Jumpmaster Profile

Yes, my career has been in finance and I have always had a POV of what makes a good CFO. My decisions have been based around helping me round out the skills I needed. I knew I needed public company experience, and I knew I needed operating experience, so I sought out career changes that would help me in both ofthose areas. Some of the changes came to me, but I was able to see the opportunities because I had a POV of what I needed next.

I was having dinner with a CFO of a cable company and she was a woman. It was the first time I realized that a CFO job was something I would like to do and seeing a woman in the role made me feel it was possible.

COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE: I’ve used process / practices to accomplish self awareness. Part of progressing and being able to see the opportunities requires the ability to take stock of how you think and the decisions you have made, and to really understand yourself.

When I lead teams, I recommend the following best practices as a way to foster collaboration and achievement; as a manager I am a coach. Not everyone sees their role that way and to me it’s absolutely essential.

I would say clarity and vision – the vision part is to really have a POV about what you want to do and I would say clarity because having a vision is more than just an academic exercise. It’s not just what looks good on paper or what the outside world would like – it needs to feel right in your gut. For me the biggest decisions have been the easiest ones because I am truly at peace with them.

Most recently, with the decision I just made to join Year Up, I had always had a goal to be a CFO and finally I set a new one – that I’d like to be on a public company board and I was a little afraid that I wouldn’t achieve it . I was fortunate that I did it, but it was the first time I didn’t have a specific job goal. You get to a point that life has to be aboutmore than just your own personal pursuits of your dreams. It’s much more gratifying to help other people achieve their own dreams. Once you have kids and they are a little further along you start to have capacity to look beyond your own family.

For me, It’s not high level messaging – it’s more one on one engagement and living by example.
I live by the Alex Halley quote: “Find the good and praise it.”
It’s really important to lift people up, be positive and see the potential in themselves – and that’s in the daily interactions. And I’ve learned that when you are in a visible leadership position, people pay a ton of attention to what you do, how you show up, and what you say – they really see a lot. So, I focus on my own behavior to try and in trying to bring out the best in people and encourage people to work with each other, because I have seen it time and time again that when people collaborate you get a much better result than you do on your own.

Reading a lot but I also think you need to aspire to a strong feedback culture. Its a challenge for me, and I have really worked on my team being comfortable giving feedback and have more work to do in this area, but I do ask for feedback on how I am doing. I think it’s important, and I feel really strongly that as a CFO you have to be approachable because you are dealing with a lot of sensitive issues around money and accounting and if you are not approachable little things can become big consequential issues. It’s imperative that you create an environment at the top that allows for honesty.

Sometimes

I discuss failures and setbacks, but I don’t really think along those lines. I have overcome enough adversity in my life that I don’t frame it that way. Having setbacks is just a part of life so I tend to go quickly to the upside. But I do think people at early stages benefit from hearing from their leadership’s frustrations and the discipline that it took to persevere and not let it undo me.

None of the above. I think you reach plateaus in your life and career. One of the things I recognized when I was struggling was that I had just outgrown the place where I was and it almost didn’t matter why I wasn’t progressing – maybe it was just time to look elsewhere as opposed to being frustrated and I need to just let it go. If you can learn the letting it go part and focus on the opportunity – it’s a good way around some of the hurdles.

The way I look at it…I am so glad I was actually able to pursue a career around my interests. I received a lot of messages when I grew up that that was not the path for me but it really was. I think what has changed is the environment I am operating in has changed to support what I think is really valuable in leaders. Early on, I got messages about needing a command and control style and nothing to suggest that humility was really important in leaders, but it really is. Humility, honesty andtrust are values I always held close to and only fairly recently is there more room for leaders to think like that.

I do.

I have a meditation practice and it’s so critical for me to help understand my thought process and realize they are only my thoughts. Just because you think it doesn’t make it true. You can’t really stop that practice – it’s a lifelong journey, and it’s good to recognize that.

I don’t have enough of that. It’s been very challenging to be a woman with a demanding career while raising children. That I do not get that outlet to talk about the work stuff – it’s just been a hard thing to do.

I can’t say process – to me it’s all in the preparation. It’s all that we talked about done consistently so that when the opportunity presents you see it for what it is.