Jaime Medina
When I started out, an experienced external CFO once told me something that stuck with me: “You’re going to really enjoy this world because you’ll see very different and very novel things every single day. But be careful, there are a lot of crazy people out there.”
At The Startup CFO, we have a very clear culture: Humans First. And when we apply this to our relationship with the CEOs we work with, it means, above all, putting ourselves in their shoes.
In many cases, these CEOs are young, and it’s the first time they’re running a company. Sometimes, it’s even the first time they’ve ever managed a team. Anyone who has led people knows this is by far the hardest part of any job, and largely the reason why managers end up being paid more. Up until that point, this young CEO probably hadn’t needed many personal skills beyond being a good teammate. But now everything changes, and those new skills are almost always learned by doing.
On top of that, there’s the relationship with investors, which is especially complex. Investors are not their bosses, but they’re not necessarily their friends either. They are partners, with everything that entails, and toward whom the CEO feels an enormous sense of responsibility. They feel judged both as entrepreneurs and as individuals, constantly compared to other companies at the same stage that may be performing better. Sometimes investors deliver bad news to the CEO; other times, the CEO has to deliver bad news to them. And out of those meetings come very difficult decisions, full of uncertainty, that the CEO ultimately has to implement.
On a personal level, these are often some of the most important years of their lives. There may be young children, a relationship with a partner, and a level of stress that lives in their head 24 hours a day. One client once described his company to me as a brain tumor that occupied most of his mind. The CEO leaves the office and goes home, but the work is still there, in their head and often in additional hours spent working from home. Relationships are frequently affected for this reason, and going home does not necessarily mean disconnecting.
So what does Humans First mean to us? It means taking this reality of the CEO into account in every interaction we have with them. Companies are not tangible. And almost nothing that makes up a company is, beyond the people. And going back to that initial comment, with all of the above in mind, it’s easy to see that CEOs have plenty of reasons to be a little crazy. But in large part thanks to that “craziness,” they are also the ones who help make the world a much better place.
