We received a flood of FP&A and CFO questions from our audience (and FP&A Reddit). These and more are put to this this week’s finance headhunter special guests: Nick Gribbon,Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essenta, and Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta, who run the finance headhunting section at the global executive search firm. Hear all the behind the scenes anecdotes and secrets to getting your next big FP&A or CFO job.
Connect with Nick Gribbon, Senior Partner, Financial Officers Practice at Essenta
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-gribbon-37349b1/
Connect with Laura Streather, Consultant, Private Equity at Essenta
https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-streather-451966137/
- Shortage of Exit Private Equity CFOs and what you will need to fill the role
- How to go from Director FP&A of a large public company to CFO of a PE-backed company
- The importance of demonstrating “behavioral competencies of leadership” to pass the first screening
- Getting exposure to the right industry – how important is it?
- Getting to understand where you are going to have most impact in your next role
- How important is the CPA?
- What is the best way to get on headhunters’ radars?
- What the headhunter interview looks like and is designed to accomplish for you and the recruitment firm?
- The importance of referrals and how to play them to your advantage
- How slow is the CFO job market?
- Is being the CFO at a private equity-backed company right for you?
What can candidates add to CVs to stand out? - Salary bands and how to negotiate the most money
- Salary inflation and how that impacts senior role s
- Will moving as CFO from a $100m to $1bn company automatically get you a higher salary?
Full transcript:
Glenn Hopper:
Welcome to FP&AToday, I’m your host, Glenn Hopper. This episode is gonna be a bit different. Today we’ll be diving deep into career progression in the current job market for finance professionals with two excellent guests. From Essenta, an international executive search form, renowned for its expertise in hiring senior finance leaders, especially within private equity backed businesses. First we have Nick Gribbon. Nick is a board member and senior partner for Essenta’s financial Officer practice with 23 years of executive search experience at firms like Russell Reynolds, Hedrick and Struggles and Blackwood Group. Nick specializes in advising private equity funds and their portfolio companies on hiring CFOs and senior finance leaders. Joining him is Laura Streather, a consultant at Essenta’s financial officer practice. Laura is responsible for oversight of search delivery and specializes in supporting businesses backed by private equity. She leads the end-to-end process for senior CFO and FP& Director roles including research strategy, search execution, and knowledge management. Essenta headquartered in London with offices in New York, has developed a reputation for providing world-class executive search and advisory services across various sectors. Their financial officer practice is highly regarded among the private equity community for its deep seated knowledge of the financial officer marketplace. Nick and Laura, welcome to the show. Thank
Nick Gribbon:
You. Thank you very much, Glenn. Appreciate the introduction. Great to be here.
Glenn Hopper:
We gathered some collections, some that we’ve received at the show. Some I think came from the Reddit FP&A community, but we wanted to get really, I mean, there’s a lot of questions that people in positions and that are looking for new positions, um, have, but they don’t really know who to ask. So we really appreciate you guys coming on and, and sharing your insights and kind of giving us a look behind the curtain on, on what’s going on. So, um, and we do have a bunch of of questions we want to get to. I know we’re, we’re gonna talk about, um, career progression, head hunters, salary and comp and, and just some general leadership stuff. So, uh, you guys ready to, to dive in?
Nick Gribbon:
Let’s dive in. Sounds great. Okay. Happy to, happy to answer any questions that are thrown our way.
Glenn Hopper:
Alright, so I guess let’s start with sort of, um, the career progression and maybe some market insight kind of stuff. One of the questions we got is, I’m currently an FP&A director reporting into the CFO. I’m keen to progress to CFO, but I’m regularly told that it will be difficult as I don’t have the prior experience. So this is the whole, uh, you know, sort of chicken and egg thing. What advice would you give someone who is wanting to move up, you know, to a new company? Because maybe that, you know, they don’t see the path forward at their company, but they’re trying to get to a more senior leadership position, maybe particularly a CFO or even just stepping up to a role that you haven’t done before. Yeah,
Nick Gribbon:
That’s an interesting question because clearly on the one hand, whenever a surge begins, more often than not, we will begin with a brief from our clients who will stipulate quite clearly that they’re very keen to find someone who’s done it before. And that’s particularly the case in private equity. The private equity clients have a very, very high bar in terms of quality and in terms of what they’re looking for. So it is a challenge. I guess there are probably two ways of looking at this. The first is to do with the functional experience that you have. And by that I mean doing everything you possibly can do to get as broad amount of exposure to the various different components of what it is that a CFO ultimately will be doing. And that sounds like what an obvious thing to say, but it’s not the easiest thing to do.
Um, clearly over the course of time as you spend longer with the company and as you build your relationship with the CFO, I think having that kind of opportunity to gain as much exposure to various different elements is important. One thing I think that FP&A directors tend to find a bit of a challenge is how they demonstrate that they can do the more technical facets in terms of statutory reporting, controls tax and so forth. So anything that you can do to get more breadth I think is important. A lot of that stuff’s quite obvious though. And another important point to bear in mind here, this is something that Laura and I spend quite a lot of time doing when we’re assessing people, is think about how you are doing things, not necessarily what you are doing. One thing that we do quite a lot is assessing candidates according to their behaviors.
So an a very important behavioral competency that we will look to assess in any CFO is the focus on delivering of results. So being very results oriented. And if you can demonstrate that you are a results orientated individual, even if you’ve done that as an, as an FP&A director, you are starting to demonstrate how a leader behaves. And that’s the way to think about these things. Am I behaving as a leader? Would am I leading as the number one person in the finance function? And those types of behavioral competencies are what it is that we are looking for alongside some of the more kind of technical facets. The other point I would say is the FP&A directors at the moment now is actually a really interesting time in the context of private equity to start to push the barriers a little bit because the, the supply, for want of a better word of proven private equity CFOs is actually quite low because there have been fewer private equity exits. And so it’s a pretty good opportunity for people who are looking to step up to actually be included in the short lists and to kind of get their opportunity to at least have a shot at, uh, at going after the number
Glenn Hopper:
Maybe market demands are. Now, if you are are looking for a CFO, the supply is constrained a bit, but you have say an FP&A director from maybe a Fortune 500 company who they’re, yes, they’re just a director, but their span of control and the amount of work they’re doing, if you’ve, I mean, is it, is it still a hard sell though? If you say, Hey, this guy was, um, you know, an FP&A director at at General Electric or, you know, pick, pick your, uh, big company of, of choice and now we’re coming to a smaller private equity, they’ve got this leadership. I mean, is that, could that actually be turned into a positive or what do you think about going from maybe large public company to a PE back to company? Is there, are there any advantages to that?
Laura Streather:
It’s quite an interesting question actually, Glenn, because that kind of profile is, is exactly where we have had quite a lot of success in the past in placing candidates. So, um, you know, exactly the situation that Nick is describing, where we have got a very limited pool of proven what we would kind of call the, the sort of exit private equity CFOs available. And therefore our assessment moves towards actually being less experience focused to behavioral competencies. And that’s where we have been able to identify candidates that are, from what we would call sort of the larger corporate background that actually demonstrate agility, adaptability, they’re results driven. They can operate at pace. They’ve usually also had some exposure even within those larger businesses to a sort of a smaller, maybe more startup area of the business, maybe they’ve operated in emerging markets. That’s where it becomes very, very important that you are able to articulate what your experience is.
And it’s also very important to understand the type of opportunity that you are looking for. What does that demand and how can you actually display that in your own experience? It is, I know it’s a, it’s a discussion that, that people have a lot around what should the CV look like and all of that. The most important thing is that you can actually reflect the demands of the position in your experience because probably nine times outta 10 you do have it, but on the face of it, it’s not something that that comes through. So obviously, I suppose, so it absolutely is possible, I think to be completely clear and transparent. It’s not necessarily the first type of profile that that private equity clients would be looking for, but certainly in the climate at the moment, there’s a lot of opportunity, I think, and, and Nick would agree, I know for these types of FP&A directors to make that transition.
I think the other thing is, you know, it’s actually important when you are in, you know, whether you are a director or whether you are maybe a bit more junior than that, is to actually look two or three steps ahead in your career to where you want to be and make sure that the opportunities you are going after actually fit into that progression. It’s not actually something that I think that many people pay so much attention to, but it’s important to make sure that you are going to a, a business that is on the right trajectory for what you’re looking for, whether that is growth or turnaround, hopefully it’s a position that is gonna give you a bit more breadth, a bit more scope, maybe there’s some kind of transformation that needs to happen there. And actually also that you are working with a CFO that you really respect someone who inspires you and someone who also gives you the confidence that they will be happy to step away maybe from certain aspects to let you step in. I think, I think it all kind of comes together
Nick Gribbon:
That point around mentorship. You know, you can, you, you can be mentored by your boss, but equally you can be mentored by someone outside of the business as well. And quite often when people are thinking about career progression, it’s almost as though we’ve been conditioned as a society to think, well, I must progress. I’ve gotta keep going, I’ve gotta keep developing. It’s ready for me, I’m ready for it. But that’s not always the case, and it is important to be patient. And part of that can also come from networking beyond the confines of your organization and then really stepping back and thinking, why do I want this? You know, there are some FPA directors who make great FPA directors and they don’t necessarily want to become CFOs. There are some CFOs who think I desperately want to become A CEO, but they never really thought about why they want to become CEO. So, you know, using that external network that you can hopefully develop, I think it’s also brilliant.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, I love that and I love what you guys are talking about, uh, thinking about this career progression, because I talk to a lot of people and I, I get a lot of questions from, you know, junior to kind of mid-career FP&A people who almost to a person say, I want to be a CFO one day. And thinking about the opportunities that that people have, and you have people that are, you know, really trying to grind it out at one company and just move up the ranks there, or hopping around from company to company trying to secure positions of greater responsibility. And I wonder if I’m looking to make that progression and say I’m a, you know, maybe I’m in my first FP&A management role, like how can I evaluate an FP&A opportunity and whether it’s right for me, just thinking that I need to get from here, you know, dream job ultimately to the CFO. Like what, I mean, what would be some types of positions or some types of companies that people should think about as they’re considering their career progression?
Laura Streather:
I think, I mean, there’s quite a few different ways actually that you can look at whether an opportunity is going to be right for you. I think a really big part of it is thinking about if the end goal for you is to be a CFO in what kind of business do you want to be a CFO? Do you even have a preference? Maybe you don’t, which of course is fine, but if it’s, if the answer is I want to be a CFO of a SaaS company that’s international, that is on a huge growth trajectory, it will be important to make sure that the next couple of roles you are getting exposure probably to the industry, probably to businesses of a similar size and scale and, and probably to, to a growth journey as well. The other way that you can look at it is, is to say, try and get as much sort of breadth of experience as possible.
So trying into a company that’s growing well, if it’s a turnaround, don’t be afraid to get involved in that. I think looking at the situation of a business actually is really important because when we are looking at a search process, yes, we will look at candidate sector, experience, scale, experience, but probably the most important thing actually is the situational experience. So I think that’s something that kind of comes last for a lot of people. I actually think it’s, it’s much more important than it, than it sort of first seems. So that’s definitely something that I would look at. I think the other thing is as, as Nick mentioned earlier, you know, building leadership capability is really important. So is this an opportunity that is going to give you that chance? Ideally you would be going into a position where you have an opportunity to either transform or build a team underneath you, and therefore you can start to, to develop some of those leadership skills a little bit, a little bit more as well.
Again, think about the kind of people that you are joining. Ideally you want to be joining a, a best in class organization where the things that you are learning from your colleagues are also sort of top tier. That also does carry quite a lot of weight when you are, when you, when you get to a CFO process, it could be a role that you held three or four years ago, but if it’s in a reputable firm that is known for having best in class finance functions, that again does carry a lot of weight. So I think it’s really about understanding what do you want from the next couple of positions? What is this positions specifically going to offer you the opportunity to do? I think we do see a lot of, a lot of people that go into what we would call sort of business as usual positions where you are simply turning the handle. My view on that is you really want to be able to go in and make a tangible impact and a tangible change. And a lot of the time, if it’s business as usual, that isn’t really the case. Nick, I’m sure you probably would add something to that.
Nick Gribbon:
You know, I was just thinking the word that and sprung into my mind was impact, or you just said that. It’s like, think about where you can have an impact. People are gonna ask you questions. Certainly kind of good, good headhunters and good interviewers will say to you, they won’t say, are you good at, they’ll say, give me an example of a time when, and you’ve gotta be able to give tangible examples of what you’ve done, how you did it, and what the outcome was. So evaluating a position ultimately should, on the one hand, hinge on where you can have an impact to where you truly feel you can have an impact on a business. I should hasten to add, I know we’re a little bit biased towards, uh, towards, uh, private equity, um, just given what we do, but the great thing about private equity is it’s all about delivery during a given time period.
And so your ability to have an impact is, is significantly increased. The other point, just given the proximity that FP&A roles have with the front end of the business, think about something that you’re gonna be quite interested in and passionate about. I won’t say who it was, but I did interview someone earlier on today who clearly had absolutely no interest in what the business did that he worked for. And, and I thought that’s gotta be kind of soul destroying <laugh> when you are working for a business that you don’t really feel as though you can have a kind of a tangible interest in what it is that ultimately the business is looking to do. So I totally agree with what Laura said, but I’d also definitely think beyond that, you know, the things that you’re interested in, things that you’re kind of drawn to should also be quite an important factor when you’re evaluating opportunity.
Glenn Hopper:
Well said. And I hearing you guys talk, it’s so easy, and I’ve heard it so many times in my career, I’ve had to go back and redo my resume and it’s so easy to list your job title, your job description, and then a good resume writer or or a headhunter is gonna say, I, I understand what a CFO does. What did you do? What happened? You know, as a CFO <laugh>, it’s like, I get it, <laugh>. Yeah, you close the books every month. Good.
Nick Gribbon:
My biggest bug bear on a CV when, you know, the basic facts are not included in terms of what someone’s done. We talk to people who are in finance every day, they’re dealing with data and they’re dealing with numbers and you know, including that information to show, when I joined the business generated X revenue y ebitda, and when I left it was x and Y is a very, very important thing to, to do to kind of demonstrate the movement that the journey has been
Glenn Hopper:
On. This isn’t a reader submitted question, but it’s one that I’ve wondered because when I, you know, in the, uh, 1800s when I got my first CFO gig, it was a lot different than <laugh> than, uh, how it is now. When I was coming up, you heard from people and you know, obviously FP&A today most of our audiences fp a, that doesn’t mean they don’t have a CPA, you know, many do. And then they transition from accounting in into finance. But I always heard, uh, you know, you’re never gonna get the the big CFO job because you’re not a CPA because you came up through just the finance ranks. And I’m wondering for our audience, you know, if your early career, and you still could go get a CPA if you need to, is how are companies in private equity looking at someone who comes to traditional role? CPA comes up through audit and goes that way versus a straight finance.
Nick Gribbon:
I’ve actually got two really interesting live examples of that where with one client that I’m working with, the client ultimately decided not to progress with the candidates because they did not have an accounting qualification that was just nothing to do with the capabilities of the individual. It was nothing to do with, um, their, their personality or their style. It was just fundamentally they did not feel that they could bring them on board in that base, on that basis. Whereas there’s another search that I’m working on where of the three final candidates in the mix, none of them have got a professional qualification. Sorry, none of them a finance qualification. Yeah, one’s a banker. One used to be an engineer, one was a management consultant. A big part of it obviously kind of hinges on what the role is in terms of what’s expected of them.
If there’s a big capital finance orientated component to their job, doesn’t really matter whether or not that they’re, you know, they’re a CPA or CMA or CIMA. Um, what I would say though is that in certain FP&A roles, given the fact that in the UK a big part of it is the CIMA qualification. So getting that kind of, you know, qualification that does demonstrate that you’ve got that, you know, proven experience having operated within the business and have developed and gained the qualification off the back of that, I think it’s important. Bottom line is if you can get the qualification, get it, because it’s only gonna help
Glenn Hopper:
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And this next one is an interesting question to me because it’s one that, you know, earlier in my career that I would really wonder about. And uh, I think for people I’ve talked to that are are developers and um, maybe in some, some other professions are getting contacted by recruiters all the time. Everybody, you know, developers for years have just, you know, recruiters are constantly reaching out to ’em. And I feel like in in finance it, it hasn’t been that way as much, but one of, one of the reader questions was, what is the best way to get on headhunter’s radars? And so I’m wondering how much, and the extension of that question to me is, I don’t see you guys a lot, and maybe I’m wrong here. This is, I’ll, I’ll be fascinated to find this out, but how much are you actively going out in searching for candidates versus you have candidates come to you and you have a a pool on them?
Laura Streather:
It’s always a balance, but because of the way that we work, which is very, is very research intensive, so every, every single Monday that, that we would take on, we take pretty much a sort of clean slate approach. You know, we really want to understand specifically what is the business we are working with, what is the context? What exactly is the client looking for? What is, what is success going to look like in this person? Now, yes, we do have a very deep network of of CFOs internationally and, and we would obviously always go to our network. And then a really important part actually that I think as well sometimes does get overlooked is the referral side of things. And so we would speak to our network, we would understand, you know, who would the, the CFOs that we really respect, who would they recommend?
But at the same time, we’re always taking that clean slate approach. And actually we would put together a specific, what we call a search strategy for every single search that we work on. And what that really means is we are looking to identify deals, businesses, exits in a specific space that have done a specific thing, and then identifying the CFOs and, and various finance leaders really that have been involved in that journey. So for us, a lot of it is incredibly research driven. It’s a process that, that we will continue with, you know, until the successful candidate has signed on the dotted line, so to speak. And with that it does mean that, you know, naturally you are going to be identifying candidates that perhaps we haven’t spoken with before and therefore we will be approaching. It’s an interesting one because I do think there is difference between c-level candidates and director level candidates and that actually c-level candidates, you know, naturally are, are perhaps not getting quite as many approaches for roles and therefore they tend to be a bit more responsive.
But the one thing that I really notice is the difference is actually at the C level, you get a lot more CFOs coming back to you who are just willing to have an introductory conversation, whereas at the director level, there seems to be a much bigger focus on is this the right thing? I’ll speak to you if, I think it’s really interesting actually. I would say the the right approach is if, if you have the time and you can carve out five minutes in your day, is just have the conversation with the person that is getting in touch with you because you really just never know. I am always surprised, and Nick, I’m sure it’s the same for you, you just truly never know what opportunity is going to come up and who is going to be right for it. So I I just think it’s always worth it to have the conversation.
And I think the other side of, of this of course is, you know, we have done a lot of research when we approach somebody, we are probably 99% sure that they are going to be right for this opportunity if, if they’re open to the discussion. So I think it’s also about, you know, trusting that these are people who actually want to help you and, and they’re not, they’re not going to waste your time. It is, it’s worth having the discussion. Um, and again, I think it’s really important to build longer term relationships with the headhunters that you work with. That’s how we work. So, um, I know in different countries it can be slightly different. Sometimes it’s a bit more transactional. For us, we always want to give people the time and make sure that we really understand who they are, what would really interest them. You know, if this specific opportunity isn’t right, we’ll then be able to point them in the direction of the right thing. And, and actually I think that’s where for us, this, this is a really rewarding career because that’s where you really get to help people. But it does obviously take a bit of time from both sides to, to actually sort of build that relationship. But, but that’s where you will get most out of it. I would say.
Glenn Hopper:
I guess the follow up to that would be, you know, you, you have your network and your referrals, but if you don’t have one, anyone in the group and then you do need to go out of network and you’re looking for someone, what I heard earlier is, yeah, roles matter, but what your impact and what you did in the role is important. So I think maybe a way to think about it too is have, uh, you know, be sure and show measurable results, things you’ve done. You know, when I got here it was x when I left it was y and showing that, and I guess, you know, different companies, different industries, so there’s not probably a blanket thing, but a showing a, a progression of moving up, showing things you did in each role, I’m, I’m guessing would be important. And certifications.
Laura Streather:
Definitely. It’s actually interesting, just as you were talking about the CPA, a qualification. There have been quite a number of CFOs I’ve spoken to that have that qualification, but don’t include it anywhere on their CV or even on their LinkedIn. It’s always worth including that. I think there’s, you know, there’s obviously progression that is really easy for, for recruiters to see in terms of, okay, you’ve gone from manager to head of to director to CFO. That is, that is obviously very clear. It is worth including on your public profiles. Things like LinkedIn because they do get used a lot and actually our clients will look at them a lot as well. Um, you know, clients will go and directly have a look at your LinkedIn profile before they meet you as well as looking at your cv. It’s important that that tells a coherent story as well. Doesn’t have to be really detailed, but it just needs to show, you know, I took the business from X to Y team from this to this. Maybe you did a systems implementation. You know, including things like that on your profile are important because as I said before, a lot of the searches that we will run, we are looking at them from a situational perspective.
Nick Gribbon:
The thing I’d just add onto that as well is the point about getting onto a radar can be for a specific role, but it can also be in general, and as Laura says, that kind of longer term focus on developing a relationship with headhunters more broadly is super important. Mean, I I literally have known, I can think of a number of people who I’ve known from right at the start of my career who I’m still in touch with now, people who were pretty junior back then in their, in their roles and who are now much more senior. Um, so one way of doing that is almost if you do feel that you’re starting to think, okay, I’m open to having a look at things. I’m starting to consider what my next move might look like. Point number one is use your own network because quite of the people who you’ve worked for in the past, obviously not your current job, but maybe someone who used to be your boss, we might know.
And so that helps. We get a lot of inbounds. We try to handle every single inbound in a personable and um, professional manner. There are some search firms, I wontmention any names who perhaps aren’t necessarily quite as good at that, but certainly we recognize that that personal touch is super, super important. Um, so using your network to get people to say, you know, they could write you a did or a such and such recommended, I get in touch with you, are you up for having or, or you know, the person even makes the introduction of email. That’s a really, really great way of getting straight into a heads up diary. Um, and then the other thing is to, to kind of think about which firm you are contacting because some firms focus on a particular type of search, some firms focus on different types of areas. Some are PLC or you know, fortune 500 focused. Some are private equity focused. So think about who your audience is. And, and the only final point I’d make is just try not to make any typos in the email that you’re sending across <laugh>. I had quite a funny one this morning, which began with, I am not looking for another role, but it was a typo. He had meant I am now looking <laugh>, he obviously got one letter. <laugh>, try and avoid the typos.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, <laugh>. Yeah. And if you’re getting, if you’re, if you’re putting a typo in an email to someone that you’re looking to help you find a job, it probably doesn’t speak well for, uh, the the financials you are gonna report
Nick Gribbon:
<laugh>. Exactly. I know when they get the date wrong as well, that happens <laugh>.
Glenn Hopper:
Okay, so this next question is probably, uh, a, a better example of something that would be a, a conversation on Reddit and not a podcast host question. So let me try to reword this a little bit there. There’s concern right now that the job market is kind of slow. The question is asking how we get through a a slow market. But I think really the question is more, are you guys seeing, and I know you know, exits have been slow on the private equity side for years, so that’s, I guess it’s a, maybe that impacts the supply and demi demand side because you’ve got some people in positions that are getting kind of long in the tooth as they’re riding out that sort of PE horizon, but then you have new companies coming along too. So I don’t know, what are you, what are you seeing for senior finance positions right now? May I guess probably specifically to private equity since that’s where your focus is.
Nick Gribbon:
Oh, I will put in my tuppence worth. interestingly, if you look kind of historically at senior finance hiring in private equity backed businesses, a big driver for demand was deal flow. So a business would transact, it would be sold to private equity or it would be a take private sort of carve out. And that in turn would lead to a need for hiring. And as you say, Glenn, over the course of the last couple of years there have been fewer deals in, in private equity. Um, and that’s a global issue that’s not just restricted to the UK. Um, and so you could, you could deduce from that, that that would therefore mean that level of search work would drop. But we haven’t seen that it’s, it’s actually been the complete reverse. It’s, it’s still, it’s as though demand is now being driven by other factors. Um, you know, whether it’s an incumbent who went into a private equity backed situation expecting the exit to happen around about now, and then they’ve been told it’s gonna be another three years and then their equity is under water.
So they’re then more inclined to move just to dynamic with a private equity owner ultimately deciding to make some changes. That’s creating demand as well. Um, what we also see, it’s been a funny year in that it was a bit quieter in terms of, uh, search work that was being driven by deals for the first couple of months and then it really picked up again. Um, and then as we go into summer it can dip a little bit. It’s really difficult to predict. One thing I would say we’d be talking quite a lot about this within our business is the point around confidence. Because confidence is a massive driver, obviously behind decision making. Whether you are confident to make a move, whether you are confident to say yes to a job offer that might entail a relocation or living away from hunting for three days or whether you are confident to press the button on a deal.
And I get a real sense at the moment that there is a lack of confidence in the market in general. And I dunno whether that’s, you know, we’ve got general elections here in the uk, we’ve now got an election in France that’s just been called at last minute. You’ve got an election in the states coming up. Is there a kind of broader macro kind of elements, whether they’re kind of politically driven or economically driven that might be causing people to just maybe start to question themselves a little bit in terms of important decisions? And I talk quite a lot about this. What we do is so human, it’s one of those human forms of professional services out there. You know, a lawyer delivers on legal advice, a banker delivers on banking advice. We’re delivering on, you know, advice is gonna have massively or massive impacts on people’s lives. And I do think that that is creating a little bit of a lull in the market at the moment. And I think a big part of that is due to confidence.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah, that makes, that makes sense. Looking at the next question here, um, I actually have an answer for this one too, having come up, you know, through several private equity backed companies and and selling to private equity. But <laugh>, the next question is so short and um, but I I just, I thought it would be interesting to hear which how you guys responded to it. It is, is private equity all it’s made out to be? And I’m guessing this is related to Patagonia vests or I don’t <laugh>. I, uh, so I don’t actually, I, I’d love to hear what, what both of you say on that and I’ll, I’ll even, I’ll weigh in as well. So, uh, Laura, you wanna Yeah. Kick us off with your thoughts? <laugh>, I
Laura Streather:
I think there’s, there’s two sides to that, isn’t there? There’s the, you know, whether you are an operator within the portfolios or whether you are sitting on the fund side, and obviously from our perspective, you know, our clients sit on the fund side and our, you know, our, the candidates we work with sit on the portfolio side. I would say what we tend to see is once someone’s into private equity and they’ve done one journey, they will either stay there the rest of their career or they will never go there again, <laugh>. But I think the people that are drawn to private equity are the people who are going to enjoy it and will stay there. They enjoy running really hard at something for a defined period of time, knowing exactly what the end goal is. Um, you know, and, and going after that. And I think there’s also a real sense of collaboration actually that comes with a private equity journey because everybody is working towards the same thing at the same time. I, I don’t think you always get that in a larger corporate environment. So I think on, on that side of things, yes, I think, um, you know, obviously it, it, it can be difficult, it can be long hours, particularly when you are, you know, you’re going through a transaction. Um, but I, I would say that the people that we work with would absolutely say it’s be
Glenn Hopper:
So Nick, anything to add to that?
Nick Gribbon:
I think the reason why that’s quite an interesting question as well is that there is an immediate association that people make in their mind, whether it’s a conscious or subconscious association. When you mention private equity, they think money, they think equity and they think I’m gonna make an absolute boatload of cash when the business sells and we’re all gonna, you know, do incredibly well. And you know, multimillion power payouts are gonna be coming my way. I think it’s really important to remember that. I mean, the upside potential is enormous in a lot of these situations, but they’re never all guaranteed. And you know, there are varying statistics, I’m not gonna quote any ’cause I’m sure I’ll get them wrong, but there are various statistics on, you know, x outta y you know, private equity deals pay out and it’s definitely not a nailed on success.
I think it’s really important to remember that because if you go into PE thinking it’s just all about making a lot of money, then you’re gonna be sorely disappointed. Like 80% of the time. It’s incredibly demanding. The stakeholders are super bright, they expect the best, they are looking for outcomes quickly and people who really kind of focus on delivery. But if you get satisfied from doing that, and if you like the idea of starting at a particular point in time and having a target to focus on in terms of an angle, it can be unbelievably rewarding. And I think that, and I don’t just mean financially by the way, I think that, you know, the satisfaction that comes with it is huge. When you put so much blood, sweat, tears into a deal and the deal closes, that is an amazing feeling. I can imagine I’ve seen a lot of people who’ve done it. Um, but you’ve gotta be up for it. You’ve gotta be up for the journey and, and do you know what, you’ll probably get more scars than you will, you know, happy days. Um, and you probably won’t get a lot of pats on the back. Well done buddy. You’ve done a really good job. It’s not that kind of place.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>. So I think of private equity in, in a couple of ways. Comedian Steven Wright had a, uh, a joke. It was, uh, you know, his, his typical one-liners, I know when I’m gonna die because my birth certificate has an expiration date. And kind of if you, you know, if you’re going into a private equity company, you know, you’ve got whatever the window will say, you know, now maybe deal going could, maybe it’s seven years, but ideally you’re like four, six in that spot and you know, in and crush it, you know, that we have an opportunity for an exit, um, here. And as someone who’s spent the bulk of my career in finance, the first like analysts and people who really like pushed me and finance we’re the private equity people that I worked with and ask, you know, made me like grow as a finance professional and as an analyst and understand and look at things in a different way.
So the change in the, the timeline that you’re going through and that everybody is working towards the same goal versus, you know, Google as a startup is a lot different than Google is a going concern. And so that early stage excitement and everybody growing versus you’re just now driving the battleship, I mean, you know, pick any public company and plug it in there. There is, it’s, it’s a fascinating, it’s fast paced and it’s, it’s not for everyone. And to your point, you know, I’ve had a couple of decent exits and a couple of just duds where you’ve realized it’s time to get off this boat now <laugh>, <laugh> and all that, but it’s, uh,
Nick Gribbon:
Or indeed it’s time to go and buy the boat. Glen, you know,
Glenn Hopper:
<laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. Well I wonder about that all the time too, where I, years ago I was talking to someone and I’d, you know, had some, some smaller deals, but one of the companies I was interviewing with said, um, well, we’re really looking for someone who’s grown a company from 300 million to a billion. And I said, if I’d grown a company to a billion dollars in revenue and had an exit, I wouldn’t be interviewing for this job right now. I’d be on my boat <laugh>. Yeah. One of the questions you’ve already answered about, uh, what you’re, unless there’s anything to add to, uh, what are headhunters looking for when they review CVs and when they interview candidates? I mean, maybe there’s something more we can add, add to that. I know we’re talking about impact, is there, um, Nick, is there anything that you would add that we didn’t cover earlier?
Nick Gribbon:
The CV is still an important thing, right? There’s that kind of, you know, is there an enormous amount of information about what people have done on LinkedIn? Of course there is, but the CV kinda show, it certainly shows a bit more than that. I mean, does, there is a bit of a question as to, you know, will will it, will it exist in the future? Because, you know, ultimately as LinkedIn has just kind of continued to just become such a critical part of what we do, um, you know, you could make an argument that, you know, maybe people just start to say that, here’s my LinkedIn, you know, hyperlink come off you go. Um, that will be said. And the same applies to a LinkedIn profile. Just remember we are seeing a lot of these a lot, a lot, a lot. And so it comes back to the point around focusing on, you know, the data points that are gonna catch our eye in terms of, you know, the movement of a particular business, whether it’s a business unit or particular piece of data or a number or whatever it might be, include that, keep it pretty succinct, I think is probably a fair way and, and, you know, laid out in a way that’s user friendly because there’s a lot of information that we’re kind of looking to, to register.
What I can assure you is that the adage of having a pile of cvs in an inbox and taking the top off and chucking ’em in the bid and saying, well, I don’t wanna hire anyone who’s unlucky, doesn’t apply anymore.
Glenn Hopper:
<laugh>, I like that approach. Now I wanna try that approach. <laugh>, I love that <laugh>.
Laura Streather:
I, I also would actually add to that, that, you know, when when we’re meeting with candidates, we are not using the CV as a base for the conversation, we are using the opportunity as a base for the conversation. And therefore, I think when you are, you know, when you are speaking with recruiters, don’t assume that they have a, don’t assume they have a basic knowledge of your background. I think sometimes there’s things that people, you know, when it’s, when it’s your own experience, there are things that seem obvious to you. I would just say don’t assume that things are obvious. Really make sure that you are explaining the context to the people that you’re speaking with, because more often than not, that’s actually where we can get the best understanding of, of what you’ve done. And the other thing I would say is make sure that you understand from the recruiter what the requirements of the role are and what they’re really looking for.
Nick, I’m sure you would agree with this, but there are plenty of times we have conversations with, with CFOs with directors of FP&A who will almost cut us off and, and say, you know, let me tell you all about my experience and I’m gonna run you through from, from the beginning until now. Whereas actually let us frame the conversation, let us explain to you what it is that they’re looking for, because there will be elements of your experience that you can bring out that we obviously can’t. So it’s important to sort of go through the motions of the process. I know sometimes it can feel a bit long wing, long-winded perhaps, but those steps are sort of there for a reason and, and it all counts. I dunno if you’d agree with that, Nick. Yeah,
Nick Gribbon:
I think that the way that the interview is framed is partly going back to the point around us looking to draw out examples of what people have done that help us understand what they’re like and how they operate in a particular situation. That process of being able to make sure that you are getting across who you are and what you’ve done in a pretty short and concise fashion is an art. And you’ve already got to work quite hard to, to kind of nail it down. And that’s why, going back to what I said about getting on head hunters radars, if you do have someone who can connect you with a headhunter and say, by the way, I really think that you should meet such and such because they’re really great quality, that goes a huge way
Glenn Hopper:
In terms of getting cut through. So we have a bunch more questions, but I’m actually now really interested. You, you were talking about LinkedIn, trying to send the right message. People run the spectrum on LinkedIn. They, some people just basically, this is my resume, I’m never gonna post on here. I I’ve put my positions, I keep it updated, I keep my contact info and all that. And just a very basic, just here I am, here’s a picture of me, this is who I’m in the public. And then there are people who, you know, they’re on LinkedIn so much that you wonder how do you have time to do your job? And I’m thinking about, you know, the, the people who just put it out there as a resume. And I did have, I had a career coach tell me years ago, and this is before I was even on LinkedIn, that you need to get out there and you need to sell yourself as a, as a thought leader.
I see it’s funny, this people that call this self-proclaimed self-proclaimed thought leaders who put thought leader in their description on LinkedIn. It’s, it’s kinda like giving yourself a nickname. You can’t give yourself a nickname, you can’t call yourself a thought leader. You either are or you aren’t. And then you see the people, the LinkedIn, the horrible, uh, LinkedIn posts that, you know, people meme all the time. The cringey post where I was hiking, uh, Machu Picchu the other day, and I was thinking about each step and what it meant in leadership and you know, just these terrible things you see on LinkedIn and people trying to do the thought leadership and trying to stand out there. This is the first time I’ve actually asked someone in the, in the position where you guys are, if you’re looking at someone’s LinkedIn profile, does it ever even register what they’re actually posting, how many followers they have? Like what are you looking at in these in these profiles?
Laura Streather:
I would say Laura, we’re, we’re generally not looking for what their le level of engagement is. Yeah. Across LinkedIn as a platform. I would say that hardly ever comes into it. However, there have been a handful of times where I have had clients comment on the fact, oh, such and such a person doesn’t seem to have that many connections. And then you explain what they probably just don’t use LinkedIn so much. I think, you know, when you’re talking about CFO, it’s, it is perhaps different if you are talking about somebody in marketing or sales. I think in finance, you know, it comes back to the question of impact and it’s clearly about the impact you have within your organization. That is not, it’s not something that would even enter the conversation for us is, is, is what I would say. I think it’s important to have everything up to date.
I’ve definitely had questions from clients before is, you know, why has this person not updated their profile to reflect where they are? You know, again, I think it can just be a, a personal choice and actually for some people they, they really don’t want to, to be so actively, um, engaged on, on LinkedIn, which is of course absolutely fine, but I think if you do have it, you should take advantage of it as a tool. The best way to do that is make sure that there is a little bit more than the bare minimum in terms of information on there that give people a steer. And, and that’s really all you need to worry about in, in my view.
Nick Gribbon:
I agree with that. It, if you’re looking at it through our lens, I think though that we are just one part of the equation and you know, if you are an fp and a director and you’ve shared something and I’m, I’m not, you know, whether it’s Machu Pichu you, you know, step by step or, or whatever, but there will be some people who will actually engage with that. So it could be that you’re about to go meet the CFO and the CFO has a quick look on your LinkedIn and then notices that you’ve done a really interesting thought leadership piece about, you know, a system that you used or budgeting or, or, or forecast or whatever it might be. So we are not necessarily gonna look for it, but it doesn’t mean that we will be put off by the fact that it’s there and having kind of a broader, you know, I think it’s just important to kind of keep your opinion.
Having balanced opinions I think is really important. I think sometimes people do get a little bit carried away with, you know, some of their kind of, you can get too personal, it can get too subjective. That’s when you start to kind of err into slightly kind of more dangerous territory. Um, but I think generally speaking, we are gonna be looking for one thing and that’s what we are gonna focus on. But it doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing. But I mean there, there are different things that people do to try and grab the attention. It’s weird though if you think about that because like, it’s probably even like five years ago, I mean, suddenly in the uk no one puts a photo on their cv, whereas everyone puts a photo on LinkedIn and there was a statistic, I remember hearing it probably about 10 years ago that was something on the lines of the chance of a headset to clicking into your profile on LinkedIn is significantly higher if you’ve got a photo on there.
So it’s gonna continue to evolve, it will continue to change. The other thing that very rarely gets used is the recommendation field, which is really interesting ’cause you know, that can be a seriously powerful thing for a potential candidate, but I’m not sure that people really put a huge amount of weight behind what it is that people put in there. So it is a funny one, but I do think that, you know, as Laura says, focusing on those gonna key points that your audience that you want to target are gonna be focusing on is important.
Glenn Hopper:
You mentioned the photo and I just realized, I think my LinkedIn profile photo is about 10 years old now. I’m pro <laugh>. If I were going in for an interview, they would be like, uh, where’s your son? You know, <laugh>. Yeah.
Nick Gribbon:
That, that’s, that’s false advertising. You gotta be very careful.
Glenn Hopper:
Yeah. Um, and actually one other, uh, kind of off script question, but I think it is, people wonder this, and since we have you guys here, when you are vetting a candidate, I think about, I, I guess nobody’s on Facebook anymore except for like my aunt Sylvia, uh, who’s on there arguing politics or conspiracy theories or whatever she’s doing on Facebook. But do you look at, you know, before you bring a, um, a candidate to a firm, are you looking at Twitter or x whatever it’s called now and or other social media? Are you googling or are you doing background checks to see people’s kind of digital profile?
Laura Streather:
We would do so, we would definitely do a Google a Google sweep, I suppose we could say. Um, just to, you know, obviously just to check that, that there’s nothing obvious to to question. And it does happen. It, it, it does happen unfortunately that you are able to, to uncover, um, some not wonderful things about people. Um, what we actually tend to do more from that perspective is try and, and get sort of what, what we would call, um, I guess informal views on, on candidates. Really
Nick Gribbon:
Certainly the last stages in the search process, any, you know, in-depth referencing, um, any form of kind of, um, criteria that need to be checked, will be checked, can be checked. And, and there are sometimes third party organizations that we bring in as well that do it. Um, it’s really important with qualifications because it would be very easy for anyone to just write, you know, ACA or CPA on this. So qualification checks, um, very important. There are a few, few fairly kind of hairy stories out there of where things have been discovered after the, after the events, um, of someone being brought into a company and then it subsequently transpired that, you know, they made something up on their CV. That’s not a place that we wanna be. Um, and that’s not, that’s not good. And I think that, I mean, no, we think, we don’t kind of go into too much on that side of things in terms of kind of people’s personal, um, personal usage and so forth. But definitely reputational checks absolutely really important and it, it, there’s, there’s quite a lot at stake stake for some of these hires, so everything has to be totally pretty carefully.
Glenn Hopper:
We’re coming up towards the end here. We’ve got a lot of questions about salary and compensation, and I know it’s gonna be different across companies. And it’s, you know, if I went through all these questions there, really what it comes down to is maybe a salary band. And I don’t know if this is salary and equity, which is certainly something to think about, but I, I feel like when you go in as a candidate seeking a job, you are at a disadvantage because the employer knows what their budget is and what kind of range they’re gonna be. They know what equity they have, what the salary can be and, and the benefits and all that. And you as a candidate don’t know any, it can be very frustrating as a candidate, whether it’s a CFO role or a, you know, FP&A director or whatever the, the role is, um, to just feel like you don’t have that information. So is there any, and again, knowing every company’s gonna be different, but is there any sort of broad band or what advice and guidance could you give someone who is looking for a role, maybe they’re, you know, maybe they’re at a big company or they’re at a company that has an esop or they’re at a company that doesn’t have equity. And then when they’re trying to look at, well, what’s the equivalent if I’m moving over or up, what, um, what, what kind of ranges and bands can we talk about?
Nick Gribbon:
The higher up the pyramid you get, the more leverage you have in terms of ultimately what you can demand, for one of the better word, um, because your skillset becomes much more specialized. It becomes much more highly sought after. It becomes rarer. And supply and demand dictates clearly that, that, that, that will have an impact to what you can, what you can find. I actually think a, a really important point, and when you said the word equity, obviously we’re talking about, um, like shares, but I think you know, equity and pay is something that we are really kind of mindful of as well. And I think that, you know, it’s super important the role that we play in terms of supporting, you know, totalness of transparency in, in and around, you know, people, people being fairly paid according to their capabilities and their capabilities alone.
And that’s the most important point. Um, to put it into bands is really difficult because, you know, you’ve got so many different roles. It’d be very impossible for me to say, you know, an FP&A director in a, in a GE versus, you know, a, an FP&A a director in a private equity back business. It’s so, it’s so varied. Um, but I, what, what I would say is that, um, there’s definitely, um, there’s definitely been quite a lot of salary inflation that we’ve seen recently, uh, at the more senior end of the, of the spectrum. Um, and I think in part that’s been driven by the fact that there are more people who are becoming, or certainly from a client’s perspective, they’re becoming more focused on finding individuals who’ve got very, very specific skill sets. Um, and that in turn has had an impact in terms of the, the, the salaries, but giving us specific numbers super, super hard.
Glenn Hopper:
Do you find that, let’s, let’s maybe just keep it at CFO now, and I mean, I think I know the answer to this, but you know, if you’re at a company that’s, you know, a valuation of say a hundred million in the, versus a, a company that’s maybe, you know, pushing more like a billion dollar valuation, it just seems like the size of the business and the type of person you’d be looking for, um, you know, you would expect a obviously a, a difference in salary between the a hundred million dollar company and the billion dollar company. But I guess is the difference and, and leave equity out of it. We’ll just talk about straight pay here, but is the difference in pay? Are we talking about, you know, from a hundred million to a billion dollars? Is that twice as much salary? Is it an order of magnitude? You know, what is, I, I guess people don’t even know if they’ve been at this a hundred million dollar company, but they grew it, you know, you know, and they’re ready to move on to a, a bigger company or whatever. Like I don’t, I don’t know what, ’cause people can get sideways if they have the wrong expectations going into a company and they try to do just the linear math of, well, my company is worth this, this one’s worth this. We should elevate the, uh, pay accordingly.
Nick Gribbon:
It grows massively and it grows. Really, it’s, it’s almost exponentially if you look at a curve and you kind of see you, if you work on those valuations and you kind of work it backwards effectively on like a 10 times multiple, you’re talking about a 10 million pound, $10 million EBITDA business, you know, you probably see the salary is kind of at this level and then it goes up to a hundred million ebitda and it goes up to that and then it goes up to, you know, 500 million and then it really skyrockets and, and it can go up significantly and, and, and very quickly. Um, but I think that, you know, when you’re in that kind of $10 million to $75 million EBITDA range, the salaries are gonna be there or thereabouts ish. Um, but then you get over that hub, but then they suddenly can, they can escalate and they can escalate pretty quickly as can the potential, um, equity upside opportunities as well to quite, quite astronomic <laugh>. It’s quite astronomical levels.
Glenn Hopper:
Alright, that wraps up today’s episode of FP&A today. A big thank you to our guests, Nick Grin and Laura Streather from Essenta for sharing their valuable insights on career progression, the job market, and the executive search process. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave as a review on your favorite podcast platform.
