Coworking is a recurring segment where we talk to CFOs and other leaders in the finance space about their experiences, their companies, and the larger economy. Let us know if you are—or you know—a CFO we should interview.
Pei Hung started her first CFO role just a few months ago, but has a wealth of experience as a finance leader. Before working at startups CloudTrucks and Housecall Pro, and telecom and cloud company DZS, she held director-level positions at UBS Investment Bank. Now, she’s CFO at Dealpath, a commercial real estate software company that counts among its clients Blackstone, Principal Real Estate Investors, and Bridge Investment Group. She spoke with CFO Brew about what motivates her, as well as her priorities in her new role.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell me about your first month in the role. What have you been doing?
[In] all companies where I’m entrusted to lead the finance team, I take the same approach, which is, I want to make sure everything is measurable. Because if you don’t measure something, you don’t know how you’re doing. And finance sits in the unique spot of working across the board with multiple departments…So for me, I want to start measuring and I want to start communicating what I’m learning to my partners, particularly the C-suite, so we all get on the same page of diagnosing the business: What needs to be improved? What’s going well that we should continue to do well, and what is a red alert we’ve got to fix?
What advice would you give someone who aspires to a CFO role or a head of finance role?
I would start with getting that breadth of experience…Maybe start with professional services, whether it’s investment banking or asset management or management consulting, where they have the purview of looking at a lot of different business models and interacting with a lot of management teams and helping [them] through a lot of capital markets-driven situations. It would give them the level of exposure that would help them throughout their finance career.
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What’s one quality that you have that has helped you be successful as a finance leader?
The big thing is, a lot of hard work, a little bit of luck…I’m an immigrant from Taiwan to the US when I was eight. My parents had white collar jobs, great jobs in Taiwan. But because we immigrated, we all had to start over. We didn’t know the language…I think at the end of the day, grit is much more important than IQ. And that’s driven by how I grew up and seeing the sacrifices that my parents made to bring us all to the US, and that’s made hard work important in my mind.
What are your goals for the company in 2025?
Efficient growth…The market’s starting to recover for CRE [commercial real estate]. We’re seeing it ourselves. The deals, the big opportunities are starting to come back in. We’re seeing people want to move a little bit faster down our funnel.
Besides work, what is something that you’re passionate about?
I’ve never been a dog person, but then about 10 years ago, we fostered and foster-failed our first dog from a rescue group that was focused on saving older dogs that are abandoned after a few years…He just had a place in our hearts. He’s since passed, but thereafter, outside of work, that is my one passion. I love to support and foster for rescue dog organizations, particularly around senior dogs.