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Kerry is currently VP of Finance at FinTech scaleup up 9Fin. She has worked closely with founders and C-Suite leaders throughout her career both in finance and general management roles. After 9 years in PE she joined the Board at consumer tech scaleup FIIT as CFO during a period in which the business grew 650% YoY before moving on to her next challenge at design agency Native Design as Managing Director, where she worked with the founder and Chief Creative Officer to establish a cohesive executive team and business strategy to support future growth.

What do you see as the key differences between the CFO and MD?

I’ve seen lots of different flavours of CFO and MD roles across different types of businesses and organisational structures but I think that, in general, the gap between these two roles has closed over recent years. While the CFO role is heavily focused on finance, it is not a pure financial operations role and goes well beyond inward looking activities such as accounting, tax, processes and management reporting. These are the basic requirements of any finance function but the real value of an effective CFO will be in the area of strategic finance – the forward looking activities that help understand and drive growth through revenue optimisation, market research, defining and measuring unit economics and business metrics, fundraising, M&A etc. A good CFO will, through extensive business partnering and intimate knowledge of company metrics, know and understand all functions of the business well, along with how these functions interrelate.

Like a CFO, the MD role is also incredibly broad, cross functional and focused on driving business growth and success. MD’s too will need to be across all business functions and understand each function intimately in order to set goals and develop business strategy.

The biggest difference I see between the two roles lies in the word ‘Managing’, with MD’s typically having a much broader range of direct reports from across business functions. It means MD’s will typically be managing people from functions of the business where they are unlikely to have deep technical expertise (such as IT infrastructure or HR), and that requires slightly different management skills.

MD’s also have a bigger operational remit than CFOs. Whilst a CFO will be responsible for the day-to-day financial operations of a company, MD’s will likely have responsibility for day-to-day operations across the wider business and will often be directly responsible for the implementation of company wide policies.

When you started your career in finance, was there a long term game plan?

Absolutely not.

I’ve always enjoyed numbers, data and solving complex problems, but outside of academia, I didn’t have a clear picture of what roles would be open to me and which roles I would be suited to. Starting my career on an Executive Management graduate scheme with HSBC provided a great opportunity to play to some of these strengths, whilst benefiting from an amazing overview of a global organisation and the huge variety of roles and career paths that it provides.

The graduate scheme was very focused on transferable skills, so I was managing teams from day one, moving between departments regularly and constantly being pushed outside of my comfort zone. I think it made me less afraid of jumping into completely new roles and sectors as my career progressed and I’ve jumped into quite a few! I’ve been lucky enough to work across private equity, VC backed start-up / scale-up businesses and privately owned businesses.

Throughout my career, I’ve looked for opportunities where I can add value using the skills and experiences gained on my own unique career journey, but equally important to me, is that each new role provides an opportunity to learn something new and stretch myself. I think that if you can marry this with optimising for the environments, cultures and people that are a good values fit, you won’t go too far wrong. I’ve enjoyed the journey!

What experience on your journey was critical to enabling you to become an MD?

I think starting my career on the very broad Executive Management scheme at HSBC, jumping between different functions and having early and wide ranging management responsibilities, has made me less afraid of jumping into new roles and experiences as my career has progressed.

Another key formative experience for me was stepping into my first start-up CFO role at Fiit, where I worked with a CEO and founding team who really understood the value of a broad and strategic CFO. Finance was never just viewed as the numbers function in the corner but rather as an integral business partner across all business functions. At Fiit, I was invited to be a true thought partner to the CEO, helping to navigate the ever increasing complexities of a rapidly scaling business. It was such a rich experience and really helped to deepen my knowledge of different business departments. This experience was instrumental in making the subsequent leap into a Global MD position.

What particular skills does a CFO bring to the MD role?

CFOs will naturally have a deep and holistic understanding of financial operations, which is an excellent foundation for any leadership role. What people don’t always appreciate is that CFO’s are also right at the centre of planning for and driving growth. This requires the CFO to be across all business functions and have a deep understanding of the interplay between the different areas of a business – how marketing drives sales, how product and CS reduce churn etc. The CFO should know what levers the business can pull and when. This deep understanding of the business fundamentals is incredibly valuable when stepping into an MD position.

A CFO’s expertise in defining and measuring business metrics and unit economics helps ensure a business is data-led in decision making, and I think that is a really important skill that a CFO can bring into an MD role too. Decisions are rarely black and white so being able to understand and think through multiple factors and scenarios and still reach a decision quickly, often under extreme pressure, is a very valuable and transferable skill.

As a CFO, especially in the start-up scale-up space, you need to be laser focused on optimal resource allocation and driving efficiency. Again, these are great transferable skills for MD positions where organisational efficiency should be right at the top of the priorities list.

The skills you will have honed as CFO in managing and leading teams will serve you well as you start to broaden your remit and, likely, broaden your reporting lines.

A CFO also has a huge role to play in building investor and stakeholder (both internal and external) confidence. As CFO I was able to hone my skills at communicating information – building engaging narratives with data and communicating complex information in ways that were easy to understand and meaningful to the specific audience. Done well, this role builds your credibility with stakeholders and gives people around you confidence. These communication skills and the credibility you have earned, carries across well into MD positions.

Where do you think the skills gap was?

When taking on new roles there should always be a skills gap, otherwise you’re not stretching and learning. I think the biggest adjustment when stepping into the MD role was becoming really comfortable with managing functions that are outside of my technical expertise, such as IT infrastructure.

A few years ago, I undertook some professional coach training which was invaluable to me as I transitioned to my first MD role. Unlike mentoring, which is more focused on sharing your own skills, knowledge and experience, the coaching course helped me to better guide others in identifying their own solutions to reaching their goals. This was such an asset, especially in the early transition where I was still deepening my technical knowledge of the new departments and business areas that I found myself responsible for.

What advantage do you think a finance background gives you as an MD?

Finance is the lifeblood of a business. Having a strong understanding of the business financials, the interdependency between key metrics and economics, and being able to communicate this in a way that is engaging and easy to understand is incredibly valuable.

If you have come from a finance background, especially through start-up / scale-up businesses, you will have seen the best of times, and the worst of times. Pressurised cash runways or shortfalls, last minute funding delays, business restructures or redundancies – you will find yourself right in the middle of these situations. If you have built your experience across financial leadership roles you will have built up a wealth of lived experience and business acumen and developed a lot of resilience and empathy. This will serve you well however you choose to advance your career.

You mentioned, one of the challenges already around perhaps not having experience in the areas you are now overseeing. Are there any others?

Whether you’re moving from CFO to an MD role or even just moving on to a new CFO position in a different company, you will be faced with new challenges that you haven’t experienced before. Every company is unique. The experience that comes with navigating the complexities of fast growth businesses will serve you well, but there will always be something – a new challenge or situation that surprises you. The greater the breadth of the experience you can build the more comfortable and confident you will become in finding a way through.

Would you ever go back to a pure finance role?

I don’t think I’ve ever had a pure finance role, so no. That absolutely doesn’t rule out a role that is titled along the lines of CFO or VP Finance in the future, because the finance roles that interest me are so much more expansive than pure finance, for all the reasons and in all the ways previously discussed. Throughout my career I’ve been ambivalent to job title and much more focused on the scope of the role, the opportunity for growth, company culture and the values of the leadership team I am working alongside. I have had big titles that belie a restrictive remit and less impressive titles with roles that have been incredibly expansive, influential and challenging. The latter is so much more fulfilling.

If you had your time again, would you still go down the same route?

I’ve definitely had an atypical financial career and it would probably be impossible to replicate the exact same path again!

I think that starting a career in finance, whether that’s accounting, banking or other, is a great foundation. It gives you a fantastic understanding of businesses and how they operate, often across multiple different sectors. It’s a great vantage point and from here you can start to identify sectors, types of roles and organisations that would be a good fit for you as you progress your career.

Do you have any advice for anyone earlier in their accounting career?

At the start of your accounting career you will likely be very heavily focused on financial operations. This is an excellent foundation but the work is, in its nature, backwards and inwards looking. It is important that you nail the basics but alongside this, start to look for opportunities to turn your vision forwards and outwards. Stay curious and think about the why. Why has that metric shifted? What does this mean for the company’s upcoming fundraise?

Try to find the time to engage with other departments. Understand what they are trying to achieve, help them understand how they are performing through the numbers. Help them see patterns and opportunities, and understand how these functions interrelate. This will pay dividends when you start building financial models. It will give you the knowledge to build models that actually reflect the business, rather than just pretty excel sheets with neat formulas that aren’t necessarily very helpful or representative.

From early in your career try to be creative in the ways you communicate financial information to engage stakeholders and build narratives. This is a craft that you will hone with practice.