Francois Callens, finance and operations leader, discusses the important role that CFOs have in creating value for employees, stakeholders, and shareholders, and as a sounding board for the CEO. From Voyage Privé to Depop and angel investing, he has been on an eventful journey, and tells Thibault Lalouette why the potential use cases for artificial intelligence (AI) will be transformational for the finance function.

First thoughts

• CFOs are not just there to provide insight but to drive impact.
• You need to sit down with your CTO, CPO, CMO, etc. and embed the finance team into the wider business.
• There is something new for the CFO to consider every day, whether it’s as a result of new tech or the changing geopolitical landscape.
• Navigating through uncertainty is one of the traits of the new breed of CFO as they work out how to anticipate the next big thing.
• As the CFO, you’re there to positively challenge the CEO and the rest of the exec team on a one-to-one footing and to push boundaries.
• When you join a mission-led company, you have to create a vocabulary that reconciles the mission with what it means to be a business.
• AI will shape how we do business in future, but we still need to find the right use cases.

What’s your background in Finance?

I started out in Audit when it was still seen as a ‘golden career path’, a bit like investment banking. At that time, having completed my Master in Corporate Finance, I saw audit as a chance to learn. I liked being analytical, breaking down problems into small boxes and doing things in sequence, which is what audit gave me. I worked for the likes of Deloitte and PwC, becoming a partner by the time I was 32 and was exposed to a lot of global customers and M&A cross-board transactions.

My years in Audit and Transaction Services were a good foundation and thinking platform for moving to an operational role, which I did after three years on my partner journey. I’d been doing a lot of transactional work but found my role becoming less interesting as the work of Audit and Transaction Services were increasingly separate. So, I took the opportunity to move into the start-up/scaleup world and get my hands on a company’s operating engine.

How did you take that step into finance leadership in start-ups/scaleups?

Finance gives you a unique vantage point into a company. Beyond the CEO, finance leaders have the best opportunity to gain a 360° view of the business. It’s all about how you optimize and accelerate the value creation for your customers, stakeholders, and shareholders.

I joined luxury travel club Voyage Privé after helping them with their IPO readiness as a consultant. They asked me to join them as their CFO initially and I stayed with them for six years. It was very different to life in a consulting firm where I had an army behind me. As an operational CFO in a start-up/scaleup you need to be able to zoom in and out on business opportunities and challenges (more often in than out in reality) and build a playbook to influence and build relationships across the organisation.

You gained international experience in the UK – how did that come about?

After two years as CFO at Voyage Privé, I moved with the company as the MD and CFO of their UK business, and then two years later took over the management of all their international businesses, with more of a strategic focus. If you’re highly numerical, you can understand the business dynamics of a growing digital company easily even if you are not yet an industry expert. That’s especially the case in the consumer space where almost everything is about transactional data. It could seem obvious but you really need to help the organisation to to anchor company’s decisions in a data context. As a finance leader, I had great exposure in the business and a chance to own the P&L, which is something that really drives me. Ownership and accountability are key traits I look for in teams and individuals.

What can you tell us about your journey with fashion marketplace Depop?

They began to make their mark as a marketplace for buying and selling affordable second-hand fashion before all the re-sell hype took off during the pandemic. I could see that the business would be a driving force in fashion and I could play a core role in the team. From the outset, the CEO at the time, Maria Raga, and I really clicked and complemented each other’s strengths. I joined in the first days of 2020just before the pandemic took hold. Our Exec team had to navigate through hyper-growth and double down on the opportunity we saw ahead. After careful considerations of what were our options, we decided with the Board to  eventually sell to Etsy in June 2021. At around $1.6 billion, it was one of the biggest US M&A deals of the time. Etsy is a incredible company and was a fantastic home for Depop.

What is it like to be CFO of a mission-led company like Depop?

When you join a mission-led company, there’s a special relationship between the CFO and the business. You have to create a vocabulary that reconciles the mission with what it means to be a business. You have to be part of that mission but also focus on making a profit in order to sustain the business and reinvest going forward. I have always believed that profitability was the price of freedom in company’s shaping their future..

You’ve since moved into advising and investing – can you tell us about that?

I stayed at Depop for a further two years after the acquisition as both CFO and COO. I see myself very much as an operator, which is often true of CFOs in the tech world. Then I moved on and since 2023 have been working in an advisory capacity as well as an angel investor. I wanted to test what the portfolio life looked like, and it’s been great. But it’s also a fractional life in that you’re only contributing part of the story and don’t make the judgment calls. Rather than being the operator, you’re there to help companies make thoughtful decisions.

How is the role of CFO changing in terms of it being blended with that of COO?

As an operator you need to frame the debate within your exec team and you need to create ways to capture feedback so that the company can make quick decisions. Fifteen or so years ago when I became a CFO, it was all about time-to-insight, now the focus is on time-to-outcome. CFOs are not just there to provide insight but to drive impact. You need to sit down with your chief technology officer, chief product officer, chief marketing officer, etc. and embed the finance team into the wider business. I don’t believe in a silo’d finance team. I want the business to use the finance lens in each area of activity to support their decisions and ultimately drive positive impact.

How will new tech help the finance team to drive impact?

New tools such as AI will see the analysis aspect of finance changing quickly. It will become relatively easy to interrogate the meta database to identify a certain dynamic or trend. Where it used to take a lot of effort to do this, with AI it will be quick and simple. So, it will be about how you act in light of the pace of change, rather than simply providing analysis. The accelerating pace of change in technology terms, with the rapid uptake of AI, is something nobody expected two years ago. There is something new for the CFO to consider every day, whether it’s as a result of new tech or the changing geopolitical landscape. The science and art of anticipation is more key than ever.

Does the modern CFO need different skills today than a decade or so ago?

Navigating through uncertainty is one of the traits of the new breed of CFO as they work out how to anticipate the next big thing. This requires a lot of discipline. You need to be systematic in how you identify new and emerging risks but also opportunities. You don’t have to act on risks immediately but be ready with ‘what if’ scenarios if needed.

The role of CFO also depends on the company you’re working with. For example, if you’re the CFO at a publicly listed company, a large component will be talking to investors and managing the Street expectations. Whatever stage company you’re working for, you are truly the second voice of the company. So, you must deeply understand the business and not just the numbers. It’s not for everyone and, beyond being good at it, you need to enjoy doing it.

Is there one single path into finance?

Finance leaders come from diverse backgrounds. You might be an accountant by training, or come from investment banking, or have a consulting or FP&A background. That’s the beauty of it – just as you have many profiles of CEOs, you have many profiles of CFOs. When hiring a CFO, it’s a case of matching where the company is on its growth journey with the profile of the CFO. For example, is the company acquisitive? Does it need to raise money? Is it considering trying for a liquidity event? Is it a turnaround situation? I don’t believe one profile fits all and, for a CFO coming in without previous experience, it’s about how they adapt to a different situation. The ability to learn new things is key. Your CFO might not know anything about investor relations, but it is something they can learn. So, there’s often a trade-off between what the company needs right now as a priority and what your incoming CFO can learn on the job.

My perspective is that successful CFOs need to be highly detailed oriented. Any CFO wanting to talk to the Board and investors needs to be 100% confident in the numbers they report and where they’ve come from. Accurate financial reporting is so important, whether to guide strategy or to ensure that you make decisions quickly and intentionally if something has gone wrong!

Is there a particular trait that makes a good CFO?

Being a good CFO demands readiness. It’s about being ready at the right moment. A good CFO will have met the right people on their career journey and be willing to learn from them to make better decisions at the right time. I know I’ve made errors on my own career journey, but you learn from them to do things right the next time!

How important is the relationship between the CEO and CFO?

It’s fundamental to the business. It demands trust and transparency. As the CFO, you’re there to challenge the CEO on a one-to-one footing and to push boundaries. At the same time, you’re also there to support the CEO’s decisions vis a vis the rest of the team. I believe organisation work better under certain constraints. We’d been missing those constraints over the few years up to 2022 when capital wasn’t scarce with near-zero interest rates.

If you don’t have scarcity, you don’t prioritise or have clarity on the things that really matter for the business. With that clarity, you can have difficult conversations across a team and still make the best decisions for the business.

How has the switch in focus from growth to profitability changed the markets?

It’s easy with hindsight to say that we were all fooled by what was happening in the zero interest-rate market. We were all happy to be in that market, but it was like a pendulum that went too far. Now things are different. The market is polarised between two extremes. At one extreme, we have the consumer/B2C business, where raising money is so difficult because many investors were burnt. At the other extreme, the AI hype sees companies in the tech sector raising millions every day as AI projects gather pace.

The market has shifted in the past twelve months driven by the US equity market becoming more bullish. This has an effect on VC appetite, especially in the AI space. In between the two extremes I’ve described, new B2B and SaaS businesses are leveraging some elements of AI to challenge incumbents. , I expect to see a lot of incumbent businesses being challenged but, in reality, if you don’t have a proprietary distribution platform it’s very difficult. I’m interested to see how all of this unfolds and how the market self regulates as the use cases for AI become more established.

Do you believe new skills will be needed as the use of AI grows?

AI will shape how we do business in future, but we still need to find the right use cases. This platform shift is still in full motion and it is difficult to assess where it will land. I am interested to see how new use cases will materialise, for example what impact will AI have on how we manage talent? Those who are curious will embrace the change, rather than fight it and it will be transformational in finance as people are freed up to be more analytical and creative.