rules around that, and it is a process, but expansion will continue to happen. I think like any other company. You have to be able to handle that expansion. The operations have to be able to back that up. We’re in that trying to get the operations to catch up with how quickly the network wants to expand. That’s been my main focus and will be my main focus and role over the next several years.
That makes sense. I’m curious, what are some of, besides the global expansion, what are some of the opportunities and challenges that you’re looking forward to over the next couple of years, say the next two to three years?
I think the next 2 to 3 years just getting the technology to back up that expansion, because it’s not only the accounting systems and the multi-currency, and that it’s the website and the interplay, and all the legal ramifications. Definitely, as fast as we’re growing, it’s going to take me two to three years to get the technology settled. As we know, technology is never settled. By the time I get things set up in one area, it’s time for some major PCI overhaul or regulatory overhaul, it seems, or the privacy laws. Things are just always in flux, and it’s just keeping up with all those changes all the time.
There’s an expression. Just when I think I have all the answers, they change the questions. It actually was said by a professional wrestler, I recently found out, which is I’ve been quoting this pro wrestler all these years. It applies for CFOs in digital technology. You get it figured out, and the cards are reshuffled.
I think there used to be this, we do a big transformation, we’ll run it for five years, we’re going to get our ROI, and then we’ll look to the next thing. Now that model is dead. You barely move 30 percent ahead, and there’s a new regulation, or you need to upgrade. You’re constantly managing the system and upgrading the system. It’s like that analogy. You’re flying the plane and building it at the same time, all the time.
I think that’s just the new normal. With the new AI layer, that’s making things interesting and more complex all the time. I know we’re all focused on how to get ROI out of AI and how to layer that onto the systems. There are new challenges that I’m excited about, but sometimes it’s also very overwhelming to think about all the details and nuances that goes into everything. It’s exciting and daunting all at the same time.
When I look back on what the profession must have been like in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, where there was none of this technology and there wasn’t all this constant evolution and the constant learning that go with it, I can see why accountants and financial people had a negative stereotype to them that we were boring and uninteresting. That’s not going to cut it, right?
Not at all. No more are the “I come to work and open my spreadsheets and plug into them and close them out and leave for the day.” Those days are done, and every member has to be dynamic. Now the change is happening all the time.
I’d love to chat a little bit, too, about the team that you largely inherited with it. What’s your finance and accounting team like? Is it challenging to recruit, attract, retain, and develop a team in a nonprofit environment because you get people who are mission-focused? You’re not exactly competing with the Silicon Valley titans. On the other hand, that’s attractive to people who think that they’re going to get rich in eighteen months.
Definitely, not. That’s not going to happen in the not-for-profit space. Even on the tech side, I’ve consistently inherited teams that are much older than myself. They’re closer to my mother’s age than my age. That has its own unique dynamics. I think is traditionally not the norm, probably in the accounting and finance space. In building a team, I always go with, and I’ve heard a lot in the finance conferences, radical transparency. I’m focused on building those relationships. A lot of the teams I inherit, they’re not having regular meetings, everyone’s siloed, and doing their piece of the puzzle to the close.
I always come in, we do weekly meetings, we have team-building activities, and we try to keep updates on people’s personal lives as well. Focused on bringing the whole person to work. You’re not going to get rich at a not-for-profit, but people are there because I think the personal relationships and that vision and wanting to be a part of that. I try to keep the radical transparency about where we are in building that vision and what everybody’s role is. Sometimes we have to roll up our sleeves and do more. It’s the personal relationships that keep that going.
That makes sense. An exception to that, although they reincorporated as a for-profit, the National Football League, until recently, not the teams, of course, but the league itself was a nonprofit. It got out that the commissioner was actually higher paid than any players in the league. He made like $28 million in one year. It’s like, “You’re the CEO of a nonprofit making $28 million. How’s that possible?” They’re now a for-profit, but yeah, I certainly get your point. You’re recruiting people who believe in and are passionate for the mission and just want to get a lot of stuff done.
They do. I think it’s also key to like in not-for-profits, people want to see what their pathway to growth is as well. Trying to outline what that pathway is when there’s not a lot of different roles or levels, but I think people want to grow and be able to see that growth. I think that can be harder to map out in a not-for-profi,t and that takes some nuance so that people can see that trajectory ahead of them. I try to focus on that because it’s important in the for-profit or the not-for-profit space.
I often ask this question of CFOs, and it’s perhaps more interesting in that because you do work for a nonprofit, but you’re a CPA, GAAP, it can do it well. What are some of the ways that you measure success at your company outside of traditional finance and accounting metrics? What are your favorite KPIs that maybe aren’t even finance and accounting related?
I think at every organization looking at turnover. One of the nice things about CREW is that there’s very limited turnover. A lot of our staff have been with the organization 10, 15, 20 years. We want to keep that KPI strong to keep people happy working at crew and have them have an entire career with CREW and make sure we have the benefits to match. I think it’s a traditional KPI, but we also focus on customer satisfaction a lot, just really staying in touch with our members and hearing what they have to say.
We really value that individual-level feedback. With the 50 entities, we work a lot with our local chapter. I get a lot of one-on-one feedback from the local chapters. They write me directly. I take those calls to get that individual-level feedback, which isn’t always the case. That alone can keep me quite busy just hearing what the chapters that we’re working with on accounting and finance have to say and their ideas. That could be a full-time job. It’s juggling that sometimes with the day-to-day work, but just keeping that door open, I think that’s key. I think that’s some added value I bring to the role.
Work and Life
I want to chat a little about an important and underrated thing for CFOs and probably across the entire C-suite, but it’s the issue of work-life balance. How do you realistically achieve it in the current world, because jobs tend to be all-consuming? As a former CFO, I know that the CFO role in particular is not one you can turn off your computer, walk out the door, and think that it’s out of your mind right away. You’re also on, I have a list, you’re on 73 different nonprofit boards. Not quite 73, but you’re involved with the AICPA. You’re the co-chair of our Baltimore chapter. You work with the Maryland Association CPAs, and you’re also in a coalition for adult English literacy. You have a lot going on. How do you do it all, or do most of it all anyway?
Time management is key, and something I’ve had to learn is that at one point, I would work all hours all the time, but now I have to cut it off at a certain point, and that can be uncomfortable because I feel like all those things are undone. I try to leave from self-care and mental wellness. For me, that’s giving back. I want to give back to the profession that helped me get here through the support of others.
In particular, I want to help women and people who are underrepresented see themselves as leaders. Working with non-traditional accountants or people early in their career and saying, “Do you see yourself as a controller? Do you see yourself as CFO? Do you want to be the director of finance?” Really getting out there and being that support to help those individuals envision themselves and hire for roles.
Like Joy did for me, saying, “I’m here for you. You can reach out, ask questions, I’ll be there.” That’s pivotal, that’s as much me helping them as them helping me to keep that real touch point to what’s going on in the world. Being that change that I want to see, I want to see a greater space for women and people of color to enter into finance and accounting and leadership roles, and helping elevate them to get there.
We’re all with more and more people like you as role models. I’m sure that it’s going to happen. In fact, you may know I did predict about a year ago, so I’ve only got nine years to go, that I predicted that in ten years, the CFO role would be majority female. There are a lot of factors that went into my belief in that. I think it’ll eventually happen, whether or not it’s ten years or not, I’m not sure. Just the demographics are there.
There are just more women entering the profession and staying in it. Just the nature of the way the roles change, with its focus on collaboration and empathy, and team building. These are just areas where women can excel. I see it’s a great profession for anyone. I tell young people, “Go into finance and accounting, you’ll always have a job, a lot of stability, and high paying.” In particular, I do see it as a fantastic career option for women.
It is a fantastic career option. I make sure to promote it. I love what I do. I love being in finance, and I give back to those organizations because I want them to thrive. If we want to go to the conferences and we want them to be good conferences, we have to participate and help make them strong. I feel like that’s my role. There may come a point where I’m too busy where I cannot there, but while I can, I want to make sure to put my time and effort there just to keep the network strong and just so people have somewhere to reach out to.
That makes sense. I want to ask one thing, when we talked about work-life balance, you left one thing out, but I’m going to put it right back in there. You’ve done a triathlon relatively recently, just a few weeks ago, right?
Yes. I started this role. I’m part of the interview process. I was very clear. I’m training for my first Ironman. An Ironman is 2.4 miles of swimming, 112 miles of biking, and then finishes with a 26.2-mile marathon run. It was an audacious goal. I didn’t plan to switch jobs in the middle of that because, just by itself, it was quite daunting to tackle my first full Ironman. I was clear in the interview, also clear about all my board obligations, and was hired anyway.
I’m grateful that they saw the bigger picture of who I am as a CFO and wanted to support that. CREW was very supportive during my training, including the board, who tracked and cheered me on as a company and sent flowers afterwards with my accomplishment, but gave me the space to be CFO on board and keep that goal. I finished. It’s amazing to cross that finish line with that trajectory behind me. It was one of the best top-five moments of my life. I will definitely tell you.
Were you like a good athlete when you were a kid, or is this just something you picked up as an adult and decided I’m going to make myself into a good athlete?
I was always an athlete in middle and high school. I did cross country running, softball, and soccer. As I got into college, I focused on academics and career, and living abroad, I always ran, but I’m someone who needs to jog for anxiety management, stress management, to get outside just to have that mental health focus.
I’ve always kept it up, but it was really during COVID when my traditional routine of going for a job and lifting weights at the gym. The gym closed, and I had to figure out something else. That’s when I also got promoted to director of finance, and someone said, “Have you ever thought about a triathlon?” I never had, I was never a good swimmer, but it just was like that right moment of like, “Triathlon is outside,” like you cannot go inside to work out.
It was just the right time, right place. I really needed to do a greater exercise level to help manage the stress of the growing role. That’s where I started in triathlon and really started to learn how to swim and swim competitively in open water. It’s been a journey and an exciting one. I’ve met so many amazing people on both sides.
There are two sports that I cannot relate to at all. One is marathon running, just the concept of running 26.2 miles. It strikes me as absurd. The other is gymnastics. It’s not like I watch a lot of gymnastics, but I do during the Olympics and some other times. Those people don’t even seem human to me. It’s like I could train for the next 30 years. Of course, I’m 60 now, so I’d be 90. Maybe that would be a good excuse, but if I dedicated my life, I don’t think I could do some of those things. Good for you for doing something very few people do. I did a different triathlon a couple of years ago. I drank six beers, ate an entire cheese pizza, and watched eight hours of football on a Sunday.
That sounds fun as well.
It’s not as accomplished as you but, it’s it’s it’s a bragging point for me. I’m only half exaggerating on that, by the way. The beers I don’t really drink too much of at this point in my life, but cool. I want to get back to on the business side. You have a non-traditional background, which is great. How do you see the nature of financial leadership itself changing, whether it be new technologies, new businesses, whatever it might be? How do you see the CFO role evolving over the next several years?
I think we hear about it at every conference. The CFO role is the jack of all trades. It’s beyond even operations now. We have to know about HR. We have to know about IT. You have to understand contract negotiations, procurement, besides just the finance and accounting, but also you start delving into strategy and legal. We just really have to have some knowledge of so many hats. I know in the organizations I’ve been in, as new projects come on, they want my way in from that level of experience as to whether we should move forward or not. Definitely, my time in finance and accounting, I’ve never been stuck in the finance and accounting role. It’s always been looking from this broader perspective, and I think that’s only going to increase.
That makes a lot of sense. My final question for you is, what’s your advice for the next generation of CFOs?
I think coming into this field as CFO, next year will be year four for me as CFO. I’m at the beginning end of my CFO journey. It’s such an exciting field because there’s just so much opportunity. Roughly, I have twenty more years to go, and it feels like the world’s my oyster, and that’s a great place to be a mid-career. I tell every CFO never to give up.
I think particularly people coming into this field there, we know there’s less mentorship. People are getting into leadership roles with not a lot of mentorship or advisors, and that’s triathlon for me. Just reminding myself all the time, like “I’m brave. I’m courageous. I can tackle whatever’s coming and just really learning to like never give up, really hone that gut instinct and dive in no matter what it is.” I think that’s what’s asked of all of us in this role, and will only increase as people are coming up in their career with less and less mentorship and support in what that leadership role looks like.
I think you have to harness believing in yourself. I think that can be challenging sometimes for people, men or women, and I hear it often from men. It seems like they’re so confident, but we’re all wavering and struggling, and just know you’re not alone and dive in and reach out to the association space for the support you need if you don’t have it internally in the company. It’s possible. I hope I’m a representation that it’s possible. You can grow and move up.
I’m certain you are. Think that’s great advice. I want to take a moment just to thank you for being here. You’ve been a great guest, and I’m sure the listeners are going to get a lot of value from this. Thanks so much for your time, and I look forward to continuing to follow your story.
Thanks, Jack. Happy to be here and good luck, everyone.
