Finance Leaders Join Personiv at Austin CFO Leadership Live Event

On November 3, 2021, we had the pleasure of hosting our first CFO event, lunch and learn in Personiv’s home city of Austin, Texas.

CFO Leadership LIVE was a two-hour event dedicated to getting some of Austin’s accounting and finance industry leaders into the same room to meet with, learn from and converse with one another.

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Moderated by Megan Weis, VP & GM FAO Services at Personiv and Host of CFO Weekly, CFO Leadership LIVE touched on numerous topics – from how to scale your company during a pandemic and how to handle obstacles to what to focus on in good times and bad. Each one of our speakers – George Stephens, Managing Director at BKM Sowan Horan, LLP, Cisco Sacasa, President & CEO at HireBetter and Mike Murphy, CFO at Personiv - shared their thoughts and gave some great insight into the CFO role. Here’s a quick recap of what was talked about in case you were unable to attend:

Sound Nuggets of Wisdom Provided by Industry Leaders

The Evolution of the CFO Role

The past decade has shown us that the CFO role is more than just numbers. In fact, the CFO role leans more towards being strategic rather than sitting behind a desk crunching numbers all day. And Cisco Sacasa, President & CEO at HireBetter, has a lot to say about this transition.

“For me, it’s been a massive shift from being kind of more compliance and backward-looking CFOs to nowadays. You’re expected to have massive insight, right? And being more forward looking and being more of a partner in the business.”

Hiring Top Talent

Thanks to the pandemic, there’s no shortage of talent. But how do you know if you’re hiring the best talent? It’s a subject that’s sparked a lot of talk amongst our panelists. In fact, Mike Murphy, CFO at Personiv, voices his opinion on this topic.

“My number one golden rule is to take your time and hire the right person.”

He’s not alone in his sentiments. Another speaker, Cisco Sacasa, agrees with his statement – “Wait to hire the right person, don’t ever settle.”

Leaders Gave Tips on Company Growth at the CFO Event

The Role of Technology & Automation in the Accounting Process

Being able to forecast and see into the future is not possible without the right tools and resources in place. But investing in the right tools means finding people to man those tools. It’s something that George Stephens is familiar with.

“You’ve got to make sure that you’re leveraging that technology as best you can by making sure you’re making all of the investments downstream.”

Supporting a Growth Strategy & Planning for the Future - Kicking off the Discussions at our CFO Event

Only one thing in business is ever for certain: change is expected. And we’ve definitely experienced change over the past year and a half. However, with a world that is rapidly changing, it’s quintessential for accounting leaders and their teams to remain resilient and adopt a growth mindset. Avoiding that mindset only delays inevitable.

“Plan early if you can and have a contingency plan for when it doesn’t happen.” – George Stephens

And according to Cisco Sacasa, forging through change, through uncertainty requires investing in your community.

“We attacked when everybody was defending.” – Cisco Sacasa

Mike Murphy then shifts gears and dives into the topic about how to prepare your company for the future.

“Part of it is spending time understanding a little bit more about our customers, understanding what areas we can service and how to ramp that up quickly.”

He’s not the only one that has something to say about what the future holds. Cisco mentions that growth doesn’t mean depleting all your money. In fact, there are ways to get creative without going into debt.

“Being creative and having the guts to go for it and go big and at the same time, being fiscally responsible and efficient.”

Learn more about our upcoming CFO event and stay up-to-date with all the news in the industry.