Attract, Retain, and Grow: Workforce Strategies for CFOs

Megan - 00:00:18: Today, my guest is Sagar Khatri. Sagar is co-founder and CEO of Multiplier, a global employment solution empowering businesses to seamlessly hire, onboard, and compensate talent across 150 plus countries. Motivated by his firsthand encounters with the complexities of international expansion and prior ventures, Sagar, alongside with his co-founders, established Multiplier to redefine the employment landscape. Their mission is to simplify global workforce management, ensuring it's as effortless as managing local teams, while handling intricacies such as employment contracts, payroll, taxes, and benefits in compliance with local regulations. With a proven track record in regional P&L management, international expansion, fundraising, and M&A, Sagar brings a wealth of experience to Multiplier. Sagar, thank you very much for joining me on this episode of CFO Weekly.

Sagar - 00:01:46: Hi, Megan. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be doing this.

Megan - 00:01:50: Yeah, today our topic focuses on the workforce trends that CFOs are currently navigating and the nuanced challenges of integrating Gen Z into the workplace. And I'm really looking forward to learning about you and your experiences as well as this topic. So let's jump right in.

Sagar - 00:02:07: Yeah, let's do it. Excited for this.

Megan - 00:02:09: Yeah. So to start, you've had an impressive career journey spanning various industries and countries. Can you share with us a bit about your career to date? And secondly what inspired you to co-found Multiplier and drives your passion for global employment solutions.

Sagar - 00:02:28: That's a very interesting question, Megan. Thank you for starting with that. I was born in a very small town in India and then went to school in Mumbai. And I come from an extremely humble family. So all I wanted to do growing up was to make a lot of money. That's why the first job out of college was investment banking. So I spent a couple of years in Tokyo, which is one of the places that I love. I spent a couple of years there doing investment banking, M&A, covering East Asia, which is your China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan. And post that, I moved to Singapore. So that was roughly eight years ago. After coming to Singapore, I did another three years of investment banking covering Southeast Asia, which is your Indonesia, Malaysia, and so on and so forth. And then I was about to go for my MBA where at the right juncture, one of my very close friends who was a partner at Sequoia and also a board member at Multiplier said, hey, why do you want to go for MBA? Why don't you look at tech companies? And I had no idea what tech companies were back in the day because I was largely doing oil and gas investment banking. So I joined one of his tech company as a head of CorpDev slash CFO kind of a role and I loved it. I spent a year and a half there being the right hand of the founder and I absolutely loved it and I gave up the plans for my MBA and that's where the idea of Multiplier came about. So, one of the tasks or one of the area that I was managing as a CFO was international expansion in the startup that I was working for. And it took me, and you wouldn't believe it, it took me eight months to open a bank account in Australia when I was expanding to Australia market. And Australia is one of the most developed countries in our part of the world, then same thing happened again. I was expanding to Japan from Singapore, and it took me 10 months to open an entity in a bank account. And I was like, hey, if expanding globally or hiring globally for that matter is so painful, there has to be a better solution. And I was living in Singapore. And in Singapore, we have this massive talent crunch. It's a city-state. There are lots and lots of companies. It's a great place to build business. But there's a shortage of all kinds of talent, whether it's software talent, whether it's customer success talent. And so I thought, hey, the way the world is evolving with remote work and distributed teams, every company in the future will be a global company. And hence, they will all have to go through the pain that I went through when I was expanding to Australia and Japan. That's where the idea of Multiplier came about, Megan.

Megan - 00:05:08: What an amazing story. So I'm just curious, what is it that you love about the tech industry?

Sagar - 00:05:14: So the couple of things. One is just, for example, the impact that tech industry, can have on the lives of millions of people. For example, today, with Multiplier, what we do is we help companies employ talent globally without having to open their legal entities or worry about payroll benefit taxes and so on and so forth. What that means is, today, you can be born in Germany and can be working for a company based in New York. Or you can be born in Indonesia and working for a company in Japan. So really imagine the kind of opportunities people are getting in developing markets to be able to, know you can be born anywhere. It doesn't matter what passport you hold. Suddenly, you have access to the best opportunities in the world. That's something that I find the biggest power that technology has. And personally, my example is, well, I come from an extremely humble family. And now I've had the pleasure of building this amazing business with 500 of my colleagues. And it's all possible because tech has this power of making the world borderless, helping us imagine a world without limits, and really, if you're up for it, giving you the chance to be successful in life.

Megan - 00:06:25: Yeah, it's really amazing how far technology has come in the last decade or two and where it's going to be in 5 to 10 years. I mean, it's anybody's guess.

Sagar - 00:06:35: Yeah, it's an interesting question to ask.

Megan - 00:06:38: And what have been some of the most pivotal experiences in your career and how have they shaped your approach to leadership and innovation in the workplace?

Sagar - 00:06:47: I think there are three to four major events, Megan, that has really shaped me as a person today. And once I talk about those experiences, I will also talk about what is my leadership style and how they are connected. I think that is an important fact to talk about. The first and foremost thing that happened to me was getting into this. College, what we call IIT Bombay, which is your Google CEO, your Microsoft CEO, a bunch of Indian CEOs in America comes from this is a very privileged school. And coming from a humble family and not being able to even speak properly English, and suddenly getting into this great school where everybody was better than you, everybody was way ahead of you, and everybody dreamt about getting into that school when you actually did not know the name of the school until you applied for it. So really, that was one experience. Second, getting a job in investment banking and that too outside India, that really changed my entire perspective around just the sheer amount of opportunities that are available in the world if you are working hard for it. Funny anecdote, my first month salary was some total of my entire education fees that I spent from childhood till my college. And then the third is working for this startup, which I was telling you as a CFO, which my friend was a board member of. So really, these three experiences, shaped my life. And let me tell you how they ended up shaping it. Like one is, today as a leader, actually, I've worked across the world. I worked in Asia, I worked in Europe, I worked in Americas. I was born in India, but I've never worked in India. So from day one, I've had this love, or rather habit of working in multicultural teams. So if you look at Multiplier today, it's basically doing that it's helping companies employ in 170 countries. And if you talk about my own team, Megan, we have roughly 500 employees across 35 countries and 70-80 nationalities. So the way I grew up, the way I got shaped really came about on the kind of business that I started and the kind of people that I like to work with. Secondly, the kind of values that I've built in companies is what we call three T's, Megan. Trust, transparency and thoroughness. And these are the values that I, after going all these three or four pivotal experiences in my life, figured out like most important for somebody's success. So trust is essentially, hey, trust is the currency to do business. I'm going to trust you. I'm going to give you this opportunity. I'm going to empower you and I'm going to get out of your way. So when we hire a leader in Multiplier, I says, I'm the founder. Great. But here's your opportunity to execute and I won't come in your way. I will trust you to do that job. Second is transparency, which is I will share everything what's happening in the business. Everybody would know who Sagar is meeting, what's his calendar like. And I expect the same so that we really. And you started the cast by talking about this. The other topic that we talk about is Gen Z and Gen Z's love transparency. In fact, they need transparency. Without transparency, they wouldn't even want to be a part of workplace. And the third is thoroughness, which is if you say yes to something, you better see 200% completion and not just pass the buck at 98%. The third leadership style I would say is because if I can come from a very small ruler place, I didn't know how to speak English, from very humble background. And I can be a CEO of a global company. I think people should be more aggressive in pursuing their career goals, but in an extremely humble manner. So these are the three ways my leadership style got shaped, which I try to bring in my company. Megan.

Megan - 00:10:24: Well, you sound like an amazing leader. And before we move on, I'm just curious, talk to us a little bit about Multiplier and who your clients are and why they come to you.

Sagar - 00:10:35: So Multiplier is a global human platform where we have few solutions. The first and important solution is we help companies employ talent globally in 170 countries without having to set up their legal entities or worry about payroll, benefit tax, and so on and so forth. So what happens is companies of sizes big and small, today we work with the likes of Uber, AWS, also a bunch of young startups, where they have to just find the talent and we help them employ. So imagine if you're an American company. You find this great talent in Colombia, but you don't know how to hire them and employ them. That's where we come in, where we have this legal entity in Colombia to employ that individual and then give them a proper employment agreement, take care of their salary, social contribution, benefits, taxes end to end every month. So that's where we remove the doubts of compliance, payroll and payments from the minds of CFOs or from the minds of CHROs. And that's where our clients now feel empowered to never say no to the candidate who reaches out if they're not based in the US. So that's the number one product, what we call employment of record. Hire anyone, anywhere within seconds. You have to find the talent. We'll take care of payroll benefits and compliance. You don't have to open a legal entity. The second product that we have is global payroll, where let's say if an organization with presence in five or six countries, we can consolidate your payroll tax filings and salary payouts on one single dashboard. The third product that we have is if you have contractors across the globe or your contractors in the US, you can work with us and we can pay those contractors and take care of those taxes in a compliant manner. So that's what Multiplier does. Today, we are backed by the likes of Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global, DST Global. We have 500 employees, as I said, in 35 countries, 70, 80 nationalities. And client types, I think, as I said, we work with the biggest of the bigger and really SMEs as well. Because today what has happened is let's say one of these companies in New York, want to have an accountant. They'll say, hey, I can have this accountant. I can have an accountant in New York, and pay them $7,000, $8,000 because it's an expensive city. Or I can hire them in the Philippines for $700. And they'll literally do the same job. So that's where the idea is. Hiring in New York is not paying for the accountant, but paying for the New York. So that's how people are thinking about, even small to big companies are thinking about their headcount planning these days.

Megan - 00:12:59: Sounds like a very powerful tool that you've put in the hands of companies around the world.

Sagar - 00:13:05: Yeah, we get great feedback from our clients. In fact, every time I'm in New York, as I was telling you, I spend three, four months a year there. I'm always meeting clients and understanding what are the areas that we can help. And people love this because now they have the freedom of, because hiring has always been a tough topic. People will always say, hey, I cannot find the talent. But suddenly imagine when there are no borders. It's not about hiring the best person in New York or California. It's about hiring the best person, period, in the world. So that's what we are excited about.

Megan - 00:13:35: And moving on, can you just outline for us some of the most significant workforce trends that you're seeing in 2024 that CFOs should be aware of?

Sagar - 00:13:46: I think that's another interesting question. I used to be a CFO myself. So 2024, Megan, if you're not living under the rock, you know, has been a roller coaster, especially for CFOs, because money is not cheap anymore. We have ongoing wars. We have issues. We have fears of recession. We have high interest rates and inflation. So for CFOs, I would like to first empathize with them because this year has been really difficult. And so did 2023. I think three main trends, Megan, that we are seeing as far as workforce trends are concerned and CFOs are concerned. One is global hiring or workforce redistribution. I've had immense number of conversations with the CFOs where they say, hey, back in the day, workforce planning meant, headcount planning meant, hey, how many employees should report into a manager? What should be their pay scale? But suddenly there's an extra dimension that has gotten added to their workforce planning, which is geography. So it's like, hey, I'm going to hire marketing analysts, but that person would be based in India. I'm going to hire a copywriter at this level, but this person would be based in London. I'm going to hire a lawyer and this person would be based in Munich. So suddenly one dimension of where this person would be based on the skill set as well as the budget. So that is extremely pronounced trend that we are seeing. The second is role of AI. Now there are a bunch of positions, bunch of roles, whether it's customer success manager, customer support manager, and so on, so forth, which are directly impacted by the new tools that Generative AI has brought. For example, at Multiplier, our engineering team productivity has gone up by 30% because we use those latest advanced tools. We have not hired a customer support person for last six to eight months. Even the business has really grown fast because they are using the best in class AI tools to answer the customers in a fast manner. So real, what is that role of AI going to be? What jobs you will perhaps not need anymore and what jobs you will need more? And what are these tools? That is the another discussion that CFOs are having. And third is that we were touching that now that a bunch of the workforce are Gen Zs, how does that come into the equation? What kind of strategies do CFOs need to adopt to A, attract the right people? And then retain them? Because remember this, when we talk about Gen Zs, they've literally starting to come into workforce during COVID and they've only seen remote and global workforce. So how do they adjust to the traditional style of working is another topic that we are hearing from the CFOs, Megan.

Megan - 00:16:23: And what are the key challenges and opportunities that CFOs face when expanding their talent acquisition strategies beyond their home countries? I know you've touched on it a bit, but if you could maybe just expand.

Sagar - 00:16:36: Yeah, Megan. So this is a very interesting question. Let me share like just a bit more context on it. Imagine Coca-Cola or Google, they've always had global presence. And they've always used countries such as India, Philippines, Ukraine, Colombia, Mexico as capability centers where they will hire engineers or they'll hire finance people or they'll centralize their backend operations. Now, these large companies always had the option of doing so because they had massive resources. So their CFO had massive resources at disposal and they can go and open their entity bank account, manage compliance in these difficult countries where rules are not perhaps as clear as the United States. Those kinds of tools were not available to an SME or a mid-market company. And that has been their number one challenge, which is if I'm a SME, a CFO in US, suddenly if I want to hire somebody in India, or I want to hire somebody in, let's say, Germany, the rules are extremely different. For example, in Germany, unlike in US, you cannot terminate anybody at will. In US, you have actual termination. But in Germany, there's literally no way to terminate. And you'll always have to mutually separate with the employee, whether it's France, Germany, Japan, and so on and so forth. So these as compliance, payroll, payments, taxes have always been the most annoying topics for CFOs because at the end of the day, CFO's job is to make sure company is on track financially and compliantly. And that's where the solutions like Multiplier have really helped this CFOs and CHROs where now they don't need to worry about that. Now they have a tool at their disposal where they are not exposed to compliance. They are not worried about whether the employees are getting paid on time. They are not worried about whether the social contributions or taxes are rightfully deducted and deposited on time and employment contracts and terminations are compliant. So really, these were the challenges that the CFOs were thinking about. And that's one of the reasons that we built this business.

Megan - 00:18:39: And I'm curious, if one of those companies then want to fire someone in Germany, can that just be... Does it become more like termination at will? Like we have here in the US? Do they not have those same pain points?

Sagar - 00:18:54: So that is where we really hold their hands. To walk them through every step. So for example, when a US company is hiring in Germany, they will employ on our legal entity. So will that take that risk of hiring that person on our legal entity? We'll take the responsibility of calculating the payroll correctly, depositing on time, social contributions and taxes. And when it comes to termination, we take lead in that because we are subject matter experts. We have a 30 to 40 people legal team in-house, which covers APAC, EMEA and North America time zones, so that they are subject matter experts and they take lead here in terminating when it comes to these difficult terminations. So the client doesn't need to know anything. We are subject matter experts and we take care of it.

Megan - 00:19:40: And what would you say to companies who are, some would say somewhat stuck in the past, that feel like they need everybody on site or sitting across from them? How would you change their mind?

Sagar - 00:19:53: I was in this conference the other day in New York and somebody said, if you want to be an employer of choice, and it stuck with me, if you want to be an employer of choice, you have to give the choice to your employees to be able to work from anywhere. I think that really resonated with me. I think today, Megan, if I were to spill this word in one of our town hall meetings that I'm going to invite people back to office, I can assure you I'll see 50 to 70% resignations. So really, if you're stuck there, you will suffer sooner or later. But I would like to share a bad news with you that you are not attracting the best talent. So the best talent today wants the freedom. You know, back in the day, Megan, we used to talk about, so imagine like 2000s, we used to talk about, hey, there's no personal life. It's all work, right? Making money is enough. Like in our parent generation, we just worked very hard to make money. There was no work-life balance. Then came an era of work-life balance. Yes, we have labor laws. We have unions, work-life balance. People should focus on family. Today is an era of work-life integration. What that means is, if I need to be, as a female employee in Multiplier, if I need to pick up my children at 3 p.m. from school, I should be able to do that. But that also means that if I need to be on a call at 10 p.m. With the client, I should be able to do that. So really giving the liberty to your employees to integrate work and life in a manner where they feel empowered, they can take care of their responsibilities, and you measure only based on outcome rather than input, this is the era that we live in.

Megan - 00:21:32: Yeah, it feels like it comes back to one of your three T's and that's trust. Trust your employees to be able to get their work done on their own terms.

Sagar - 00:21:40: Correct.

Megan - 00:21:41: And let's switch gears a bit and let's talk about Gen Z. So as Gen Z enters the workforce, what unique challenges and expectations do they bring? And how can CFOs help create an environment that appeals to and retains this new generation?

Sagar - 00:21:59: This is another interesting question. Again, I think I partly touched upon it during one of the earlier questions, but I think Gen Zs have very different way of life, very different expectations. And as I said, they've gone through two, three years of COVID, which was their prime workforce entry time. And for them, that is the new normal, right? So they've never, you know, I started investment banking. I was supposed to be in office by eight and I was in Tokyo. If I reach eight or five, it was already late. And then I'm supposed to go and work till two, three a.m., every night. But they were not born into, or they did not start their career with that kind of mindset. So keeping those challenges in mind, I think there are four areas that the CFOs need to think about, or the other CEOs also need to think about. I think about this very deeply. One is global. Today, back in the day, let's say somebody who's sitting in Dallas or Minnesota, they didn't know much about the world. But today, the world is so connected with your social media platforms and your increased travel and so on and so forth that kids in the U.S., know what's happening in Japan in real time, right? So people want to be part of a global culture. People want to know what's happening across the globe. Like when I do my town hall and people from 30, 40 countries join, you see the joy on their face because they want to, they really want to expand their horizons and tap into global opportunities and work with global colleagues and learn from global mentors. So global is a keyword here. The second is trust. As I said, they have never seen and they will never be used to a tap-in, tap-out culture. They want to be judged. They feel empowered. They are in a world which is much more liberal. They want to really be measured on outcomes other than input. So how many hours did you work today is something that they would never want to be asked. But did you deliver the outcome in time? I think that's something that they would really appreciate. The third is, there's this inherent feeling of being one among equals. So like when I go for a town hall and I say, folks, please ask the questions. I'm the CFO. The folks that speak the most are these Gen Z because they are empowered. They have seen the world as a connected world. They don't feel that, hey, he's the boss. I'm a junior. I work for him. They feel we are all working together. So that feeling of one among equals and being able to very confident manner ask tough questions to the CEO directly in front of everyone. That's one of the biggest inspiration for them. That's one of the biggest thing that they look for in a job where they can express themselves without worrying about, hey, will I be fired if I say what I really feel? So that's another point. The fourth is which I highlighted. They have come in this workforce working remotely. So for them, work-life integration, being able to go to the gym at 3 p.m., but then working till late in the night, working from India, working from US, wherever they want to work from. So that choice of working from office, working from co-working, working from home. So really that different parameters of choice should be given to them based on where they think they can perform the best.

Megan - 00:25:07: And with them being digital natives, what technologies and tools should companies invest in to support their work preferences and enhance their productivity?

Sagar - 00:25:17: So I think a couple of things. One is, at least in my experience, I have seen these folks have document first approach, which is like back in the day, you would just pick up the phone call and call somebody. I think that's not how they work. They would like to call is not a default option in their lives. I think I realized that they like to document things. They like text-based culture where Slack, for example, is love. They love Slack. They love Notion. They love Confluence more than they love just being calling on Zoom or WhatsApp because documentation, being articulate, being clear, being concise is something that that generation really appreciates. The second is, we'll talk about remote work and so on. So one thing that I've realized, Megan, is there's no replacement for physical engagement. So one thing that we've done at Multiplier is every quarter we do functional level of sites. So three months you can work from anywhere, but you come together for a week in a common location and you catch up, you see each other, you gel well, you create those equations and relationship and then you go back. So go back working remotely. So that's the model that they expect and appreciate where you have engagement physically, but you've also engagement digitally where you have tools to make sure there's fun Fridays and your people are, whatever, it's people's jam, people are playing cards and so on and so forth. And so the mode of engagement needs to be both digital and physical. And then it's a document first culture where they prefer to work on their time and type it out rather than getting on a call.

Megan - 00:26:52: I'm curious. Yeah, this is a question I have. So during COVID, the whole world went remote. Why do you think it is that companies are starting to pull back that privilege? That's something I don't exactly understand.

Sagar - 00:27:05: I would be lying if I know the answer to that, but let me share my two cents on it. I think during COVID, it was a necessity. You couldn't come to the office and so on and so forth. Now, post-COVID, what has happened is the world has been a struggling place, Megan, for the lack of a better word. Like, we've had extremely high interest rates, extremely high inflation, which has led to a lot of reduction in workforce and rounds of reduction in workforce via big tech companies, small companies, and so on and so forth. We are in an uncertain era where there is US–China issues, there are Russia-Ukraine issues, there is Middle East issues, and so on and so forth. Now, when business... And I think in the last 20 years, or let's say 16 years, post-2008 crisis... This is the most difficult time to do business. Because again, the demands are low, the interest rates are high and so on and so forth. So now people, when they struggle during tough time. People think, hey, what is under their control? Like for the CEO, it's the easiest choice to make a call to head of HR and say, from tomorrow, I need everybody in office. But is that the real solution? I don't agree, but you will. I think if we lived in a world where the world was still a normal place, I would be surprised if people were making those decisions, Megan.

Megan - 00:28:24: Yeah, thank you for that. That definitely makes a lot of sense. So let's get back to Gen Z and talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion. How important is it for companies to prioritize DEI initiatives in the context of both attracting and retaining Gen Z? And what role does the CFO play in these initiatives?

Sagar - 00:28:45: Megan, I think I look at it from a different lens. Personally, I think DEI has been a misused, overused word and somehow people associate some stigma with it. I think I look at it from the fact that if I like my COO is a female, she's based in Chicago and her parents came over to America from Soviet Union and so on and so forth. And she leads 50 or 60% of my organization. And all the women employees in my company, in fact, all my other leaders as well, really look up to her. Then my head of sales enablement is a lady. I have people from 70 nationalities from Africa to Europe and so on and so forth. I think in today's world, if you want to, and this is a pure economic answer. It's not again, at the end of the day, capitalism is important. At the end of the day, business are run to make profits. I think this having a right amount of, let me rephrase it. Having senior female leaders, having people from each geography, having representation from every community is extremely important for you to succeed in today's life. For example, today we have customer base in 70 countries. If I don't hire employees from so many countries, how will I understand what kind of products these customers appreciate? Today we have users who are male, female, young, matured, all races, all continents. If I don't have that representation inside, wouldn't I end up building a product that only suits one community? So I think smaller companies, bigger companies have resources to think of PLS-DA as an initiative. I think smaller companies like us, even though we may not think about this as an initiative, it is so important in our day-to-day life to even succeed. This is very important and I think... Today, I'm a CEO. Now I was a CFO before. I think CFOs are such close partners to CEO in terms of deciding everything. So when you are doing, take a simple example, when you're doing a simple financial planning, five-year planning, you're thinking of where would the next set of revenue would come from? You know your answer that, hey, if I don't hire in Africa, I'm not going to get the next set of customers from there. If I don't have female leaders, how will I attract even more female talent? If I don't have people in emerging markets, those are the fastest growing economies. So I think it's a pure economic decision and it has really worked out well for us, Megan.

Megan - 00:31:06: Yeah, sounds like it needs to be more of a way of life rather than just what, you know, like an initiative.

Sagar - 00:31:11: Because if you do initiative, then it's up to people's will. If it's tied into your economics and way of life, I think you would just subconsciously do it.

Megan - 00:31:19: And what are the financial implications of some of these current workforce trends, such as the remote work, the gig economy and integrating Gen Z? And how can CFOs prepare for these changes?

Sagar - 00:31:31: Quite a few things, actually. One point that I highlighted earlier was... Right workforce planning or right sizing your workforce also have one more dimension, which is your location. So now, as a company that I'm based in, let's say, Atlanta, Georgia, I need to think about where my accountant should be, where my software developer should be, where my marketing folks should be, and where my customer success manager should be. And by just applying those basic principles, by putting marketing folks in UK, putting customer support in Philippines, putting engineers in Serbia, Ukraine. I can have my financial model suddenly starts to look so good because I'm catering to American customers. But my cost base is so low because now I have platforms like Multiplier. I have the ability and empowerment to hire anyone anywhere so I can hire the right skill set in a low cost geography and still get the same output, which basically flows into your bottom line. Secondly, compliance has always been an issue. When you're hiring globally, back in the day, you were spending tons of money in compliance. Today with platforms like us, compliance costs have also gone down. So really that these are the two most important parameters that CFOs are thinking while budgeting because it has deep impact on their financials. And the third one is simple with this remote work, the simple analysis where, hey, I used to have offices back in the day. I used to pay in leases. Now we have an office in New York and basically the CBD is empty, which used to be like back in the day, Wall Street and 19 Water Street side, because people have just worked remotely. So really the third point is back in the day, people used to spend money on leases. Now that I'm saving that money, how can I use that cash and redeploy in engaging your employees better and making sure I have offsites and so on. These are the three changes that we've seen that has impacted the financial model, at least as far as CFOs are concerned.

Megan - 00:33:26: And last question, but looking ahead, what do you envision as the future of work and how can CFOs adapt their strategies to support these evolving workforce dynamics?

Sagar - 00:33:37: This is a bit of a wild answer that I'm going to give you, Megan. I think the future of work for me is a resource would think about maximizing their utilization. Like imagine a restaurant wants to maximize their utilization. Uber driver wants to maximize that car's utilization. Similarly, we will live in a world where talent will be really scarce. There is a conflict report which says by 2030, there will be a skilled talent shortage of more than 80 million folks across the world. Now, when we won't have enough talent, one person, one individual will have to provide services to multiple companies. So the way I imagine the world would be, a lot of employees will be working for multiple companies from wherever they want to and will be providing their services and expertise to multiple companies at the same time. That way they will maximize their own earnings. They will maximize their own happiness by living and working from anywhere that they want. And similarly, more companies will be able to access expertise of the same person. And that's where the future of work is going, which is global, distributed and multiplied.

Megan - 00:34:43: Yeah, that sounds like an amazing future, a really flexible future.

Sagar - 00:34:47: t is what I really believe in, Megan.

Megan - 00:34:49: Yeah. Sagar, thank you so much for being my guest today.

Sagar - 00:34:52: Thank you so much for having me, Megan. Really, really enjoyed doing this.

Megan - 00:34:56: Yeah, I really enjoyed speaking with you. And thanks for finding the time to be here with us today. And I wish you and Multiplier all the best. And to our listeners, please tune in next week. And until then, take care.

Sagar - 00:35:08: Thank you, Megan. Thank you, everyone. Hope you enjoy listening to this.