Finance

Coworking with Bill Koefoed

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· 4 min read

Coworking is a weekly segment where we talk to CFOs and others in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. And let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.

Bill Koefoed, CFO of OneStream Software, spends a lot of time thinking about what technology other CFOs need to do their jobs.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Right now, businesses are trying to figure out how they weathered the pandemic and how they’re going to take their next steps. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what you’re hearing from companies?

I think the CFO needs to have one foot on the accelerator, one foot on the brake at all times, and know when to use them appropriately. Look, it’s part of our nature and CFOs to kind of be the risk manager for the company. You’ve got to be able to put your foot on the accelerator and spend and hire, and move forward aggressively when the opportunities present themselves.

Is there one thing you recommend to people who are coming up in finance who really want to level-up their careers?

When you go through the interview process, recruiters always asked you “Are you an operational CFO? Or even an accountant? Are you a strategic CFO?” In many ways, I kind of hate that question. You have to have a broad set of skills to be the CFO; you have to be a strategic business partner to the CEO; you have to have good interpersonal skills.

I think if I were to give advice to somebody, one of the questions is be as well-rounded as you possibly can. I think for a CFO, being a generalist and having a lot of different skills that you can really tap into when you need to. As I’ve looked at some of my peers, I think the generalists that have a broad set of skills are generally the ones that do the best.

Is there something about the job that when you first started your career that you couldn’t have imagined that you’re doing now that’s part of your day-to-day?

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I think that this global environment has just gotten really complicated. At my last job, the tariffs from China ended up becoming something that we spent a lot of time on. Certainly in today’s world—where can you sell, where can’t you sell—is becoming tricky, and so I just think the global environment has…become trickier than I ever imagined, in the last 25 years of my career. I did really feel like, in 1989, that we were going to be a globally competitive environment. It’s just the macro has become trickier.

What’s something about you, or about how you approach your work, that you can’t learn just from reading your LinkedIn page?

I was the CFO for a startup in 2000, and we raised a bunch of money and spent a bunch of money and ended up closing the company, which, one of your questions was, “What was one of the hardest times that I ever had at my job?” It’s literally laying off 270 people myself, and closing up a company. One of the things that I learned from that was to be super transparent with people. I took that skill. We never got pushed into bankruptcy as a result of that. But I did learn a lot about being honest and transparent and I was always honest, obviously, but just over communicating and being transparent.

What’s the question I should be asking you that I haven’t asked, or something you wanted to add to our conversation?

I think too many people [in business] kind of feel like you have to have a plan. And if you don’t execute perfectly against the plan that you set out when you’re 22 years old, that things aren’t going well for you. But you’re gonna end up uncovering opportunities that you’ve never even contemplated. And, you know, that’s part of what makes life fun.

News built for finance pros

CFO Brew helps finance pros navigate their roles with insights into risk management, compliance, and strategy through our newsletter, virtual events, and digital guides.