Great CFOs don’t just crunch numbers—they shape strategies, build teams and drive transformation. Jack McCullough welcomes Claire Bramley, CFO of Teradata, to explore the journey of a true rockstar CFO: from leading Teradata’s shift to cloud-based solutions to championing team diversity and breaking career barriers. Claire shares her insights on what it takes to excel in financial leadership as well as the power of communication, the importance of storytelling in finance and how a CFO can embrace opportunities that push boundaries.
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Welcome back to the show. We have a fantastic guest, so we will get right into it. I’m excited to welcome Claire Bramley, the CFO of Teradata. Teradata is a cloud-based data analytics company specializing in large-scale data warehousing and analytics solutions. Claire, welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here.
It’s great to have you. I only summarized your company in about a sentence. Could you give me the 10,000-foot view?
We are a cloud-first data and analytics software company. We have been going through a very exciting transformation over the past few years, since our new CEO, Steve McMillan, joined us. Previously, we were very well-known in the on-premise data and analytics space. What we did is we took all that knowledge and all that expertise and transferred that to a cloud-native environment. We are available in the cloud in a native way across AWS, Google and Microsoft, so across all three big CSPs.
What we are known for is our precise power performance at scale when managing large amounts of data. We are with the top 10,000 enterprise companies across industries like financial services, healthcare, transport and communication. They are managing large amounts of data. We are helping them with their data and analytics and running their operations behind the scenes. We are known for performance at scale. We are on a journey to move those customers who want to be in the cloud from on-premise to the cloud. Those of them will have a hybrid environment, so a mix between on-premise and cloud. We are the only one that offers that true hybrid experience.
That’s a great position, to say the least. I’m looking forward to talking a little about that, but I’d love to talk a little about your background before we get into that. You grew up in the UK. Where did you grow up?
I spent most of my childhood in a lovely city called Canterbury in Kent. Many of you may know the Archbishop of Canterbury and The Canterbury Tales. I have to say I was very fortunate to grow up there. I did go to university in the UK as well, a university very well-known for its sports and business school called Loughborough. It’s based in the middle of the UK. That got me into where I am. I’m happy to talk a bit about that. Pretty early on I was interested in finance; I’m sure we will talk about that.
We’ll talk a little about that. When we spoke, you picked up finance at fourteen. I’m like, “She seems so normal. She doesn’t seem like a true nerd.” How did you know at such a young age? To give you context, at fourteen, I was convinced I would be a professional wrestler.
I started to study business studies. It was more about the broader business environment, but it was the finance piece that struck a chord with me—being able to tell a story through the numbers and being able to relate it to decisions made and the case studies we were managing. I got along very well with my business studies teacher. I studied with him for 4 years, from 14 up to 18. He encouraged and supported my curiosity and interest. He gave me great case studies about companies that I could study and understand. He gave me great feedback. That fostered my enjoyment of connecting the dots through the numbers.
It’s interesting. You used the word storytelling. It’s such an important and underrated aspect of being a successful CFO in the modern world. It’s amazing. I apologize for having referred to you as a nerd. I was only kidding. Hopefully, that came across.
I call myself a nerd, too. Don’t worry about it.
It’s interesting. Even at fourteen, you saw finance as a storytelling role. Even as a teenager, you were forward-looking in many ways, it sounds like.
To your point, I enjoyed it because there was a story behind the numbers. If you ask me what I would encourage people to focus on in their careers, especially in finance, I always mention communication. There are lots of other skills that you need to have, clearly, but communication has been, in the past, underrated as an important skill to have as a CFO.
I talk to my team all the time. I have coaching in my team. Across all of my organizations, they have access to communication coaching, which I support and fund because it’s really important. It’s not natural for everyone, but it is a skill you can learn. It is a skill that you can build on over time and get more comfortable doing.
I talk about the importance of communication because we have access to such vital information, to so much data. If you can’t explain that to other people who may not be financially-minded or may not understand the details that you are talking about in words that they understand and influence them, then it’s wasted.
All of that work that you’re doing behind the scenes, whether it’s accounting on the technical side of accounting, data and analytics side, planning, forecasting, tax, treasury, or investor relations, ultimately, there’s a consumer or customer at the end of the journey that you need to explain this to. You need to explain your findings. You need to explain why this is important. You need to be able to influence outcomes. Without good communication skills, you can’t do that. That’s what I’m teaching my kids here at home. I’m like, “Try and get used to being able to tell a story. Get used to being able to do presentations or explaining your point of view and speaking up. Otherwise, all of the hard work that you’ve done doesn’t get utilized in the best possible way.”
I often tell controllers aspiring to become CFOs in their next one, “There are a million people with the technical skills to be a CFO. If you want to separate yourself from those people, work on your communication, strategic acumen and leadership skills.” There are not a million who can become CFOs, but there are a lot of great controllers who don’t have the communication skills that are expected of the modern CFO. Kudos to you for recognizing that.
Thank you. When I think about my career and my journey, I think about breaking through boundaries or barriers to a certain extent. Sometimes, they are put upon you from the outside, but quite often, they are barriers and boundaries we put on ourselves. The number of accountants and controllers who say, “I can’t present. I can’t communicate. I can’t tell a story,” it’s not that you can’t. You need to practice. You need to say to yourself, “This is something I’m going to do.”
Invest like any other skill. We’ve spent years learning to be accountants. I did it at school. I did it at college. I did my chartership. I put years into being a technical accountant. You have to put the same investment in being a communicator. It’s not something that comes to you overnight. It’s not something that you can wake up and be able to do. That’s what I tell people. I’m like, “Don’t put these boundaries and barriers on yourself. Give yourself the challenge to become a better communicator. Put the same time and effort into becoming a good communicator as you already have to become a good controller or financial analyst.”
Career Journey
I want to reference your career journey and the intriguing part. You had a great run at HP starting out, I believe, in the UK and you had a couple of tours of duty in Switzerland along the way. You must have worked with some of the smartest people in finance and generally. I’d love to explore that journey a little bit. What are some of the key lessons you learned? Were there maybe some mentors you had along the way that set you up for the CFO role that you’re in?
Absolutely. I was very fortunate. HP is one of those companies, and it came from the top, that really supports its employees and gives them lots of opportunities. I’m a great example of that. Teradata does the same as well. I’ve been fortunate that the companies I have worked for and the people I’ve worked with have been extremely supportive.
To your point, I started in the UK. The first manager I had there found a different way of mentoring me and pushed me. I remember thinking, “I’m never going to be enough. I’m never going to be able to get there,” but he knew I would respond to that challenge. I had a manager in the UK, where it was never quite enough. It was like, “You’ve got that now. What about this?” Honestly, that was the best thing that ever happened. It turned out that he knew he would be moving onto a new role and was trying to set me up to not necessarily take his role but be able to manage things in the interim, add more value and get up to speed quickly.
That was my first experience. In my first two years at HP, I felt like I was being pushed, but in a supportive way, not in an aggressive way. Sometimes, I did walk away and thought, “Am I ever going to be enough? Am I ever going to get there?” That made me realize what I was capable of. Talking about breaking through boundaries, he was trying to push me over the next barrier that I was putting myself. He was pushing me through the next boundary. He really did focus on business enablement. Our role here as a finance organization is business enablement. That was in the UK.
I then went to Switzerland. I worked in Switzerland but lived in France. They’re very close. You drive across the border. That was a great experience, and that was my first international experience. Believe it or not, I’ve not lived in the UK since then. I clearly visit and return home regularly, but I haven’t lived in the UK since. That was a push. That was a, “There’s this great role. It’s a promotional role. It’s a different role from what you’ve been doing up until now. Would you like to do it?” It was a bit of a push, and I was like, “Let’s go.” My husband and I packed our bags and haven’t looked back. That has been great.
One of the things I have to say throughout my whole career at HP, previous to HP, but also at Teradata, is that it’s about the people who have really supported me along the way. Sometimes, it’s people at work but also my friends and my family. My dad, who unfortunately is no longer with us, was another one who encouraged me and pushed me to apply for jobs that I wouldn’t have otherwise applied for and that I didn’t think I was qualified for. He was like, “You don’t know until you try.”
It’s that push of other people and that encouragement and support and teaching me perseverance, because it doesn’t always go perfectly, that has been really important and had a huge impact. I see it as my contribution back to others. Whether it’s at Teradata, whether it’s women, whether it’s women in tech or whether it’s finance people, I always see it’s my role to give forward that experience and my experience because I was so lucky for people to do that. It is so important.
We talked about communication. My second one is about networking. It’s about having support, a network, or a team of people to support you. These are not people who are going to agree with you and tell you that you’re wonderful. It’s nice to hear that but sometimes, you need to be told some hard truths so you can change and improve yourself. Having that group of people around you both in work and outside of work is really important.
I find it also important to intentionally network with other CFOs, intentionally network with the business team and spend some time, whether it’s with the CRO or the chief marketing officer here at Teradata, because I know I can learn from them. They come at things from different perspectives. They have different experiences. I encourage people to do that.
That’s not normal for us accountants. We are not extroverts naturally. We only have a certain amount of energy when it comes to being social and when it comes to getting out there and chatting, but we can all do it again. It’s a learned skill. We can all do it. We need to know when we need to take a break because we normally get tired. I’m the same. I come across as very extroverted and social but I get to a limit where my bucket is empty and then I’m like, “Give me some numbers. Give me some reports. Give me data. Let me listen and review rather than be the one that’s speaking and talking.” That started at HP and before, to be fair, when I worked at Compass Group and SSP. It has been a big help for me in my career.
Also, saying yes to opportunities. Saying yes to Geneva and saying yes to moving to the US, which is where we settled. We went back and forth between the US and Switzerland a couple of times. It was saying yes and seeing it as an adventure. I remember the first time we went to the US. My husband and I went on a preview trip. There was just us then. We didn’t have any children at the time.
We went on a preview trip. After the preview trip and going around San Francisco and what have you, we were like, “We like Switzerland. Do we really want to do this? We’re happy being near Lake Geneva and near the mountains like Chamonix and Verbier. We’re not sure we need to go and live in the bay in San Francisco.”
I said to my husband, “It might not feel like the perfect move right now, but it’s an opportunity that’s not going to come along every day. What’s the worst that can happen? If we don’t like it, we’ll try and find our way back. We’ll try and find an alternative path.” We went for it even though we were a little bit unsure, and we loved it. We had the time of our lives. It goes to show that you don’t know. You don’t know what it’s going to be like. You don’t know what the opportunity will turn into. For us, it turned into a life-changing moment and we’re very settled here in the US.
I’ve never known anybody who lived or worked in Switzerland and said that they regretted doing so.
That’s true, but it’s different. It’s a different culture, a different language and a different style, so you have to make an effort to fit in. You have to make an effort. The area, the location and the country are beautiful but very different from the UK. The US is different as well. To your point, it’s an experience. Even if you do it for a few years, you can’t say no to those opportunities because they don’t come along every day.
It’s interesting. The United States is so big that even San Francisco is very different than Dallas, Texas, or Washington, DC. My fellow Bostonians will have to forgive me but I consider San Francisco and New York to be the two greatest cities in America. I’ve always thought London was maybe the greatest city in the world or Geneva or something like that. Brussels is certainly in the conversation and Paris.
There are so many great places, to your point. You can choose. If you have the opportunity to experience any of them, say yes.
First-Time CFO
I have a hunch you’ll experience all of them before things are over. At HP, you were a global controller, and then the opportunity came along to be the CFO of Teradata. If I’m not mistaken, this is your first CFO role and you’ve been in it for a bit of north of three years. Tell me how being a controller at HP prepared you for this role and how the role came about.
It prepared me extremely well, I have to say. To your point earlier, there are a lot of controllers out there who are very capable of being CFOs. Some of them need to believe in themselves to be able to do it because I’ve seen a lot of people who are like, “I couldn’t do your job.” Lots of people say that. I remember saying that to the CFO of HP and going, “I can’t be a CFO,” earlier in my career. We need people to say, “Never say never. Go through the journey. Do your best. Work hard. Take up the opportunities that come along. You never know.”
As a CFO, it’s very multifaceted, especially here at Teradata. I have all of the finance pieces, but I also have IT, security, procurement, real estate, strategy and transformation. There are a lot of roles. That has developed over time. I didn’t necessarily have strategy and transformation on the day I joined. That has come over time as I’ve been here at Teradata. It’s multifaceted.
In the role of the controller, you have that global view. HP is a large company and is global. Coming from an international standpoint and having that global perspective, it was very helpful in understanding how the company needs to be represented externally, from regulatory compliance to investor relations. I was involved in the investor relations process, the investor days, the earnings, etc. I’ve had a lot of experience there.
You’re also managing the free cashflow, which means you’re really working closely with the treasury team about how we’re managing our cash. What does that look like? You are working closely with them on the impact on our WASO. That’s our Weighted Average Shares Outstanding. What does our share repurchase look like? You are connected to everything that’s going on.
I was lucky enough, as the controller, also to be head of FP&A. I was the head of FP&A in my team as well as the accounting team and the shared services team. That big role gives you access to what’s going on in the business and what we need to do externally. I brushed up on my technical accounting skills. I came from that background but did a lot of business finance. Going back to the controller role I brushed up on US GAAP and what needs to happen there.
The other area that it helped with, which is one area that many controllers don’t have enough experience in to be CFO, is engagement with the board of directors. At HP, letting the controller manage the audit committee is fairly rare. The CFO is there and attends, but the controller is the person who has the relationship with the audit committee chair. The controller is the one who runs the agenda, runs the meetings and ensures that the content is there for the audit committee.
Running the audit committee and getting to know how the board of directors works, that exposure also was key. That was maybe a little bit different from what some people have. I would encourage people thinking about wanting to be a CFO to get more involved and more connected to the board of directors in some form, because that is a very different relationship. It’s a different way of communicating, finding the balance between how much and how little they need to know.
I’ll be honest. I didn’t get it right from the beginning. I had to learn from that. That experience has set me up to be the CFO at Teradata. I have a fantastic relationship with the chair of the audit committee here, the audit committee in total and the board of directors. I’ve invested in those relationships from day one. I learned through experience how to do that and how important that is.
That’s one of the questions I get asked a lot. People ask, “How do you develop a relationship with the board if you’re only seeing them 4 or 5 times a year and you’re presenting for 5 minutes in a 1-hour meeting?” It’s hard to develop a meaningful relationship. It needs a little more proactivity and whatnot. Despite having earlier called yourself an introvert, you seem savvy enough to develop those relationships from the get-go.
I did it very intentionally here because I joined during COVID. Not only are you meeting them only once a quarter, but you are only meeting them virtually as well. We do have in-person board meetings, but when I first started, it was during COVID, so everything was done virtually. I intentionally invest a significant amount of time. Some people may be shocked at this, but I probably speak to the audit committee chair every 2 to 3 weeks. We have a one-on-one. Sometimes, we have a group meeting. That’s intentional.
I’m lucky enough that my chair of the audit committee is also a CFO of a software company, so we see each other as peers. We can bounce ideas off each other. Partly, it’s to stay connected to build the relationship, but partly, it’s because it’s very interesting to get her perspective and point of view. She has been here for a few years. She’ll ask me from my perspective and my point of view. She’ll sometimes say, “I loved what you shared in the audit committee. I’m going to steal that and use that with mine.” We have that. I’ve invested time, and I was lucky enough that she was willing to invest the time. That’s important.
The CEO-CFO Relationship
That’s fantastic. I also want to discuss your relationship with the CEO, Steve McMillan. A research report was published a few years ago from one of the big consulting firms. They concluded that the most crucial relationship across the C-suite was between the CEO and the CFO. It’s a true partnership when done well, and it’s critical to the company’s success and growth. What’s that relationship like?
I have an amazing relationship with Steve here at Teradata. Whether it’s the CEO or any business partner I have worked with, I know the importance of that relationship. When you talk about personality indexes, I’m an adapter. That helps a lot because I look at what I need to be. It’s not that you change your values or approach, but you find a way to ensure that you are a balanced team. If the CEO, for example, has a tendency to focus on one area, I’ll intentionally adapt and focus on another area. At the same time, we try to ensure that we come together to ensure alignment.
With Steve, honestly, it has been one of the relationships that have been the easiest to foster and develop. He’s very good at listening. He’s good at taking input and feedback. Even if he has a strong opinion on something, he will listen regardless and take that on board. That shows trust and respect to me and the rest of his leadership team. I’m lucky that I have such a great partner.
To your point, we must be aligned, stay connected and stay on the same page because our view is that if there’s a crack at our level, it becomes a canyon down through the organization. Sometimes, we can have a difficult conversation, but we need to be on the same page to push each other. He pushes me and I push him. It’s important to push each other to have good discussions. There’s no point in being a yes person. There’s no point in agreeing with everything that they say. That’s not what you are there for. You are there to give a different perspective. You’re there to give them data and analytics to support the path ahead and support the decision-making.
It’s really important to invest and have a strong relationship but not to become a yes person. That is not helpful for the company and not helpful for the CEO. By being able to talk openly, whiteboard ideas and sometimes push each other to think of different ways of moving forward, you know the path you take is going to be the best outcome, because you’ve not disregarded potential options along the way.
Steve has that approach, not just with me as CFO but with the full leadership team. Everyone has a voice, and everyone is encouraged to share that voice. It’s not democracy, but it is really important to hear people’s perspectives from their experiences and their opinions and ideas to ensure that the decision we ultimately make and move forward with is the best we can come up with as a team. Steve takes that very seriously.
He is a good listener. It doesn’t mean he’s not afraid to have an opinion, make decisions, move forward and go fast. He likes to go, but at the same time, he intentionally takes a step back. We do a lot of that together. We try to spend time together in person. We try to spend time together on the phone. We message each other. We have a very interactive relationship.
He’s on the East Coast and I’m on the West Coast, so we don’t naturally spend time together. We’re not in the office together. If he’s been traveling and I’ve been traveling and we’ve not overlapped, I will be aware of it. After a few weeks, I’ll say, “We need to connect, have a good discussion, have a chat and make sure that we are staying hip-to-hip as we move forward.”
It’s a really important relationship. Don’t take it for granted. Invest time. To your point, be savvy about how you manage that relationship and be intentional. I’m intentional about all these relationships because they matter and make a big difference, not just to [me] and [my] career, but to the whole company.
I’m stealing your line about a crack becoming a canyon.
If there’s a crack at the leadership team level, it becomes a canyon as it moves down to the organization.
You have a world-class management team, but one thing that intrigued me, and it shouldn’t in 2024, is that you are a female-majority leadership team, which is still relatively rare in the tech space.
It’s amazing. To your point, it shouldn’t be a rarity. We shouldn’t be surprised, but we are. I still find that when I go to meetings and dinners sometimes, I’m still the only female in the room, but not at Teradata. I’m never the only female in the room at Teradata when it comes to the leadership, and that’s fabulous. It goes to show it doesn’t matter what gender you are. It’s all about having the best people for the job. I love that we have this, but our chief product officer is female, our chief financial officer is female, our chief people officer is female, our chief legal officer is female and our chief marketing officer is female. How about that? Isn’t that awesome?
Team Building
Yeah, and the company is benefiting from that leadership team. It’s a great success story. That is so cool. I want to chat a little about your philosophy on team-building. In particular, you bring such a global perspective to your company, more so than most people I know. I’m curious how that perspective has helped you develop a world-class finance and accounting team.
The word I keep talking about is being intentional. I’m very intentional as I build my leadership team, and I encourage them to do the same as they build their teams. I do that because it’s very easy to hire people you connect with, who are like-minded and who you can work easily with. What I realized is that you then end up with a room full of people who think the same way and have the same approach, which might not necessarily be representative of the customers or the team more broadly. It does not bring that diversity and inclusion of thought to be innovative and challenge the status quo.
I try to think about diversity. There are different types of diversity. That’s important to remember. There’s more than the male and female. There’s more than gender and ethnicity. There’s more to diversity, in my opinion, than that, although it’s very important to have that, too. The other area I focus on is leadership styles. If you have the balance, the reds puts the pressure on the greens not to ponder and not to take too long to make a decision, but the greens put the pressure on the reds to say, “You’re going a little bit too fast. I don’t think we’ve considered anything.”
The other colors are blue and yellow. Blue is all about data, analytics and numbers. They tend to be more introverted. They’re very traditional accountants. You won’t be surprised to hear that my chief accounting officer leads with blue and is very introverted. You’ve then got the yellows, which are very social. They’re much more extroverted. They think about the people. It’s all about relationships. They’re the ones that drive the vision.
I have a good balance across my team. Intentionally, we all bring ourselves along, and we’re all very open with each other. We know what we are like on a good day and we know what we are like on a bad day. A red on a good day is making decisions and moving things forward. On a bad day, they get defensive, angry, frustrated and impatient. There are lots of bad traits to these styles as well. We can hold each other accountable and say, “Let’s balance this.” I do a lot of that, and that brings the whole team together, whether it’s making sure that we are a trusted team or that we’re helping enable each other even though we stretch many different functions.
When we are together, it’s really important to support each other. We work across many different functions. It doesn’t matter if you’re the chief accounting officer. It doesn’t matter if you’re the head of business finance. It doesn’t matter if you’re the CISO. You all bring perspective to the table. You can all help each other out. You might not be the technical expert, and that’s not what I’m asking, but from a leadership standpoint and a support standpoint, you can help each other. I encourage the team to do that. We spend a lot of time focusing on that.
The first thing in every weekly meeting I have with my leadership team is we do shout-outs. We give someone some praise and some feedback, someone either who’s on the call or someone in their team. We spend ten minutes at least every week saying, “Let’s do shout-outs. Let’s praise each other. Let’s start this meeting celebrating success and celebrating what’s going well.” That sets the tone for the meeting. We then dig in and get into the difficult stuff and solve problems.
That’s very important about how to work together as a team and how to work cross-functionally. We set a good example across the rest of the company of not working in silos and working across boundaries. That’s it. I’m not a micromanager. I tend to empower the team. I like to be empowered, so I empower the team, but until things go wrong, I might become a micromanager because I like details.
Your background suggests you would.
I do like details. That is something that I have to take a step back and let them find the solutions and let them come up with answers, ideas and recommendations. Even though I’ve probably got lots of them in my head, when listening to what they say, sometimes they come up with better perspectives than I do. I recognize that. I recognize I’m not the one with all the best ideas or solutions. I’m not the only one that can come up [with ideas] and help make decisions.
Listening as a leader is important. There’s no point in having all that diversity and all that skill and doing all that and then not listening to them. It’s a completely wasted effort. We spend a lot of time listening to each other and sharing each other’s thoughts, views and ideas. We sometimes have to make tough decisions and move forward. We’re then all behind it and we all understand and support it. You can move forward quickly.
I love what you said about starting meetings by complimenting your team. Do you happen to be a Seinfeld fan?
A little bit, yes. In the past.
I don’t know if the phrase “airing of grievances” means anything to you. For people reading, there was an episode. I don’t believe it’s a real holiday, but one of the traditions was the airing of grievances, where everybody would go around the table and list how other people disappointed them in the past year. I had a boss. We started joking that it was the airing of the grievances. He started every meeting by insulting us and telling us how our work was substandard. I love your philosophy on building teams.
I take it the other way. I start with the positive rather than the area of the grievances. I’m doing the shout-outs and the recognition upfront. It makes you stop, pause and go, “What has gone well this week?” We meet weekly, so it’s like, “What has gone well? Where are people going the extra mile? Where have we made good progress?” It is very easy to jump into everything that isn’t going well.
That makes sense. You’re going to be inundated with 200 or 300 résumés, I have to think, based on your leadership philosophy.
I would love that. I’m always looking for great talent.
I was kidding, but maybe I can do a service here.
Maybe you can.
Data Is Opportunity
I’d love to chat with you about what’s going on with Teradata. I’m curious. What do you see as some of the biggest challenges and opportunities facing the company over the next couple of years?
The biggest opportunity we have as a company is how we help our customers who are dealing with such large amounts of data. How do we help them get the best out of their data, especially in the world of AI, generative AI, etc.? That is a huge opportunity. How do we enable them to do that both on-premise and in the cloud in that hybrid environment?
Many companies have huge amounts of data, which they’re not necessarily getting their full power and ability out of. Our job and our opportunity are, with AI, more data is being generated and more information is being accessed, and to enable customers to believe that they can trust the output of AI. That’s trusted AI at scale. That’s one of the things we talk about a lot here.
Trust itself, when it comes to AI, means something. AI itself means something, and then, at scale, it means doing it with the largest enterprises in the world. That’s our biggest opportunity. A lot of companies are still working through that. There has been a lot of hype over the last couple of months around generative AI and AI, but companies are still figuring out how they can get a return and use this information and these capabilities better. We built some AI capabilities into our products. We’re working with our customers to leverage the data they already have in a better way moving forward. Probably our biggest opportunity is trusted AI at scale. That’s what we talk about a lot here at Teradata.
The other thing that we have a big opportunity for is that as data continues to grow, it is being able to be price performant. I was with one of our financial services customers. They are running hundreds of millions of queries weekly and monthly. It’s insane. I don’t think people realize how many queries get run at these companies. Clearly, the cost of those queries is important because they add up. If the cost per query is high, it gets very expensive as you scale that up.
You’ve probably seen a lot out there in the sense of companies getting surprises as to how much some of their analytics are costing them. That’s one thing that Teradata does well. We have the lowest cost per query in the industry, and we have a good operations dashboard, so you don’t get those surprises. You can manage it from a cost standpoint. We focus on getting that cost per query as low as possible. It is so that when you do scale, you can scale not only with performance but also in the cheapest way possible.
There’s lots of opportunity there as we continue to grow our relationships and partnerships. We had a new CRO join us, which is exciting. He has reorganized his team and is very much focused on industry verticals and geographies worldwide. We got rid of our regional structure, for example, because he wants to be closer to the company. He is trying to take out layers of management and get closer to the customer. There are lots of great opportunities ahead. It has been a big transformation for us over the last few years. Transformations are not linear. There have been ups and downs, and I’m sure there will continue to be, but…we’ve come a long way.
One of the things with you being a relatively visible publicly traded company, you’re building a company for the long-term. Yet, sometimes, the markets only value you in the short-term or, “What did you do for me in the most recent quarter?” As a financial leader, how do you reconcile that? You have to invest in innovation, in the team, and a lot of other things for the long-term, and yet there is pressure to hit certain marks in the short-term. That can’t be easy.
It’s a very difficult balance. What’s important to do is agree as a leadership team on what you think is the right thing for the company and align that with the board. We were talking about the importance of board relationships. It’s important you have their support with everything you do and lay out what you think is the right path. Do scenarios because not everything works out according to plan. Run scenarios so that you then know what you need to do if a different scenario comes about or if something doesn’t turn out as planned, as opposed to being reactive to what you are being asked for from the market.
You need to own your own future. You need to plan it. You have to try and tell the story externally, explain to them why you are doing what you’re doing, and be transparent. It’s really important to be transparent. Not telling the market, investors and analysts things doesn’t help. Sometimes, you have to tell them bad news. In my last earnings, we had to give bad news, but it was the right thing to do. I felt like it was the right thing to do. I’m glad we did it. From an external street standpoint, it wasn’t necessarily what they wanted to hear, but for the longer-term, to your point, as a company we needed to do that kind of reset and build up from there.
Stick to your plan and try not to be influenced too much on the outside in, which is much easier said than done, let’s be honest. Having that clarity and alignment as a leadership team and with the board is super important, because if internally people question the plan, that becomes very difficult to manage. It is getting alignment internally and with the board, and then sticking to that plan. If it doesn’t quite work out, it is having those scenarios that you can follow as you move forward.
Transparency is perhaps the number one leadership quality that people value in CFOs. I need to ask you this question, and I’m happy to ask you this question. I have to ask everybody about generative AI for the moment. When you and I spoke previously, you had three different ways that you thought CFOs should approach AI. I’m curious if you could share that with our audience.
There’s a level of table stakes. You need to capture and do certain things to be able to keep up. I focus on what are the table stakes and what are the things that you need to do to keep up. You should be using AI and generative AI to do basic tools. Most companies have access to a gen AI tool. We are a Microsoft shop, so we use Copilot.
I encourage everybody to use that to help them in a trusted, protected environment to help them as we move forward. The other area is to drive better business outcomes and decision-making. I was talking about scenario planning. Generative AI can be used to help predictive analysis and things like that. Gen AI should be used for that as well.
Finally, it is embedding it into the product and the offering for customers. That’s what we’re doing here at Teradata. We have AI built into all of our ClearScape Analytics software, but we also have products like AI Unlimited and Ask AI, which are all products you can leverage within our software. Those are the three areas that I push the team—the value add, what we deliver to our customers and then the table stakes of how you drive efficiency, how you drive better quality, how you take time out of processes and things like that.
Outside of Work
I want to change gears a little bit. I’ve only said this to about two of my guests so far, but I consider you someone people should follow on social media. You have some great content on LinkedIn. One thing in particular that caught my eye is, “Kayaking makes you a better CFO.” I know from prior conversations that you’re an outdoorsy person. I’d love to chat with you a little about that.
I have my husband to thank for that. He is an amazing whitewater kayaker. He’s a raft guide. He’s also a skiing instructor and a climbing instructor. He’s very outdoorsy. That’s his job. His profession is to be outdoors. I’m lucky enough that we’ve been together for over twenty years. He has taught me a thing or two along the way. As a result, I got into whitewater kayaking, whitewater rafting, skiing, etc.
Kayaking, specifically, the reason that I talk about it is it’s quite scary. Whitewater kayaking is quite scary. One of the scariest trips I did was to the Grand Canyon. I kayaked down the Grand Canyon. That was a classic example where I didn’t even consider kayaking it. We booked a trip. We were going as a family with friends. I assumed I’d go in the raft, my husband would row the raft, and me and the kids would sit in the raft. He was like, “Aren’t you going to kayak it?” I was like, “I can’t do that.” He was like, “Why not?” This is the thing about breaking through those barriers and those boundaries that you put on yourself. I was like, “Okay.” I then got my head around it. I kayaked the Grand Canyon.
It’s scary. Some of those rapids are big. They are scary. Tell yourself it’s about putting the work in and practicing. It’s about keeping a clear head. It’s about being able to adapt in the moment. It doesn’t go according to plan on every rapid. Something that you think is going to happen doesn’t happen. It’s about teamwork. You need someone to help you out if something goes wrong. It’s about keeping an eye on each other and working together.
There are so many things from kayaking that helped me from a work standpoint, and then work helped me from a kayaking standpoint. One of them is being out of my comfort zone and proving to myself that with the right attitude, the right approach and the right support around me, I can do anything. Kayaking is something that we do a lot on the weekends. We have a local river. We live near the South Fork American River, so we can go nearly every weekend, which is pleasant throughout the summer. I’m a fair-weather girl. I don’t like winter kayaking, I’ll be honest, because it’s a bit cold, but I’ll head to the mountains and go skiing.
The reason that I push myself is partly to believe in myself and give myself a challenge outside of work. Also, it clears my mind by having an activity and sport that you have to focus on. I can’t be going down a Grade 3, Grade 4 or whatever rapid and be thinking about, “I wonder what that presentation was.” I can’t do that. I have to be focused at the moment, and I like that. It completely separates my work and my personal life.
You met your husband in England.
That’s a great story as well. It was Nepal. He ran a company. The company was called Kayak Nepal. My brother and I booked a rafting trip through his company in Nepal. He happens to be British, and we lived in the same village in the UK when we were 6 and 7 years old.
You met in Nepal.
We got along well and stayed in touch via email. These were the days when we used to email each other because mobile phones were too expensive. One day, he said, “I’m coming back to the UK. Can we meet up in London?” One thing led to another and we ended up staying together.
I’m thinking back to when you said you had a choice between Switzerland and San Francisco. I’m thinking, “How’s this fellow going to vote on that one?”
He was happy enough to stay in Switzerland. We live near Tahoe. He’s happy because he is near a river. He’s near Lake Tahoe, so he can ski. We have the best of all worlds. We have the US, the mountains and the rivers.
That’s fantastic. The last we spoke, he was taking a vacation in the Grand Canyon with your son and nephew, as I recall.
My son is 11 and he has done the Grand Canyon 3 times. How lucky is he? He didn’t kayak the whole thing, but he did kayak some of it at this time. His goal is he wants to kayak at the age of twelve and wants to kayak from top to bottom. It’s not just about kayaking, though. It’s about the adventure. You have no contact with the outside world other than via a satellite phone. You have to take everything in with you and everything out, so all your food and water. You can’t leave any trace. You are there for at least 16 to 18 days. You go down the river and find somewhere to camp out.
We’ve done it as a family. My daughter was 6 and my son was 7 the first time we did the Grand Canyon. It’s a lifestyle choice that my husband encourages us to follow in my spare time. I couldn’t be happier because it’s a great family time and a great experience. Also, it pushes you as a person and makes you appreciate things. It makes our kids appreciate what they have when they come home.
You’re a CFO of a public company. I believe you’re on a board of directors as well. I always ask, “How do you do work-life balance?” You already answered it. You’re an outdoorsy person. That’s what keeps you sane, it sounds like.
It is difficult to balance. You have to use those weekends that you have. Even if it’s a half day, you must force yourself to do it. It’s the same with family vacations. A two-week holiday every summer is the norm in Europe. I try to do that. I do try to have at least a 1- or 2-week holiday with my family every year, sometimes in the summer and sometimes over Christmas and New Year. That time is really important.
I’m not saying I never look at my email. No one’s that good. It is having quality time and being present. You come back with revived and renewed. That’s something a lot of US people have said to me. They’re like, “How can you do that?” I’m like, “You make sure you have the right team and that you set everything up before you go and that you can be available.” In the Grand Canyon, you can’t. In most places, you can be available if there is an emergency, but quite often, there isn’t. Often, everybody can wait another week until you get back if it’s that important.
They don’t have Wi-Fi cell towers at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? I’m shocked.
They do not. There’s no Wi-Fi. There’s no phone reception. There’s nothing other than being able to use a satellite phone.
This has been wonderful. My closing question is always that I’d love to get any advice you have for the next generation of CFOs.
We talked about it, but I would like to remind people of this. Push yourself forward and believe in yourself. There are many times in my career when I would not have made a decision or made a move without people around me pushing me to do so, because I believed that I couldn’t do it. Believing in yourself and creating that support network around you is important. Don’t underestimate the importance of that.
Also, we talked about communication. That’s important, as well as helping each other out. It’s not a competition. I grew up thinking that everything was a competition. I would honestly say I started my career feeling like I had to prove myself and try and be the best. As I got older and maybe a bit more experienced and mature, I realized that’s not the case. It’s not a competition. Getting there together is more fun, more effective and a better outcome than you going alone. That would be my feedback to people.
I’m always happy for people to reach out and have a career conversation. I say that to people. Don’t be afraid to reach out. If there’s somebody that you want to hear from, very rarely do people say no. They might say, “I can’t do it tomorrow,” or, “I can’t do it next week,” but rarely if someone says, “Can I have a career conversation with you?” they’ll say no. I’ve never said no in my entire life. Whether it’s me or whether it’s other people that you look up to and you want to learn from or get to know, reach out. We don’t do that enough. I know I don’t do that enough, so I’m going to take some of my own advice as well.
