Peter Nesbitt on Building a Career in and Beyond Finance

[00:00:00] Peter Nesbitt: Helping them solve their personal goals ultimately flows into the work life, and if they’re, they’re wor, worried about something at, you know, at home or you know, with their family, then they’re not gonna be focused on whatever you want them to be doing.

[00:00:35] Joe Michalowski: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Role Forward Podcast. My name is Joe Michalowski, and this episode is brought to you by Mosaic, a strategic finance platform that transforms the way business gets done, and today my guest is Peter Nesbitt, a Finance and Operations Executive, a Startup Advisor, fractional CFO, and more. I am learning, recently. Peter, thanks so much for joining me.

[00:00:52] Peter Nesbitt: You’re welcome, Joe.

[00:00:54] Joe Michalowski: Cool. Well, today, I’m really excited to talk to you because as I, you know, pondered through your, your LinkedIn, saw a very interesting career path for you, and I wanted to do a podcast episode for a while about career paths for finance exec, or finance pros.

[00:01:08] So, that’s really what we’re gonna dive into today. So, as a starting point, we kind of do this for every guest, but it seems more appropriate than ever, um, but do you want to give your background on how you’ve, uh, kind of gone through the finance space?

Peter Nesbitt Introduction

[00:01:21] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, for sure. So, you know, I’ll start just saying I had a, like, as you probably mentioned, I had another entire career doing military intelligence before I even started undergrad. So, I enlisted in the army out of high school. But, you know, when I was an undergrad, I, a lot of my friends were going into investment banking.

[00:01:35] I didn’t really know what that was at the time, but it sounded like fun and interesting place to go. I knew then I, what sort of seated, what table I wanted to be at, like, I wanted to be at the table where the big deals are being done, and I wasn’t quite sure who I wanted to be at that table, if I was gonna be the CEO, the CFO, the banker, the investor, maybe the consultant or the lawyer.

[00:01:54] But, like, I knew what table that I was I wanted to be at. So, I started my career in investment banking, for two years doing M&A, so pretty brutal lifestyle, as bad as it sounds, a hundred hours a week, pretty regularly, and, but I learned a lot and, you know, frankly, like, my, you know, a lot of those connections as well, and people I’ve met along the way have been helpful.

[00:02:14] And then, after that I thought I’d, you know, I thought I’d tried the investor hat on and went to Carlyle, was publicly traded asset manager to doing private equity buyouts and actually felt I was farther and farther away from actually the operations of a company. And so, you know, when many of my friends were moving, you know, into the buy side, as they say, which is either hedge funds or private equity, and, you know, I realized like, you know, actually, I want to be, you know, an operator or give it a shot.

[00:02:37] So, I made a sort of a hard decision of walking away from like a, you know, a very well-known tried and true path to a specific, you know, lifestyle and income and, you know, prestige and all that to move into startup land and, you know, now looking back, you know, I’ve, I’ve probably advised, you know, a couple dozen other former bankers, finance folks as they want, you know, have this interest in tech and like, hey, like, I know this is, sounds cool, or maybe it’s a better fit for me.

[00:03:04] You know, when I started and I, I didn’t have, I frankly didn’t have good mentors in this space and didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was just lucky, frankly, and applied to a, a well-known consumer internet brand in New York City called Bitly, they make the long link short, I’m sure you’ve seen, 

[00:03:17] Joe Michalowski: I…

[00:03:17] Peter Nesbitt: initially applied just for a, yeah, a one, one, a one-month consulting role to build their first three statement operating model, present it to the board, and this was in 2015, um, and interestingly enough, they did, they made it through a series C and never actually had a functioning operating model, you know, this is a wild, wild west of New York City tech startups back in the day. And that was, like, my first real intro into the tech finance world and really realizing that

[00:03:44] you don’t have to be at the bottom of the to, pot, totem pole for years to actually make an impact. That, and my first week there, the CEO of Bitly, like, Mark Josephson, is like, “Hey, Peter, what do you think of our pricing?” And I’m like, “Well, I think it sort of sucks.” He’s like, “Okay, how about you go fix it?” And you’re like, “What? Like, I just started here. I don’t know anything about the company, you’re telling me this, the new junior guy to go fix what’s this feels like to me a very important part of your business.” Um, and just even the access, I can set up one-on-one with a CTO anytime I want and, you know, and just see, and, you know, the, the camaraderie and just, like, sort of traditional sort of startup vibes of, like, in banking and, you know, traditional finance.

[00:04:20] I remember going getting a glass of water, like, having a conversation in the water cooler, it was anxiety driving because, like, I feel like I need to be back at my desk, there’s a, so, this feeling of FaceTime, feeling like you need to be working and grinding this sort of, like, perception of how hard you work is a really big important part of, you know, that, that world,

[00:04:39] whereas in, you know, I, I remember my third week at Bitly, the, the VP of eng talks to me for, like, 20 minutes over lunch, I’m like, “What are you doing? Shouldn’t we be back at our desks?” And so, there was a, it was a hard transition, frankly, and not knowing really how to, you know, navigate my way into tech,

[00:04:53] but it worked. I, after my first month that I decided to stay full-time, and, you know, sort of the rest is history, I’ve been in tech, you know, for the last, um, seven or eight years.

[00:05:02] Joe Michalowski: Wow, that’s, I, we’re gonna dig into to so much of this, but, uh, a lot of that I can’t believe, honestly, the thing that stands out to me, I can’t believe Bitly made it so far with no oper, like, I’m talking to Series A first finance hires now, they were like, “Yeah, that’s, like, priority number one, come in and build that operating model.”

[00:05:21] I don’t know what was going on in 2015, but if that was the norm, like, we are so far from that now, like, that’s not how you can get by, but, yeah, I mean, the, the background, it’s exactly why I wanted to talk to you about this topic because it’s just so wide-ranging, it’s not like I was a Big 4 accountant and then, you know, I moved into startup space and then I was the VP of finance.

[00:05:42] Like, that, that’s a pretty linear path, but really love that, I, I think broadly a question I’ll ask is just, it sounds like you, maybe you didn’t know how the path would go, but you had a, I’m surprised you had a pretty good idea, even with the intelligence analyst background, that you knew where you wanted to be,

[00:05:59] and that’s not something that I’m famil, like, I, I’ve never really had, like, a, a solid understanding of, like, yeah, this is where I’m going. So, I’m curious, like, is there anything that surprised you about how your, uh, career path has unfolded?

Surprises and Challenges in a Finance Career Path

[00:06:13] Peter Nesbitt: Hmm, yeah, I didn’t really know what it would take to, like, move into more, like, executive roles when I first started at, at Bitly, and frankly, I didn’t really know the other sort of roles and, like, looking back, frankly, like, there’s, one part of me wishes I just gone in, you know, into an SDR role rather than a finance role,

[00:06:29] like, I think, you know, usually the, top AE at a company should make more than the CEO if they’re doing their job right. And so, if you’re optimizing for, you know, income, like, even if you’re coming from finance, it might be sound like, beneath you to be in a sales role, but really if you’re, you know, really wanna be paid the most, like, you should be in sales.

[00:06:44] And frankly, if you wanna start your own company too, like, if you wanna be a CEO, that’s one of the probably better spots to be from is being, you know, in the sales, sales role. And so, I think things like that, like, I just didn’t really know what’s customer success, like, what are, what’s your career path in customer success look like?

[00:07:00] You either as a stay CS, or you move into product, or you move into, you know, customer experience, there’s all these other sort of, like, avenues across tech that, you know, especially if you’re a junior in your roles, like, how can each of those move over time? 

[00:07:12] And then, again, to your point, like, unless you’ve seen a bunch of other peers and other folks in the industry make those moves, it’s really hard to visualize that career path starting out without much exposure or much experience in the tech space. 

[00:07:25] And I think it’s also hard, to your point, like, Big 4 and in, investment banking, like, that, that career path is one direction, it’s upper out, and, you know, in tech it’s sideways, upside down, backwards, like, you can do whatever you want in tech, in, in terms of, you know, taking on new responsibilities either because you have to or because you want to.

[00:07:47] Joe Michalowski: It’s so true, and I, I, you know, and it’s true for every profession, like, even in marketing, like, like, my job, I, that’s, that’s what I’m experiencing now, like, as this is, I was at agencies for a long time and now, you know, working here, my first taste of, like, startup life and it’s like, oh, this, this can really be like whatever you, you make it.

[00:08:06] And so, where I wanna start digging into to your story about where you’ve gone is, is what you said about that tough transition from big company to startup land. And so, just to learn a little bit more ’cause, you know, you’re, you’re at Deutsche Bank, you’re like, yeah, making all these big deals,

[00:08:22] and to your point, you were, said you were getting further and further away from the operations. And I’m curious, like, can you talk a little bit more about the challenges there and maybe any, like, words of wisdom for people thinking about going from that super corporate environment to the one that you kind of live in now?

[00:08:40] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, I’d say it kind of comes around like a few things, like, one is that the i, idea is, is trying to build your network, and I think understanding the, the opportunities coming from, you know, I think there’s a lot of, a lot of people go into finance for the prestige and the money, right? Like, that’s why you become an investment banker, you wanna say you’re an investment banker and, you know, and live that lifestyle.

[00:09:01] I think it’s a hard, sometimes people have a hard time, like, oh, I wanna, like, I remember when I came to Bitly, I, I remember telling the then VP of finance, like, “I’m strategic finance or high finance, I don’t wanna do an expense report or payroll or whatever.”

[00:09:12] But frankly, once I actually did those things, it was probably the most, like, influential in terms of my understanding of accounting and how real cash flow works, like, in, in banking, you’re doing, like, very, very simple excel equations to forecast cash flow, um, or, you know, we call net networking capital.

[00:09:29] And looking back, I had no idea what that really meant, like, until you’re actually seeing cash come in and come out of your bank account that is a completely abstract concept. And so, that, I think that was a, you know, a, I think it’s building your network around, you know, people who, who are in tech to understand the different routes that it doesn’t just have to be corporate development or doesn’t have to just be the, you know, in the finance or chief of staff role,

[00:09:51] it could be sales, it could be CS, yes, it could be product, but even then, and then, you know, that, don’t let your ego get in your way, like, like, our careers along, we’re gonna work toward 70, that’s, like, 50 years of work, like, you can take a year being junior again, but with, again, thinking, thinking your 5 or 10-year vision, like, if your goal is to be CEO or, you know, start a company or, you know, at, or be an executive fang, like, whatever it is, right?

[00:10:16] Like, text big, I’ve been working primarily early-stage, like, C to Series C, but like, you can go later stage as well. Like, having that sort of longer-term vision and knowing that, like, one year on the sideline or, you know, on the sidelines as an SDR or as a, a junior PM is okay if the longer-term vision is, you know, what you want.

[00:10:33] So, I think those are some, like, some ideas that I think for anyone who’s, like, in the finance or even in a, you know, Big 4 accounting and more corporate role, like, you don’t, where you start isn’t where you’re gonna end, where that is definitely true in the corporate world, starting, you know, if you don’t get a start at, you know, at an investment bank, you’re not ever gonna become an MD, whereas in tech, you can start wherever and frankly end up wherever as well.

[00:10:56] Joe Michalowski: I think that’s a, it’s such a good point. I, I, I like what you said about needing to kind of, uh, you’re in investment banking, you’re seeing all this happen at a high level, and then you get into, you know, the, the startup world and you have to actually, like, do the operational part, like, you have to do the expense reports.

[00:11:10] This may be in, like a, a silly question, but like, what did you do to learn, like, the nuts and bolts of that stuff? Like, I, I assume they, they didn’t give you runway and startup world to just, you know, teach you, there’s no training for it, so you needed to figure that out on your own, and I’m curious, like, how that went for you? Was that stressful? Did you feel like you had, like, a solid handle on it? Like, what was that time like?

[00:11:34] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, I read something like 500 articles in white papers on tech across every part of the business. Every time I heard a term or a role I didn’t understand, I would, the good news is I’ll go a bunch of companies, like, Mosaic, write a bunch of white papers on their subject matter expert, expertise, right? In your case, FP&A and modeling and planning.

[00:11:54] And if you don’t know much about what that means practically, the good news is you can go download a bunch of these white papers, and I did that for every sort of role, whether it be, like, quality assurance or SDR or sales ops, and some of those terms, I’m like, coming from banking, they make note, they don’t have any inherent meaning to me, not coming in tech yet.

[00:12:12] And, you know, they’re reading tons of blogs, and so I spent probably my first two years reading two hours plus a day on various tech topics to just get up to speed, in my case, on SaaS, on tech, on early-stage investing and fundraising, you know, on just all the different roles, and I think, you know, I’ve talked about this a lot across a bunch of other podcasts and formats and Forbes and other places I, I’ve spoken and written, is that, like, finances that, the realization I had coming, you know, in is like, I’m not, I, I’m not this ivory tower of, like, I’m strategy, I’m actually in the weeds, I’m like, maybe more, like, the nervous system, right? 

[00:12:45] Like, I touch every part of the business because I touch all the money. Whether you wanna hire a USDR, whether you wanna run a new marketing campaign, whether you want to, you know, choose, you know, this new product you wanna develop, all those sort of things ultimately impact finance, impact, you know, they’re essentially, here’s some sort of return investment you want from that. 

[00:13:03] And so, I think having finance really as a, a finance person, understand all aspects of the business is so important. And so, I think that’s, you know, a key element there around, like, coming from that world, to your point, I remember I, coming from Bitly, I kept on saying, our revenue’s 15 billion, not 15 million, you know, like, I’m so used to using very, very big numbers, you know, things like that, like, it’s, yeah, just realizing the scale and getting down into the weeds, um, enables I think anyone to be just a, you know, a better business person at whatever scale of business they ultimately wanna work at.

[00:13:36] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, well, I mean, we talk about this a lot, I think, I mean, I’m pretty sure the first time I ever worked with you, I was in the background of a webinar that you did with Joe, our, our co-founder, and it was a lot about this, it was like, yeah, this job isn’t really, I mean, it is about, like, your Excel skills and your ability to build a model, but, you know, so much of it, like, being that executive level in finances, being able to collaborate across the business,

[00:14:00] and really understanding that you are at the intersection of everything going on, and I can imagine that feels more true in, to your point, a $15 million company than it does when you’re like a cog in a really, really big machine. I have friends that, uh, my, my wife works at Liberty Mutual, and I have friends in the finance department there, and like, they have whole teams dedicated to, like, a board deck, and I’m like, you know, the people that I’m talking to every day, they’re doing everything, like, they, and like, I’m sure you could if you moved in, like, and to your point, just read and absorb as much as you can, but

[00:14:36] it’s among my favorite things that I’ve, I get to talk about with people like you is, you know, getting that understanding of not just finance ’cause to me, in market I’m like, oh, it’s finance, like, putting together spreadsheets over there and tracking the numbers and what’s the budget, and it’s just so much more than that, which is, which is why I find this audience, like, as interesting as, suppose.

[00:14:55] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, and, you know, that’s usually like, you know, I think, ’cause there’s sort of the two transitions, like, right, what’s your first path into finance or the finance department, like, whether it’s from Big 4 or from banking or somewhere else, and I think it’s also like, what’s that next step to get you to, like, a director or VP level?

[00:15:13] And I, you know, I think that’s the, the key piece that can get you prepared not only to understand where you want to go, like, “Do I wanna stay in finance? Do I, do I want to go take a PM role instead?” Versus like, “Oh, I, I wanna be VP of finance, in order to do that, I know I, I need to at least be, I don’t have to know marketing to be a VP of marketing, but I need to be, like, be dangerous enough to go mano a mano with a VP of marketing who wants to triple his or her budget this year.”

[00:15:37] Joe Michalowski: We do that on our side. We, we want more in marketing, that’s what we ask for, and you’re right, uh, there needs to be an understanding there because you can get really buzz wordy on the marketing side and just start throwing terms out, and if you’re, if you’re just the money person, you are gonna have a tough time and, or just be the gatekeeper, and you don’t wanna be that either.

[00:15:54] So, I, uh, to that point, I do wanna move into talking, like, rising the ranks of finance. So, at this point, like, you’ve talked about kind of, all right, we’re out of the iBanking world, we’re into startup tech, which is our audience, so that’s where we’re gonna focus. 

[00:16:09] And I know you moved up really quickly at Bitly, you mentioned, like, you came in, it was just that, like, one month that you were building that one operating model and then turned to a full-time gig. But what, what were some of the projects you worked on that helped you stand out in a way that helped you move up so quickly? Like, what were the difference makers there?

Moving Up the Ranks in Finance

[00:16:27] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, good question. You know, I think, in my case, and in many cases, I think it’s, there’s a lot of luck involved, right? Like, I was at Bitly, like, my, my, um, the only other finance per, or finance person, the VP of finance left after my first year, and I happened to be the only guy around who,

[00:16:44] Joe Michalowski: Who’s it gonna be? 

[00:16:45] Peter Nesbitt: you know, it’s like, and, but more point to your point, like, I was, I was ready to take on that role, like I, you know, had taken, basically taken on and been involved in every major project on the finance team in that year, had gone outta my way to actually help us rebuild a RevOps function, start a BI function. And so, I’d taken on all these, like, sort of high visibility projects where I was working directly a lot with, or, you know, updating the CEO on the different st, status of these projects,

[00:17:12] I mentioned pricing being another one. And so, I think that those are all important things to hang your hat on in many ways of, like, volunteering to, you know, that’s a good thing about startup, right? Like, people, there’s always more work to be done, and so if you can identify cross-functional projects that could use your analytical skills and your effort, then they’re great places to, to start in, like, price is a good example,

[00:17:38] I’m gonna interact with the head of sales, the head of marketing, the head of product, you know, in those conversations, building a sales or RevOps function, similar, right? And work with customer success and work with sales, and work with marketing and, like, you’re gonna work on these kind of cross-functional projects generally with the leadership of those teams,

[00:17:52] un, unable, even as a junior person really gets you, again, that insight into those roles, but again, I think the experience to know that, okay, here’s how all the pieces work ’cause really to read how to finance, I think you do really understand, need to understand how all the pieces work of, what accounting looks like and what finance looks like.

[00:18:10] And frankly, I didn’t, my, when I, when I got promoted, like, by the way, like, I didn’t, I’d never ran payroll before, I had to run payroll for the first time cold, like, with a, just like a Google doc, a pass down notes of how to run payroll, like, there was just so much stuff, and thankfully I had a good accounting team, you know, underneath me, like, you know, so I think that really helped as well.

[00:18:26] Like, I wasn’t completely lost, lost in dark, I was able to kind of teach myself accounting ’cause, again, coming from banking, like, my knowledge of accounting was, you know, pretty poor, frankly, compared what you really need to understand, at least, again, like, I’m never doing journal entries or, you know, but I do under, need to understand, like, why does deferred revenue go up or down in a given period, especially for a SaaS business, which is actually really hard to understand in coming from banking just as an exam,

[00:18:51] aside with that is like, you know, you, like, you’re like, “Oh, deferred revenue must be related to revenue, so I’m gonna forecast it as a percentage of revenue.” And that’s, that’s not how accounting works at SaaS. And so, I think those sort of insights were important, but like, I was able to learn quickly on the job once I got promoted.

[00:19:05] And so, I think those are kinda the two pieces is really around giving yourself as much exposure to senior people early on, and then once you do have the opportunity to move up, take it and then find people around you to help you level up. And, like, the things I did at that time when I got promoted to Head of Finance at Bitly was I joined CFO Leadership Council, which was, um, then probably one of the only CFO

[00:19:30] on communities, on, you know, now there’s a bunch, right? But like, that was kind of the OG or one of the better ones back in the day, and still is a great one if you’re in, you know, in, you know, probably 30 cities they’re in. I also found a mentor who is a CFO, who’s been there and done that. And so, I could call up and like, “Hey, uh, I’ve never done this before.

[00:19:45] How do I do this?” And then I also started my own, you know, really started building out the, um, FinOps Slack community that I had, back in the day as well, and that was another, you know, just community for people to come into and talk, talk shop, and like, “Hey, like, I’ve never, I’m getting these tax notices.

[00:20:00] What do I do?” Or, um, “I need to do, you know, work with an auditor, I’ve never selected an auditor, auditor before. What do I do?” And so, like, those are the sort of resources I think surrounding yourself and not realizing you don’t have to go it alone, will help you not only get the job, but keep the job.

[00:20:15] Joe Michalowski: I have, I have so many follow-up questions, but the one that is on top of my mind, I, I have some that are, like, a little high level, but the, the really tactical one that I think I want to ask about this is about what you just said, you said you found a mentor, which I think is a very common piece of advice,

[00:20:29] it’s, like, find a mentor, but that is not that easy to do, like, they don’t just, like, drop down, and if, in finance, you’re not, like, marketing and salespeople are usually like out, like, we’re on social media and, like, we’re very, like, loud, we’re very public, and finance people are usually more reserved, you know, that’s changing I think, but, uh, the stereotype is that they’re more reserved, they’re more in the background. 

[00:20:53] And so, do you have any tips for, like, finding that mentor? Like, where, where did you find your mentor? How did you come across that opportunity? Obviously, starting the community is, is amazing, but I think that would really help people listening is, like, if they, if they think they want one and they don’t know where to start, uh, any tips there would be awesome.

[00:21:12] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, you know, looking back, I could have probably been more proactive about it, it was just actually sort of happenstance. I met a guy, a friend at a party who was a VP of sales, or head of sales at an another software company, and I was telling him about just, like, just venting, I’m like, “Oh man, I’m, like, way over my head here.”

[00:21:26] He’s like, “Oh, that’s funny, like, you should meet my, my boss who’s a CFO or this guy who works my company, he’s a CFO.” And I was like, “Okay.” And like, it sort of just happened by accident that I was introduced to my mentor at the time, and, you know, we didn’t talk that many times, frankly, it was like maybe three or four times in my year, my first, my year’s leadership in, at Bitly.

[00:21:44] But it was enough to give me confidence that I was in the right direction ’cause I think so much of it’s, it’s, some of the level was, is actual knowledge. But the other piece, just knowing I’ve been going the right direction is, is a big piece. The third thing I actually had, I, I, I, I think it’s also worth mentioning, is we had an interim CFO who worked, I don’t know, an hour a day, same thing, like,

[00:22:03] not hands-on, but, again, could, like, answer question and, like, “Is this the right, the right direction?” It’s like, “Yes, go that way.” Okay, great. And like, that’s, I think, I think that’s another key thing for a lot of companies I think they’re missing is that they may have a, a controller who has a lot of, like, potential or even, like, a finance manager has a lot of potential, but, you know, to get them to the next level,

[00:22:25] they don’t need a full-time CFO, they really need someone to come in, you know, to that point, just be the sort of mentor and the guidance to help make sure there’s guardrails, and they’re going in the right direction. I think that’s a really useful paradigm for a lot of earlier-stage businesses, up until probably, like, Series C, you don’t need a full-time CFO, C, COO sort of person, but you definitely need someone who’s, who can, like, point your, like, high potential, you know, mid-level, you know, managers in the right direction.

[00:22:52] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, I think, I think it’s an interesting point about, like, actually just working with mentors too, ’cause it’s, it’s not, “Hey, I don’t know how to do this, let me go get the answer from this person every time I don’t know how to do something.” Like, you’re still the high-potential, high-drive person who is gonna go figure it out,

[00:23:08] you’re gonna read all those articles, read all those eBooks, but to your point, like, it’s that confidence, it’s like, that one thing that’s missing that they can give you, and you can put it all together and kind of run with it. So, I think that is, uh, something, at least in, in my space, that people

[00:23:25] miss a lot is that, you know, the mentor is not there to be, like, the hundred, like, the professor from college, it is like the gut check on that thing that you’re working on to send you on your way so you can keep driving yourself. So, I think that’s an interesting point.

[00:23:40] The other follow-up question I had, and you mentioned a lot, you mentioned exposure to the CEO was great, but one thing that stood out to me was the cross-functional projects that you mentioned, and there were a lot of great examples in there, but I’m, I’m wondering what you think the, the kind of core skill set is to be good at working with those cross-functional teams?

[00:24:02] Like what, what does it take to make those successful, not necessarily the projects themselves, but building those relationships and being the kind of person that can accomplish those tasks?

Relationship Building in a Finance Career

[00:24:14] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, I think the first piece is not making it transactional, and how can you help them in ways that are not related to it? An example of that, at Bitly, our Head of CS was a great, and actually, like, truly, like, world-class CS leader and is, you know, pretty famous for that, but, like, at the time, and, and I didn’t really know

[00:24:35] Google Sheets or excel very well, put a, put a five in one cell, put an eight in another cell, and pull out calculator and calculate it, like, things like that and, like, but, you know, how, how can I enable other people around me? And I think that’s the key piece of, like, being helpful all the time because you come with a set of certain skill set, primarily around turning ideas into numbers and then interpreting that.

[00:24:57] And that’s what the life of an analyst is, using Excel or Google Sheets, I think that is a superpower that a lot of people don’t have, and whether it’s the HR team who frequently also needs to manage data, but doesn’t have the skill set set around Excel, whether it’s the sales team who’s trying to do sales forecasting, the CS team that’s trying to do capacity forecasting, all that sort of stuff, like, those are the opportunities to just be really helpful and that builds relationships that are not transactional.

[00:25:22] And then, when you do need them, there’s, “Hey, you know, I would love to work with you on this thing that I, I, I’m kind of seeing that we’re not doing, you know, we’re not, we’re not doing upgrades correctly, and I’d love to have you actually document that correctly in Salesforce.” It’s a lot easier conversation around that when you’re trying to do a, say a Salesforce cleanup project and you’re spearhead, spearheading that and are asking the CS leader to, you know, have her, his team do extra work.

[00:25:45] And so, I think it’s around being, yeah, it’s, it’s around being, like, really this sort of like help, helpful, helpful person that can build lasting relationships.

[00:25:56] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, I mean, having that, that non-transactional mindset seems, I mean, it’s what I hear anecdotally in, in a lot of these podcast episodes, and I, I’m glad we’re kind of making it specific about growing your career ’cause it’s not just, am I gonna do well at my job today? It’s like, this is how I level up my career, to, to your point, going from associate level to, you know, Bitly’s VP of marketing, or I, I don’t know what the specific title was, but getting to that executive level, yeah, those are really, uh, 

[00:26:25] Peter Nesbitt: And, and if you think about, like, as you get to become an executive, right? Who’s your team? When you’re executive, it’s not the finance team anymore, it’s the executive team, right? You’re working towards one goal. And so, taking that mindset early on in your career, and obviously, you should focus on your team and your team’s goals too, and those should be making sure you’re, you know, hitting those out of the park as well. But like, with your extra capacity and time, you know, consider the company or one team.

[00:26:51] Joe Michalowski: Okay. It’s a really interesting point, I never really thought of it that way, but you’re right, like, the, the executive team is not other finance professionals, but to, to the point about your team, in finance, unless you are, like, a serial, early-stage, like, you just make a living out of being the first finance hire,

[00:27:07] and then once the team starts growing, you leave. Presumably being at that executive level means you are gonna build your own team, you’re gonna start being a manager, you’re gonna get beyond IC work. So, that was one thing I wanted to ask about is just what are some of the keys to leveling up on the management side?

[00:27:21] Because it’s not all about, you know, working on that pricing project with the other, with the sales team and the revenue team, it’s really about, you know, leveling up your employees, and that might be difficult for people who are used to being in the weeds of investment banking or accounting or things like that.

[00:27:38] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, I would say that it’s probably my, investment bankers are notoriously poor managers, right? And they don’t usually have to manage a lot of people or lot people managers, they’re poor people managers. And, like, I think it’s, it’s not part of really the job description for most of 

[00:27:50] Joe Michalowski: Yep. They’re grinders. 

[00:27:50] Peter Nesbitt: them anyway, like, you’re sort of, and so I don’t think a lot of people see good management in their career, let alone experience it. And so, I think it’s finding good examples of that, and the good news is, you know, other teams tend to have really good management. So, I, I would, I think if you have not seen what good managers look like, ’cause you’re relatively new to tech, try to observe that in other teams. 

[00:28:09] Like, I find, like, find a team that’s high performing and figure out what the management, the man, the manager’s doing that makes it, makes it so, um, and use that as an opportunity to emulate. That being said, I think there’s a bunch of things that a manager needs to do. I think one is a, identifying good talent, and so, I think it’s how do you interview, how do you create job descriptions, how do you, you know, bring in, you know, and recruit good people. So, I think getting good people is a really important piece of that puzzle,

[00:28:35] and, and, sorry, that’s one part of it. I think the other piece is when you have good people or just people in general, how do you, how do you help them grow in their queers, I think it’s around a lot around communications and alignment, like, set, you know, I think if people aren’t performing most of the time, it’s, there’s, like, the fundamental attribution error, which is the most common thing I think a lot of people have is, like, oh, this person is lazy, or this person isn’t motivated, or whatever.

[00:29:00] That’s actually not, like, you’re, you’re doing, like, a judgment of their character versus understanding of their motivations. And so, I think management’s about understanding motivation, and most people respond, you know, if you can actually understand people or get to understand that person and what motivates them,

[00:29:16] you can help, you can actually manage ’em, and sometimes that, that, like, maybe they’re not being the right place in their career, or something’s going on in their, their personal lives that’s, you know, taking ’em away from that, and that’s okay, and you may have to, like, you know, ultimately, you know, terminating employees for this out of reason, but ultimately that sort of understanding of the, you know, the whole, whole employee is really important.

[00:29:31] Like, even, like, so, as I mentioned, I was in the army a long time ago, even the military, you do essentially a 360 every single, um, month with your manager where they talk, when I say 360, sorry, you actually talking not just your personal life, but also your, your professional life.

[00:29:44] And so, like, I remember as a manager in the military, helping people plan their wedding or have their, you know, you know, wife buy a house when they’re, you know, deployed, all these sort of, like, personal things because helping them solve their personal goals ultimately flows into the work life. And if they’re, they’re wor, worried about something at, you know, at home or, you know, with their family, then they’re not gonna be focused on whatever you want them to be doing.

[00:30:06] And so, I think for me, again, you always have to, if they’re up to it, right? Like, not every employee’s interested in bringing their personal life into work, but like, I’ve done my best to help, you know, an employee who wants to start their own pottery business or whatever it might be, you know, to give them goals and hold them accountable to their personal goals, as well as the goals I have them for, you know, on the, on the team and the finance team.

[00:30:26] Joe Michalowski: I love that, I don’t know what to say, I mean, it’s, I’m sure it’s a very, uh, underappreciated part of the management job, but you’re so right, like, it, it really is, like, if people are distracted in their personal lives, they are not gonna do the level of the job you need them to do here, and it’s not transactional like that,

[00:30:43] you just, as a manager, I think you just truly need to, like, care about the people who are under you, and, yeah, no, it’s really nice to hear that, that’s part of your experience. That’s really cool, it’s a great way to put it. 

[00:30:52] Peter Nesbitt: And, and I think the other piece around that is, like, ultimately employees are gonna leave, they’re, you don’t wanna help them grow into whatever they, maybe internally, but maybe externally and, like, I’ve helped employees leave the companies I’ve been at as well in, in terms of jobs that I think that might be better suited for them in their career paths.

[00:31:07] And then later in, or, and vice versa, when they’ve left, I’ll recruit them to my next company, like, I think that’s a piece around building good relationships with people, to your point, with a quality of care, I think matters and can drive, you know, high-performing teams.

[00:31:22] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, I, I mentioned this earlier, but, uh, this comes up on every podcast episode, and I, I love that these episodes never, it just never comes down to I wish I had built up my modeling skills earlier in my career, like, they’re really important, but I just enjoy kind of getting to talk to finance leaders, to talk to people like you about the, that relationship building aspect because I just don’t think it’s an a, it’s an appreciated part of the finance job,

[00:31:50] I think the stereotype is like, they’re in the back, they’re just crunching numbers, and it’s just not the case, like, if you just talk to somebody in this role, it’s just not what you all do all day, and it’s, it’s really nice to get that out into the world.

[00:32:03] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, and I think the last piece is, like, and this is something that I, I work on all the time, and I’m constantly finding myself opportunities for myself to improve around, but it’s around communication that’s in communication every way, like, being a finance person, you’re very, generally speaking, gonna have maybe the best context in the business and

[00:32:23] probably a way to think about the business at a different, like, way than other people can in terms of both depth and breadth, and it’s easy to, and then this is where you’re either talking to your junior employees who are, might be an accounting manager or talking to the VP of eng, it’s easy to forget that where the people are, where they’re coming from and where, what their understanding of the business of the situation is.

[00:32:44] And so, I think part of that management aspect is also around communication, and that’s how do you communicate effectively, clearly, and to have the humility to when the communication fails is not the problem of the listener, but it’s the problem of the, of the speaker and taking ownership on that and correcting that for yourself of like, “Oh, this person didn’t get it.” and it’s not ’cause they’re dumb or lazy or busy or don’t care about me, or whatever it is, it’s actually ’cause I didn’t communicate this effectively.

[00:33:11] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, it, it’s such a great point, and I think, I mean, honestly, everybody could learn that, I think everybody slips up on that, uh, I know I do, and it probably applies to every job, but it’s a great point, and, uh, yeah, I, I, I love the, the sort of management chat that we’ve been going down, but I, I think, I think we should transition into sort of life after that, like, VP of finance, that

[00:33:32] lead finance person at the tech startup because to your point, there’s a million ways you can go, and you yourself, you went from the finance lead to the COO at Teampay, and now you’re off doing fractional CFO work. And so, I, I don’t want to ask, I, I think I had, like, a bunch of questions listed about this, but generally, I want to hear your thoughts about making a transition from finance, or maybe VP of finance at a Bitly, at a Teampay into the next step, like, how do you think about where to go from there?

Choosing Next Steps in Your Career

[00:34:01] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, good question. So, I think there’s a couple things, it’s one is like, do I wanna be finance for life? I think that’s the first question, it’s like the answer is like, some people like, “Yeah, I love finance.” And the question is, do I want to be at this stage forever? And if you, and some people love this stage, I know people who are serial VP for financing love being this sort of A to C, and the company will sell or run outta cash, whatever it might be, and they’ll do it all over again.

[00:34:25] And they, that’s, that’s where they love to be. Some people want to have an aspiration to be CFOs of public companies. And so, in order to do that, you need to be probably in a VP of finance seat at, like, a late-stage company or, you know, at a, you know, a more junior role at a, you know, pre, re, recently public company.

[00:34:40] And that’s a very, very different life, right? Like, I think that the work that a CFO at a public company does is, in my limited experience, quite a bit different than the life in the work that you do at a, as a VP of finance of a small, you know, a hundred-person startup. 

[00:34:54] So, I think if you have those aspirations, you should definitely go p, choose, like, go down that route when that means probably, like, taking a, you know, even if you’re the head of finance at a Series B company, you’re gonna be probably two or three, you know, rungs down the ladder at a much later stage company and be able to know that, that’s part of, again, your path in order to infuse that’s where you really wanna be.

[00:35:13] But I think there’s a lot of routes, right? Like, I think you can, in my case, Isaac, I want to do more general management, I was looking at either COO role or more of, like, a general manager role, like, where you own both go-to-market and product as well, for like, a, a product line. And so, those are the sort of roles I was looking at, when I was, you know, making that decision

[00:35:30] ’cause I wanna have more general management experiences, like, ultimately what I wanna do is I wanna be CEO someday at my own company, like, that’s my, you know, what I wanna do. And so, it made sense for me to have more general management experience versus more finance experience. That being said, like, you know, one of the best pieces of career advice I got from a, actually, one of my mentors was like, you know, Peter, you’re always gonna be the most analytical person in the room, right?

[00:35:49] Like, that’s just your background. If you can sell, you’ll always have access to capital. And so, like, a lot of my time I’ve spent in the last probably four years at Teampay was selling the company in terms of pitching, right? Like, I was doing a lot of fundraising and also being on sales calls and just understanding the kind of just generally how to, you know, how to talk to people and how to, you know, the broad idea of like, you know, of, of sales.

[00:36:10] And so, I think those are things, like, for me, like, that was an important part of my journey on that ’cause, like, having access to capital, you know, is it a really important part if you want to be either a CFO or CEO of any, any company. But I think there’s just so many other paths, I think that’s, I think that’s the important thing is this talk to a lot of people, you know,

[00:36:25] now there’s a lot of networks out there, you know, I said CFO Leadership Council’s one of ’em, there’s CFO Alliance, there’s Pavilion now, there’s Operators Guild, Controller Collective, like, all these communities. Go find people who do the roles that you think you might be interested in, one or two clicks up, you know,

[00:36:39] you know, one or two roles ahead of you and figure it out and say like, “Hey, is this something that’s interesting to me?” And so, I think that’s a real important piece, I mean, other roles I looked at as, like, do I wanna be the operating partner at a VC fund? And so, I could be, like, a VP of finance across, like, 10 portfolio companies,

[00:36:52] like, that sounded sort of interesting at one point to me, you know, that you could also take an investor, you could move into an investor role from these things. And so, there’s a lot of different sort of pivots that people can make in their career, you know, more recently, I’ve decided to do the fractional piece, you know, partially ’cause, you know, for me, I think it’s been a fun opportunity for me to have flexibility in terms of who I work with, how I work with them,

[00:37:11] yeah, and just to see if it’s something I like, if, like, do I wanna be in-house and full-time in one thing or is it, is it nice to, like, not be as committed to, like, one specific idea or a company? And there’s pros and cons to both of those, you know, you know, experiences, and so it’s just something I’ve been, you know, trying out for the last two and a half months.

[00:37:28] Joe Michalowski: Really cool, I, I think my takeaway from all that is that, you know, what you’ve said about finance kind of sitting in between all of these functions, kind of having the, the deepest or the broadest perspective of a business, it’s kind of the best springboard for whatever career that you want to take, if you really commit to those cross-functional projects you talked about, like, you, you can kind of go wherever you want, and I think that is unique to finance, obviously, like, anybody can make whatever pivot they ever 

[00:37:57] want to make, like, there, it’s, there’s enough resources out in the world that you can basically do whatever you want to do, but I, it, it seems to me that finance uniquely sets you up to kind of move into whatever part of a business you would like to be in.

[00:38:09] Peter Nesbitt: Mm-hmm, yeah. I, I think it does, and I think that, I think the reason a lot of finance people don’t take those pivots is because there’s a lot of fear, right? There’s this fear of, like, what if it doesn’t work, or, and I’ll speak for myself. I had a lot of fear along the way around, “Oh, should I, should I go earlier stage?”

[00:38:27] Right? Even when I was going to Teampay, like that, a lot of my mentors said, “Peter, you should go to a late-stage fund ’cause you wanna be a CFO of a company.” They thought I wanna be a CFO of a company, it’s like, “You should do that, like, going to, you know, going to Teampay as a Series A makes no sense.

[00:38:39] That’s going backwards, right?” Like, that was their opinion, but for me, like, I, I didn’t wanna be in finance long term, I wanted to have exposure to a bunch of aspects of the business, and I got that, I’m like, and really enjoyed that. And so, I, I think that battling that fear and realizing that, like, again, like, our careers are along, we’re, our skill set’s always gonna be wanted.

[00:38:56] So, you take a year off to go, even if you’re a VP of finance and take a year off to go be PM somewhere, or try to start a franchise, or like, buy a business off of, you know, like a small business association alone, like, there’s a lot of, like, little pivots that people wanna do with their careers, like, go to get a real estate free, like, whatever, like, come back, your skill set isn’t gonna go anywhere.

[00:39:14] Joe Michalowski: True.

[00:39:14] Peter Nesbitt: You’ll still be valuable and hireable in a year or two years if, whatever sort of, you know, side hustle or hobby, you, you know, whatever, or, you know, idea you want to, you know, chase down, and I think that’s a piece that I find, I talked to a lot of their VPs of finance and like, I ask them like, “Oh, why, why are you still here?

[00:39:28] Why are you still in this?” Like, ’cause a lot of times like, they’re like, “I don’t know if I wanna do this forever.” ‘Cause a lot of us are, you know, you know, relatively young, I guess, I said in, in a long career. I think it’s just, like, no time like the present to go pursue what you want, knowing that you’ll always have this to come back to.

[00:39:42] Joe Michalowski: It’s a really great point, I think, yeah, I don’t know, it’s so true that, uh, I mean, I, I feel personally, it, I think all of these things apply so much more broadly than just finance because I think everyone has that fear when they’re trying to transition to an, into a new role, and it’s an interesting way to put it where it’s like, you know what? You can come back, like, it, it’s okay, like, that, that’s fine, and it’s not, the job’s not going anywhere.

[00:40:03] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, like, you’re not gonna forget how to be a VP of marketing, or VP of finance in a year or two. Now, if it’s, like, five or ten years, like, okay, maybe that’s a different story, but like, at that point, I’m, you sure you get five or ten years of entirely different experiences that’s gonna be useful somewhere else, so.

[00:40:16] Joe Michalowski: Yeah, so true. All right, well, we, I, we’ve been talking for a while, I got, I got two broader questions that I, I’m gonna kind of leave us with. So, the, the first is, you know, we, we’ve talked a lot about your journey, and I, I’m wondering if, if there’s one single, like, biggest difference maker that you’ve had in your career, could be a project that you’ve worked on, a mindset that you’ve always held, a person you got to learn from really anything, like, what was the driver of a lot of, you know, your success so far.

[00:40:43] Peter Nesbitt: So, slightly different subject, I’d say that the driver of the most of my success has been around taking care of myself. And so, so much of banking is, like, throwing yourself on a la, like, a hand grenade and, like, every single day of, like, sure, I’ll work this weekend and not take any time for myself and all that,

[00:41:00] like, I gotta, like, a career slash life coach in 2018, and I’ve been working with a, a coach for the last, like, four years. I do meditation, I do yoga, like, I do a lot of other sort of, like, self-development stuff that keeps me and my emotional reality in line, it helps me really be a better, treat myself better, and more importantly treat people around me better.

[00:41:22] And enables me to have a different perspective, I think that’s the value of coaches is that, like, Olympic athletes have coaches ’cause, like, as a swimmer, I can’t see if my right arm is, like, coming up to the right too much as I’m, I’m stroking, right? And a value of having a coach is different than having a friend or a mentor,

[00:41:37] that’s ’cause they’re paid to help you see your blind spots. And as you take on new roles and responsibilities and have just more stress and more, more life happen, it’s really, really helpful to have someone identify those blind spots for you and help you work through them.

[00:41:52] Joe Michalowski: I think that’s a, a great way to answer a question, not, not a different topic, it could have been anything, I, I was, uh, I knew it was gonna be a tougher question and, honestly, these last two always are ’cause they’re so broad, but I think that’s a really interesting answer and, yeah, just, uh, I think it’s good advice for, again, anyone, uh, this is getting to be a, a whole career conversation, not just for finance, but, uh, applies to everybody.

[00:42:15] And the, the last question I’ll ask you, it, it’s, it might be a similar answer, but it’s a question we ask everyone who comes on, it’s just, what is one thing you know now that you wish you knew when you started your career in finance?

[00:42:27] Peter Nesbitt: I think the one thing I wish I thought about more along the way was there’s a lot of value in knowing what, choosing which company you’re going to. And I tell, tell, I think there’s some level, like, I think getting your foot in the door is one thing, and that’s great, and you should definitely take that job that gets you the foot in the door coming from banking or from, you know, Big 4.

[00:42:44] Like, do that, I think, you know, if you’ve read Zero to One by Peter Thiel or just understand venture returns, there’s not, like, it’s a power law, right? There’s disproportionate returns for the top 1%, top 10%, that is true in tech, and because so much of your compensation is tied up in equity, that’s also very much true for your own, like, personal economic out, outcome.

[00:43:05] And so, don’t treat all startups as equal, like, figure out a rubric that matters for you. I think it’s, for every person that’s gonna be different, I’ve optimized primarily for myself, for my team, the people I work with, because I know I, I operate at a hundred percent when I like the people I work with.

[00:43:23] Some people that, that’s not a problem for them, they can work at a hundred percent no matter who they’re working with, but for me, that’s been really important for me to be, like, the best, best version of myself. And so, know what the sort of rubric is for you across businesses, some of that could be, like, that business is potential for success,

[00:43:37] that could be the, you know, the network of the, the senior executives that I wanna have access to in the future, that could be, like, the aptitude or the potential aptitude of the other employees who might be go starting a, you know, cool new startups, you know, after they leave this company, like, whatever that might be, like, figure out that rubric is for yourself and be okay turning down opportunities even if they look better to other people because their rubric’s different. 

[00:44:00] Joe Michalowski: That’s a, that’s a new one, I’ll be honest, that, that’s really cool, I, I like that idea, um, especially as somebody who hasn’t spent that much time in startup world, for me, that, that is, uh, personally really great advice. So, appreciate that, and I think it’s a good way to kind of end our main sort of topic.

[00:44:18] So, you know, just wanted to say thank you so much for, for joining, for sharing all of your experience and things like that, but I want to turn the floor over to you, where can people go to learn, or to connect with you, to learn more about what you’re working on now, anything you want to plug or pitch, the floor, the floor is yours, sir.

[00:44:37] Peter Nesbitt: Yeah, for sure. Follow me on LinkedIn or add me on LinkedIn rather, message me, I’m happy to chat. I write in Forbes, I have a podcast myself called Awkward Conversations. If you’re interested in joining these communities, hit me up, I’m happy to talk about the pros and cons of each of them. If you wanna talk about coaching,

[00:44:54] tell you all about that experience I’ve had, and yeah, and just in general career stuff, I’m, this is a topic I talk a lot to a lot of people about, um, as I said, I’ve, I’ve mentored probably a couple dozen people into, into, you know, into tech from, you know, from investment banking, I’ve probably mentored, you know, a dozen people from more junior roles into, in finance, into their first sort of director VP roles. And so, um, yeah, have a lot of ideas in this, and I’m happy to chat.

[00:45:18] Joe Michalowski: Awesome. Well, I think, from what I’ve learned over the last 45 minutes or so, I think those mentees are, are lucky to have you, and just, yeah, thanks again for, uh, for being a guest on The Role Forward, and hope we can do it again sometime.

[00:45:29] Peter Nesbitt: Great. Thanks a lot, Joe.

[00:45:30] Joe Michalowski: Thanks, Peter. Bye.