Coworking with Coralie Witter

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. Send us an email if you’re interested in chatting with us.

Coralie Witter is the CFO of Chief, a networking group for women in corporate leadership. Chief’s goal is to get more women into C-suite roles, and is valued at $1.1 billion after raising $100 million in a Series B round earlier this year. The funding round “highlights that investing in women is a great investment,” Witter told CFO Brew.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Tell me a little bit about Chief, about the mission here.

Carolyn [Childers, Chief CEO and cofounder] and Lindsay [Kaplan, co-founder] always talk about the adage: “It gets lonely at the top.” And the reality is for women, since there are fewer of us, it gets lonelier earlier in our careers.

So when they founded the company, they were far enough along in their careers that they were being asked for insights and mentorship, but they no longer had a peer group or mentors of their own. And that’s what really propelled them to develop Chief and to build a network that helps enrich and deepen women’s leadership skills, helps them magnify their influence and helps the women in the network also create a path for others to bring them along.

If you could advise someone kind of coming up that path today [who] wants to be CFO, they want to run a finance department, is there one piece of advice that was an example for you?

What you should seek is opportunities to grow and learn and increase your skills. And if you don’t know from the get-go what you’re doing, what your destination is, that will reveal itself to you as you grow in a number of roles. Once you start to get a sense of the direction you want to head into, seek out opportunities where you could keep stretching and keep expanding your skill set.

What have I not asked you that you think is important for people to know about you or about Chief, or about being a woman in finance?

I’m always surprised that there’s not more women in finance, corporate finance or investments because it’s a great career and we’re really well-suited to it. You’re often the only woman on the investment team or one of two women. There’s just not as many of you, and so when I hire, I’ve always paid attention to: “Can I hire a diverse team?”

If someone’s looking at your LinkedIn page, what’s something about you that they may not know?

In terms of what motivates and drives me, I'd say that it was financial instability, and so being successful and making money. I didn't feel like I had a safety net to fall back on. For me, I never felt like failure was an option. That’s not to say I haven’t had hiccups and struggles along the way—everyone does. Those things don’t show up on LinkedIn. But, you know, I’ve been very fortunate with all of the experiences that I’ve had that have gotten me to this point.

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