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Episode 89: My First year as a first-time CFO- CJ Gustafson, CFO, PartsTech

Paul Barnhurst
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Show Notes

“I last came on FP&A Today before I started my new CFO gig, and I was pretty nervous. I was talking a lot in theory of what I thought it would be, and now I can tell you a little bit more of the reality. So it's been quite the ride.”

Returning guest CJ Gustafson –master of the hugely popular Mostly Metrics newsletter–delivers in his custom funny and frank style the lessons from his first year as CFO and the practical lessons for anyone in finance (and particularly FP&A).

  • His worst budget experience - working six months on an operating plan  thrown away within a week during COVID (and the surprising conclusion)

  • Getting stamps on my finance passport getting me to CFO

  • The biggest lessons on being a CFO-as removing blockers and letting an organization go faster.

  • CFO as chief psychologist, chief contract signer, and chief risk officer

  • How I prioritized my finance hires

  • Views of FP&A as a CFO

  • How knowing numbers better than anybody else projected me to CFO

  • Why BI was put under the CFO function (“it’s like putting data insights on steroids and you combine FP&A and BI”)

  • Why ARR per employee is my favorite SaaS metric

  • CAC payback period as the golden SaaS metric

  • How I (painfully) learned about the power of the “meeting before the meeting”

  • Creating a category for yourself as CFO

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