273. CFO 4.0 Revisited | CFO Stories: A CFO's Guide to Navigating Risk with Isaac Strulowitz

Hannah Munro: Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. The CFO role is changing rapidly, moving from cost controller to strategic visionary. And with every change comes opportunity. We are here to help you take advantage of this transition to win at work, drive your career forwards, and lead with confidence. Join Hannah Munro, managing director of itas, a financial transformation consultancy, as she interviews key experts to give you real world advice and guidance on how to transform your processes, people and Data. Welcome to CFO 4.0, the future of finance. So hello everybody and welcome to this episode of CFO 4.0. Another exciting episode for you guys. So with me today, and I apologize if I get the, uh, pronouncing pronunciation wrong, um, is Isaac Strilowitz, who is the partner and CFO at Coventure. So welcome Isaac. Lovely to have you on the show.

Isaac Strulowitz: Thank you so much. Great to be here.

Hannah Munro: So tell us a little bit about yourself because you've had a, uh, yeah, an interesting background. Where did you start and how did you end up at Coventure?

Isaac Strulowitz: Sure. Uh, so hello everyone. I'm Isaac. Great to meet you. Uh, I attended Yeshiva University. Loved it there. And from there, you know, I majored in accounting and went into tax out of school. Uh, not because I had some passion for the tax code or K1 prep, because I realized I wanted to kind of build that muscle early in my career. And thankfully had an opportunity come up at one of the larger, uh, asset management firms and one of the largest in the world that would allow me to kind of transition, um, away from tax. And thankfully was given a lot of responsibility there early on. Uh, and that's where I felt like I kind of grew up and learned how to best operate funds. See up close, uh, what a world class investor experience looks like. And, uh, it was there that I identified, uh, that I eventually wanted to lead my own finance team one day, ideally at a, you know, at a fund. The Coventure opportunity came up and really, uh, seemed like an ideal landing spot for me, uh, for several reasons, but notably, uh, the team was just tremendous. I knew that the team there, uh, was one that I could grow within my career. Um, thankfully, uh, my partner, uh, Ali Hamed, the firm's founder, is just a complete package, someone to work with, uh, who's ultra smart, productive. Uh, I just had this authenticity to him, uh, that I knew I would work well with, um, and is also just a genuinely good person. Um, and then, you know, we just kept attracting people that had a similar mindset, uh, that were, uh, super sharp, uh, you know, mission driven, uh, and then shortly after I joined my, my colleague and our coo, Elizabeth Ostrander, uh, someone that I work very closely with, thankfully. And we just have this great, uh, you know, working relationship. Um, so you can't really put a price on having a team that is, you know, both talented, uh, but also, you know, that you mesh well with and just kind of see everything closely. And when, you know, debate stuff, it's always like an intellectual, um, approach and we all just want to get to the best place. So, uh, was thankful to have that and something I still try not to take for granted. Um, uh, the second reason I found it attractive was, um, the firm was very much. It's still in its incipient stages, um, where you can kind of sense this energy, uh, and that we were on the precipice of creating this new kind of sub asset class, uh, within both early stage technology investing and private credit. Um, and I felt like being a part of that and getting on the rocket ship as it was launching was tremendously exciting and glad to, uh, and joining has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. So thankfully I'm in a good spot.

Hannah Munro: And it sounds like certainly in the beginning of your career, you were quite purposeful in where you went. You said about, I wanted to get, you know, that knowledge base in on tax, et cetera. Is that something you've consciously done through your career or is it just you've looked for opportunities and found them? Like, how did you approach your own career?

Isaac Strulowitz: It's a great question. Um, I started out really in accounting, uh, because I liked it. Um, you know, the concept of debiting and crediting, uh, I believe was actually like the ancient Egyptians used to use it. And um, what I love about it, uh, as a college kid was that everything needed to tie out exactly. If you're off by $10, you're off. Um, and that was something that appealed to me. Um, you know, top of that numbers. Um, you know, if this was a sports podcast, I'd be rattling off statistics, uh, do well that. But, um, so I always kind of had an inclination, uh, and preference for working within numbers. Um, and what's funny is, you know, uh, I, you know, talk to, uh, students at my alma mater at, uh, yeshiva, who asked me, you know, how do I get into the CFO role without, you know, accounting? Uh, and I always advise them, you should, uh, you know, build that muscle, uh, because it forces you to, uh, you know, to have that detail orientation, uh, that you need in this role on top of you know, obviously you have to know how to interpret financial statements, how to build out a model. Um, all that stuff starts with the foundation of being in accounting. Um, and so from there obviously there are different paths that you could take. Um, for me I think I identified that being at an asset management firm and leading the finance function there gave me this exposure, uh, to all different sides of the business. And thankfully at a firm like Coventure, where we have both a, uh, venture capital firm as well as a private credit firm, uh, and continue to kind of grow out decencies, um, you're really working within the funds, within the management company, um, you know, investor relations, uh, it's kind of at the intersection of everything and law, um, tax structuring. Uh, so thankfully every day is just um, you know, just different and new, fresh and exciting. Uh, and I feel like being at an asset management firm, we are just involved in so many different parts of the business, keeps uh, it constantly fresh and exciting. To answer your question on uh, on how whether or not it was purposeful, um, you know I identified that I wanted to be for those reasons at an asset management firm and it just, you know the, the co venture opportunity came up and uh, I realized that like this is potentially something that I could do for the rest of my career. Um, but to answer your question, I think with each stop I was at, um, other than kind of working in tax early on, um, you know I, I kind of wanted to see how it went and was open minded to anything.

Hannah Munro: I think that's really interesting. And I guess as a, you know, being at an asset management company, you do have a slightly more unique perspective in terms of the exposure not just to um, different parts of finance, but also I guess the, the investor's view of finance as well and other companies. So tell us a little bit about what the, like what's, what's your review on the current economic situation and what's happening the you know, the current climate.

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, um, I think what was really interesting um, was how quickly the current climate changed. Right. Uh, you know you had this really hot equity market um, in 2021 and even into early 2022. And then it feels like about you know, when we're recording this in early June, about 14 months ago, quickly you started to shift and you know, obviously you can point to the uptick in interest rates uh, across the globe. Um, and I think uh, what's starting to happen is you're seeing and SVB's infamous uh, investor relations deck that came out right before that earnings Call in March, uh, had a great slide where these kind of still elevated cash burn levels from 2021. Right. And I think that's been a theme as well with a lot of the earnings calls is like, yes, Top Line is growing, uh, but OPEX is still pretty high, uh, though still coming down a little bit. But, um, I think ultimately, uh, just the whiplash of now, the equity markets have pretty drastically have dried up, uh, and quickly. But these budgets that were set during, uh, sunnier times, um, are kind of still in place. And now you're seeing layoffs. And I think as CFOs, um, it's hard to really know. We're not in the prediction business, um, but what we can do, and the analogy I like to use is setting your watch kind of five minutes fast and running things conservatively, but not to the point where you're inhibiting growth. Um, I think that's kind of the approach that I take. It's like, I'm not an economist. I'm a cfo. I don't really, um, want to be in the business of making, uh, predictions. And the other thing is even the people that are in charge of that.

Hannah Munro: Right.

Isaac Strulowitz: If you look at Moody's, I believe had an A rating on SVB like the week before. Right. So I think all we can do is try to make sure that we protect the firm as best we can while striking that balance and making sure that we're still investing in growth and investing in the plant. Um, so that's, uh, that's the balance that the CFO has to strike.

Hannah Munro: And I love that piece about. Well, first you'd be, yeah, setting your watch five minutes ahead. But how do you approach striking the balance between not restricting growth but also making sure that you're, as you say, protecting the firm? Is there any. Is there a framework you use or, you know, or even just how you think about it?

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, um, it's the same way I think about it when I go on the scale and if it presents a number that I don't like, I think what I do and what I encourage, you know, the individuals on our finance team to do, and not even on our finance team, but throughout the firm, is to look at the budget, um, and ask yourself, truly, is this a strategic cost? Is this something that if we cut, um, would be okay in five to six months? I always get asked, you know, well, what margin are you trying to work towards? And I would say, obviously, as high as possible, uh, you know, both today and in the future, uh, but want to make sure that every expense that we have that, uh, it's ROI positive. Um, and if not, if we can't defend it, then we should cut it. Um, and it's a very hard thing to do. Expenses are notoriously sticky. Um, but I think that's the exercise is you really have to take a good look in the mirror, uh, and in this instance, your OPEX budget, um, and see what can be cut. And on the opposite end, what can we add? Um, what would allow us to. For Coventure, we're trying to invest more, um, in the team. We feel like right now a lot of firms are, uh, zigging with, uh, headcount, and we're trying to add people to the team and try to get the best talent that we can. Um, we're doing that intentionally and being purposeful about it. So I think it's about identifying what your plan is and how do you get there, uh, and any noise, uh, that's in the budget that you can cut. Um, you know, you should always be trying to take an honest look

Hannah Munro: and in terms of a budgeting approach. So obviously you mentioned how quickly the world is changing, let alone a single business. So what's your philosophy around things like forecasting and budgeting? How often do you review budgets? Do you, you know, is it monthly, is it quarterly? What's your approach?

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, um, we have a very detailed budget. Um, and, uh, what we do is we have, you know, for instance, if it's the end of February, you know, we'll have what we call our 2 in 10 model, which is 2 months of actuals, 10 months of projections. It is a pretty intense process over here. And, uh, someone who I, you know, we recruited, Eric Kag, uh, does a great job every month working, uh, through the hundreds and almost thousands of assumptions that we have on. Right. Because especially in an asset management firm, it really starts with the underlying assets and how are they performing. And up the chain, what does that mean for the general partner? What does that mean for the holding company? Right. So there's just a lot up the chain and, uh, we want to make sure that we try to get it. I always say we're practitioners in, uh, corporate finance and not clairvoyance. So if you're at a point where you're starting to, um, toggle with all these different assumptions, like you're not going to get it 100%, right. You want to be able to provide a range. Um, and when we set our compensation budget, you know, at the end of the year, you know what I Always tell them is this is the range of outcomes. Right. Um, you know, these are the assumptions that we used. Uh, and you really want to tell the story, right? It's very hard to just provide a, uh, you know, model. In our instance, we have a model that literally has, uh, I believe now, 115 tabs. Um, so now we've broken it down into two. And I think ultimately you're trying to tell the story, and the story has to make sense and based on that story, provide a range of outcomes. Um, and typically, you know, that's how we've approached it. Uh, I always say anything above three months is kind of like marketing material at that point. Right. So I think you have to just to see, look at last year, right? And when Covid hit, certainly we kind of tore up the initial budget that we had and created a new one because we were engineering a period of uncertainty. So I think it's something that has to be looked at, at least for us. We do it every month. Um, and it's, ah, it's a pretty intense process. And um, you know, thankfully, um, because of that, we. We feel prepared for various different, uh, situations and scenarios that arise.

Hannah Munro: Hey, that's a great way of looking at it. To be fair. I think a lot of CFOs would love to be in that, feeling prepared for what could happen. Both for definite.

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, totally. I think, um, like I said, um, with setting your watch five minutes fast, right. It's part, um, of that includes having all of the underlying like. And it also requires you to truly understand what drives value in this business. Right. For us, obviously, as an asset management firm, management fees, performance fees, et cetera. Um, but, you know, it all. It all starts for us with the funds and, you know, how much is being deployed, you know, all these inputs, um, is something that we work very hard on to make sure that we get, um, both as close as possible, but to make sure that we're still moving fast and not getting bogged down in, you know, minutia.

Hannah Munro: That's a really good point. I think there is a tendency, especially with budgeting. It can be. It can be hard to strike the balance between the detail and the value of that detail, isn't it as well? So how do you. How do you manage that balance? How do you decide what level of detail to go to in your budgeting cycle?

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, I think, um, you know, what do I, you know, there's literally. You can actually create like a sensitivity table, right. So you could see, all right, you know, what's the margin of error here, um, if it's, you know, one assumption versus another. Um, but I think you sense it, right? And I think the, you know, the theme so far of this conversation is being a CFO requires all, you know, this constant balancing act. Right. And for me, what I always say, um, to our team here is that the finance team is always striking a balance in creating the most value for employees, for LPs, for portfolio companies, um, and for stakeholders of the firm generally. Uh, and within that theme of balancing, you have to um, recognize when you're getting out of balance with these details that may make a great model. You can have all these inputs and toggles, but ultimately if it's not really moving the needle as far as what the output is, then you are probably spending too much time in trying to, you know, get cute.

Hannah Munro: I think we've figured out the uh, the theme for this podcast already which is striking the balance. So uh, we'll uh, we'll clock that one. So, so in terms of obviously doing, being the kind of uh, firm that you are as an asset management firm, how involved are you a CFO in the, the work that the company is doing with other companies? So do you get involved in the day to day there? Is your role primarily focused around how the, the finances of obviously the asset management firm itself?

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, so I think within our group. Right. So it's funny, when I joined Coventure, ah, over five years ago now, um, you know, we were uh, you know, first a little bit of a larger organization, then we, we downsize a little bit and now we're back up to being, you know, uh, we've have our high water mark as far as headcount goes. Um, so as that has happened, my role has naturally changed a little bit. Um, but I mean years ago I was really kind of doing a lot of everything. Um, portfolio companies knew that they always had my number, could always help. I can't count how many times they reach out to me to help them with their FPA process. Um, you'd even be surprised at how many people don't know basic debits and credits, uh, very successful ones. So, uh, you know, tax questions, uh, you know, that's, that's also, you know, the, the benefit of being at uh, an asset management firm with as many portfolio companies as ours that are still growing. It's like you feel like you're part of their team as well. And you know, they, you know, back then they always knew, uh, my door, so to speak, was always open. Now it's a little bit harder, um, because there's just a lot more responsibility here at Coventure. But thankfully we have people. What I always want is that culture of, um, you know, we're always here to help. Um, and I think, you know, the reason why Coventure, uh, really grew early on. And it's very hard to start an asset management firm. Especially, you know, Ali, as I mentioned, uh, there aren't too many people who start these types of things out of college. Usually you spin out from somewhere else. And that's, I think, just says everything you need to know about the guy. But part of that is like, you know, we. We often say we get, uh, we get paid not for the risk, uh, that we take, but for the work that we do. Uh, and culturally that'll always kind of be embedded within the firm's culture. Um, so as we've grown, you know, now all of that, like the work that we do for our portfolio companies now, thankfully is kind of shared across the organization. So, uh, you know, the great thing about growing is as we've um, continued to add people to the team, it's like that. That same culture we still have thankfully kept in place. It was something that we were, I think, worried about when we grew from like 10 people to, you know, now something somewhere over 30. I believe. We just had our offsite this past week, so I should know. Uh, but that's the uh, again, the, you know, um, the involvement, uh, is something that, um, happy to pass the torch and have, um, you know, the next generation of great Coventure employees hopefully, um, continue to work closely with our portfolio companies.

Hannah Munro: And so with those portfolio companies, obviously you've. You are uh, working technically with lots of different finance teams, lots of different companies. Um, when you sort of step back and think about those portfolio companies that you. You're touching base with, you're helping out. What are some of the things you see in the successful ones? Is there any sort of patterns or trends that you look for and you think, yeah, that finance team is working well in that situation in that company.

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah. So I think a lot of it kind, um, of has to do with luck, to be honest. I mean, when you were able to raise equity, um, and now that, um, you know, I think the common themes are fundraising. Right. Um, and as CFOs, you know, at least for me, I'm never comfortable asking people for things. Right. So that was a muscle that I had to build and learn how to kind of sell the firm. Um, but I think the ones that were able to fundraise uh, at the right time, just gave themselves more Runway naturally and allowed them to still kind of invest in growth and not have to quickly, everybody had a pivot from their plan, but to not do it as drastically and to have a little bit more of a sturdier balance sheet I think was an advantage. Um, and then the next thing is just this operational discipline, um, and kind of going back earlier to making sure that your FPA process, um, is rigorous and that the assumptions make sense and that there's not only the forecasting part, but then going back and looking at where were we off and how does that kind of inform decisions we should make for the future. Um, and I think cash for me is always king. Um, I think it was easy to forget that. I know it's a little bit of a cliche, uh, but the ones that really trying to truly view Oxygen, uh, and cash is kind of like one and the same, um, are the ones that are just a little bit better positioned. So it's a combination. And obviously you have to have a great product too. Right? So it goes without saying, uh, but I think from a finance perspective, um, it's the ability to fundraise to, um, and the ability to fundraise involves, uh, honesty. And I think people will invest, um, if they believe in you and your product. I know it sounds obvious, so I think that's um, to kind of move beyond just the technical ability. You also have to have the ability to communicate and to sell. Um, and those are kind of the finance teams that stand out.

Hannah Munro: Amazing. And yeah, that it's a really great, great summary. And obviously your primary business, certainly from what I've read and what I've seen is obviously SaaS. So do you think those principles you talked about fundraising about obviously having a good product, um, and operational effectiveness. Do you think those principles, um, are ah, fundamentally a SaaS requirement? Or do you think actually those principles should apply to any kind of business?

Isaac Strulowitz: With SaaS companies, they obviously have the benefit of having sticky revenues, um, and you know, low churn, especially now when, you know, during rainy days, um, so they have that benefit. Um, but I think that these principles apply, uh, really for, for everyone.

Hannah Munro: Yeah, I can think of a few, maybe a, uh, few other examples where they could benefit for some operational effectiveness and some good fundraising.

Isaac Strulowitz: Right now I think it's important to just always keep tabs on the ROI and marketing spend, um, because especially during these times, um, you want to make sure that again, you're still investing in growth and sticking to the plan while Making sure that you're preserving enough cash to create the Runway that you need for future growth. So it's again, about striking that balance. I keep using that phrase, um, and especially, uh, during these times.

Hannah Munro: And I think that's a really good point because I don't know what it is, but it does seem to feel like a lot of the times that marketing is the first place that people look to cut expense. So is that something you would agree with? Or actually, do you feel like marketing is the place where you need to maybe focus more attention but not necessarily cut?

Isaac Strulowitz: I think it's both product and company, uh, specific. Um, so for us, you know, we're investing more in our brand, uh, if anything, during these times, uh, but thankfully we, you know, have the ability to do so. Um, but I, I think it really depends, right? I think there's kind of within your marketing budget, there's like the kind of the core marketing spend and then there's like the, you know, the marketing spend that you budget for in better times. Um, and I think it's again, kind of company specific. And you have to really know, um, and have a sense of what will, what will drive value. Um, and, you know, I think every project should kind of be, what, what's the ROI here? And, um, if it meets our hurdle, um, let's do it. If not, um, you know, we'll. We should never do something that does not meet our hurdle, but we have the ability to, to take more risk, um, if the balance sheet allows for it. So I think that's sort of the calculus that needs to be done.

Hannah Munro: And you talk about ROI and actually really about investing in brands. So what's your perspective on measuring ROI for maybe brand versus performance marketing? What kind of questions do you ask your marketing team to understand roi?

Isaac Strulowitz: Yeah, that is a great question. Right. Because there are times where it's observable. Right. So we know if we do this event or we, um, you know, if we have a marketing campaign, if you want to call it, and we know what the exact fees are from that that will be brought in, then it's pretty easy to calculate that. A lot of it, um, is an exercise in kind of knowing kind, um, of deep down whether or not it's truly adding value. Right. You won't always have the number. Sometimes you won't have, uh, the top line, so to speak, for several years. Um, and you have to, again, kind of be honest with, uh, yourself and your team on what you think is truly driving value. But there are times where it's Both you have the numerical approach and that's when you have the observable uh, inputs. Um, but if you don't then you kind of have to provide a range, um, and do an estimate and those estimates have to be uh, what we call an educated crapshoot.

Hannah Munro: I love that. Yeah, yeah. No, and that's, it's a really, it's an interesting piece because um, I think sometimes like you say brand, brand's one of those ones that can seem quite fluffy um, as an ROI calculation and sometimes it's hard to get to those real numbers. So it does come down to instinct sometimes, which is interesting. Um, and uh, yeah, I think we in finance we like numbers. We'd much prefer something fast.

Isaac Strulowitz: And I think in finance we were also, um, you know that's a different side of the brain, the marketing side. Right. And I think it sometimes is hard uh, to convince yourself that you know, because some of our more junior members on the finance team, um, when they first join or you know, they want to cut everything from the budget. Right. And you still need to invest growth and um. But you know, the one thing that I have noticed in the last five years is it's almost a little bit like a venture capital model where sometimes you'll have a marketing event or for us it's ah, events with LPs that'll be so impactful that it, it's like a 10x event. Right. And sometimes you, you try to experiment and it doesn't work out. But overall um, as long as you're looking at everything in aggregate and it's still driving value, you should continue to, you know, continue with the marketing program.

Hannah Munro: Love that. And again, I'm sure there's Quite a few CFOs listening. This is food for thought for a lot of people I think because it's always hard, always hard to manage that. So we talked a lot about balancing um, and you, you mentioned svb Silicon Valley bank for. I do try and uh, for anyone that hasn't caught up with the acronyms and obviously the challenge that happened um, back it was in March I think. Um, tell me a little bit about how you manage risk within your finance team. What are some of the things that you think about? How do you balance, you know, dealing with the day to day stuff but also taking that step back and thinking about how do you protect the business, you know, from a risk perspective for sure.

Isaac Strulowitz: And it was actually, I believe March 11th was a day where there was a lot of chaos.

Hannah Munro: You remember it that well, that's Right.

Isaac Strulowitz: Um, uh, so I uh, think for us, um, thankfully Coventure was well prepared in this instance. Um, though there's always work that can be done. Uh, and I think the goal for us obviously, uh, as fiduciaries was to protect investor capital before anything else. And I think um, when SVB's stock began to decline, that was a Thursday, um, we thankfully didn't bank there. Even our portfolio companies, uh, were surprisingly not overly exposed. Um, and um, we really spent a lot of time that weekend, um, because we banked at a regional bank making um, sure that we were uh, well prepared in the event that there was just a run on all the regional banks. Um, that Friday, um, things seemed like they were settling down a little bit. And then over the weekend, uh, there was just this, this bad feeling in the air. Uh, and everyone who I had talked to, a lot of my colleagues at other funds, uh, close friends, um, were planning on pulling out all their cash from regional banks into uh, cities, uh, systemically important financial institutions. Um, and you didn't want to be the one left behind holding the bag. And even again, Coventure was thankfully well protected. We had insured cash sweep accounts and. But we just wanted to make sure that if there was anything else we weren't thinking about that we were, we were protected. Uh, and I recall uh, that Saturday night, um, sending around an email to folks on the team saying hey, I'm going to be opening up. Uh, you know, we had 20 something accounts that we were looking to. We have a lot more accounts but the ones that we were just had larger balances that we wanted to just be extra careful with. Um, you know, basically told them I'm going to be opening up these accounts. It's going to be a fun night. Uh, if everybody wants to join, um, let me know. And I was thankful that uh, a lot of people just stopped what they were doing and picked uh up and joined the fun. Uh, we uh. And it was also the night here where the clocks had changed. It was lost an hour's sleep. Um, and at that point there really hadn't been much guidance, um, on what if anything, uh, the FDIC was going to do. Um, I remember Yellen went on, uh, the Sunday morning shows and just kind of indirectly I think caused a little bit more confusion. And then it was later that Sunday night where you know, we were told that Silicon Valley bank would uh, you know, the deposits would be backstopped and then things calm down a little bit. But the number one takeaway for me was, um, you often don't know what you don't know. Um, and this was a case where, uh, everybody was caught flat footed. Um, the regulators, right, Moody's came out with that, A rating, uh, right before CD collapsed. Um, you know, uh, the Fed clearly, uh, missed m this. Right? And, you know, I think what, um, we can do is CFOs, is to just make sure that, you know, you have the firm well protected for things that you can't even foresee for us. Um, our policy now, um, obviously we have these fdic, um, limits that we have now, thankfully, where, you know, we have these insured cash sweep programs on top of that, every account that we have, right? So we operate multiple entities and multiple funds. Um, you know, we're almost at the point now where we have every fund with a primary bank account, a backup bank account, and a brokerage account, so that in the event we need to move funds around, we can hopefully do that relatively quickly. Um, and I think that kind of caused us to ask questions on where else do we have, you know, a disproportionate exposure to. Is it a third party of ours that we rely on? Is it an employee that we rely on? Where else? Um, you know, we. We often talk about building the cockroach, where if something terrible happens, we're. We're still. We're still walking around.

Hannah Munro: He's still crawling.

Isaac Strulowitz: Uh, that's right. And in that spirit, I think that cockroach symbol is sort of how we approach risk management. And we try to just look at everything in the firm. Uh, if it's internally, where can we create redundancy? Do we have a disaster recovery plan?

Hannah Munro: Um,

Isaac Strulowitz: our banking relationships, our vendor relationships. I, um, think now we're thinking about this stuff than we always had. But even more so now just because we kind of lived through this experience where there was a lot of shock. Um, and thankfully, our existing procedures allowed us to be okay. And thankfully, the government stepped in anyway. But, um, you never know. And I think that was the key learning, at least for me. Um, and now I think we're thinking about risk in a way that we hadn't before, just because it's still so fresh and just the thought of, thankfully we didn't. Hopefully never happened. But, uh, we were just so motivated to preserve investor capital that we literally stayed up all night trying to open up accounts for this remote chance that we would lose LP dollars. So I think, uh, we're guided by that and guided by this idea of building out the cockroach and enduring firm and to do that you have to always be thinking about risk.

Hannah Munro: And so if anyone's listening to this going, you know, I've been putting off my risk evaluation process. You know, I need to start thinking about it. What are sort of your top tips for getting into the nuts and bolts of that? Like what sort of things should people be looking at, thinking about when it comes to risk?

Isaac Strulowitz: It's the uh, the analogy I used because you know, we thankfully were focused on risk but didn't, you know, the, the process now is a lot more formal and um, you know, you can ignore going to the dentist but then you may end up with a lot of cavities. Right. I think the longer you put it off, um, the more uh, that you know, you can find yourself flat footed, um, and you know, regretting something that occurred because you didn't have these kind of robust procedures in place. So I think, um, the dentist analogy I think is a good one. No one wants to go. So some of my friends are dentists. So if they're listening to this, if you want to go, uh, but you uh, uh, it's something that you can't ah, really put off for too long because um, you just don't know. And we've seen example time after time of um, either companies abruptly shutting down because an equity funding they thought would be there was not. And um, you just always have to be thinking about uh, where we overly concentrated, where are the risks in the business right now? How do we get there? What does the timeframe look like to get there, um, and to do it, you know, somewhat regularly. Almost like with budgeting. If you don't do it that often it becomes stale and then once it becomes stale it's not particularly useful. So um, nobody likes going to the dentist twice a year or once a year, uh, but it has to be done in the same way. You could think about risk management, um, you know, in the same vein.

Hannah Munro: Love that. And I guess it rounds out our theme today of striking the balance. So we talked about striking the balance in budget, striking the balance in what makes a good cfo, Getting into the detail or staying, you know, looking at it operationally and stepping out into the strategic side. And we finally rounded that off nicely with how do we strike the balance with managing risk and um, doing our day job. So thank you so much Isaac. This has been really, really great. Um, and obviously if, if anyone wants to learn more about you as an individual or find you, where's the best place to sort of ah, check you out on LinkedIn, perhaps

Isaac Strulowitz: LinkedIn uh, for sure. I believe I'm the only Isaac Strulowicz on LinkedIn, so, um, you can find me there. Um, I don't post that frequently, but, um, I am very supportive of my friends and colleagues and I'm often liking their posts. Um, and then, uh, on Twitter @isaacjstrew, though, you'd have to put up with a lot of the New York jets and New York Knicks posts, um, so that, you know, you can find me there. Always happy to connect with other CFOs. You know, I'm always learning, um, and I tell our team all the time, you know, just, uh, because I've done something some way, I'll change it right away if we can find something that's better. So, uh, definitely look forward to connecting with anybody who would like. And, um, yeah, thank you so much. This was great.

Hannah Munro: It's been lovely to speak to you and I'm sure there'll be the odd New York Jet fan listening to this that will definitely connect. So great to have you on the show and thank you for sharing, um, your insight on striking the balance as a cfo. So for all of our listeners out there, as always, um, it's great to hear feedback. So if there's a question I should have asked, maybe a topic we should have dug into a little more, there was so much we covered on today's podcast. Then, of course, please do reach out to myself, um, ask me questions, um, and it's always great to get feedback, um, and of course, like, and share the podcast. So thanks everyone for listening and we'll see you next time on the CFO 4.0 podcast.

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