The B2B Podcast Index
Index
All categories
MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
MethodologySubmit
Best of:MarketingSalesSaaSFinanceHROpsLeadershipCustomer SuccessAI & DataProductStartups & FoundersRevOpsEngineering & DevTools
An independent project byFame
SearchBest episodesGuestsInsightsMethodologySubmit a podcast
Index/Finance/CFO Yeah!
CFO Yeah! artwork

#38 Netguru’s Feedback Culture & Economic Optimism with Gosia Madalińska-Piętka

CFO Yeah! · 2022-10-03 · 46 min

0:00--:--

Key moments - from our scoring

Substance score

38 / 100

Five dimensions, 20 points each

Insight Density7 / 20
Originality6 / 20
Guest Caliber10 / 20
Specificity & Evidence8 / 20
Conversational Craft7 / 20

Gosia Madalińska-Piętka brings nearly a decade of experience in large-scale finance transformations to her CFO role at Netguru, a 850+ person digital product consulting firm serving clients like Volkswagen and Ikea. When she arrived in 2016, Netguru lacked basic accounting infrastructure - no accounting system, dispersed recordkeeping across Polish cities, and immediate tax audit pressures. Her immediate priority was bringing accounting in-house and establishing controls rigorous enough to satisfy any third-party review (VCs, banks, auditors), creating the "peace of mind" foundation for sustainable growth. Beyond financial systems, Madalińska-Piętka emphasizes that CFO success requires relentless recruitment of high-drive individuals and founders who build ahead of the growth curve rather than reacting to it. She runs Netguru's culture through seven core values including transparency (sharing tax paid, salary spend, marketing budgets with all employees), environmental responsibility in vendor selection, and ambitious people development - deliberately growing talent to the point of "letting them go" into the broader network. Facing current economic uncertainty, she remains optimistic about tech consulting demand, modeling scenarios with clients rather than relying on traditional forecasting, and using structured initiatives like Donut (random weekly matching calls) to maintain connection across a distributed workforce. Her philosophy combines financial rigor with people-first leadership.

Key takeaways

  • →Bringing accounting in-house should be a CFO's first priority at growing companies, especially in jurisdictions with complex tax requirements, to establish control and credibility with stakeholders.
  • →Recruitment and people development are as critical to CFO responsibilities as financial systems; spending time on each interesting profile - even when not actively hiring - builds the high-drive team needed for fast growth.
  • →Transparency in financial metrics (tax paid, salary spend, marketing budgets) builds trust and accountability across remote organizations and aligns employees with business reality.
  • →Tech consulting remains resilient during economic uncertainty because companies outsource rather than hire internally when budgets tighten, creating an opportunity not a threat.
  • →Leadership must visibly participate in cultural initiatives like random 1:1 matching (Donut) or they quickly lose momentum; culture comes from behavior at the top, not policy documents.

Guests

Gosia Madalińska-Piętka

Topics in this episode

B Corp certificationRemote team cultureNetguruFinancial planning and modelingVendor management and procurementRecruitment and talent developmentTax compliance and audit readinessDonut initiative (random 1:1 matching)Digital acceleration consultingCompany values and transparency policy

Questions this episode answers

When should a startup hire a CFO?

As soon as you can afford it - hire leadership before you're forced to by resource scarcity. Founders focusing on invoicing and administrative details can't focus on growing the business. The right mindset matters more than hitting a specific headcount threshold.

How do you maintain financial control in a company that's grown from 170 to 850 employees across multiple countries?

Centralize accounting immediately, establish processes that satisfy any third-party review (VCs, banks, auditors), and build monthly forecasting and modeling discipline to stay agile as market uncertainty increases.

How do you keep culture alive in a fully remote company with 850+ distributed employees?

Leadership must visibly participate in cultural initiatives (like weekly random 1:1 matching calls called Donut), embed transparency into finance operations (share real numbers with all staff), and hire for drive and values alignment rather than just skills.

Is tech consulting vulnerable to an economic crisis?

Less so than other industries - companies cut internal hiring budgets but outsource to external consultants like Netguru instead. Tech infrastructure spending remains essential even during downturns.

What does it mean to build financial processes with the 'headline test'?

Only implement processes and vendor relationships you'd be comfortable with if leaked publicly; transparency and social responsibility (environmental impact, fair labor) should guide procurement and financial decisions.

What our scoring noted

Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.

Insight Density

7 / 20

A handful of useful operational nuggets surface (hire ahead of the curve, bring accounting in-house immediately, the bot-driven Donut matching programme) but the majority of the runtime is company promotion, generic culture platitudes, and a notably vague economic outlook discussion that produces no actionable ideas.

you could always go and outsource uh, some um, specialist knowledge, expert knowledge, but you can't really uh, outsource the drive
they kind of built ahead of the curve instead of behind the curve

Originality

6 / 20

The content recycles standard CFO-startup wisdom - hire for values, rotate functions, choose your boss - without any contrarian or first-principles argument. The economic optimism about tech being a 'bubble' is a widely circulated take and the 'headline test' for culture is a common framework.

We have a saying in Poland that it's luck, but you have to help the luck
there's no other place I'd rather be at than in tech

Guest Caliber

10 / 20

Gosia is a genuine practitioner with relevant operational history at HP and a real scale-up CFO role at Netguru (170 to 850+ employees), not a career podcast guest. However, the company is mid-sized and the depth of insight in the transcript does not reflect exceptional seniority or unusual achievement at scale.

I started my career in consulting. Then I joined internal audit with hp
after the first week, uh, I joined, we had uh, a tax audit. So uh, we had to show all our books. I had to travel throughout Poland to collect all the paperwork

Specificity & Evidence

8 / 20

There are some concrete anchors - 170 to 850 employees, joining in 2016, the Pilot44 acquisition taking over a year, a tax audit in week one - but the episode is largely devoid of revenue figures, growth rates, acquisition terms, or any measurable outcome data from the culture initiatives discussed.

it took us over a year to, from the day we met to the closing date
we had uh, some accounting services in different cities. I had to collect all the invoices, uh, show it to the tax offices

Conversational Craft

7 / 20

The host occasionally probes usefully - asking whether the guest has confidence in her economic modelling, and following up on the sustainability of the Donut initiative - but routinely accepts vague answers without pressing for numbers or specifics, and the rapid-fire closing section is entirely formulaic.

Do you feel this might be a hard question to answer, but do you feel that you, do you feel confident in your modeling at the moment
And why Google Sheets? Just because it's more shareable.

Conversation analysis

Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.

Share of words spoken

  • Speaker B81%
  • Speaker A17%
  • Speaker C2%

Most-used words

finance20team17netguru13role11moment11sure11important10understand10initiative10digital10first9grow9leaders8joined8tech8connect8

Episode notes

When I hear that this is like 2008 or the dot-com crisis, I’m not sure. I believe there will be only more and more work for tech businesses. We saw during Covid that people still needed to buy online and find services, and businesses needed budgeting or e-commerce tools. "There’s no other place I’d rather be right now than in tech.” What makes a company culture more than mere bluster? And what role does a CFO and their finance team play in nurturing this culture? In this episode of CFO Yeah!, we go deep into Netguru’s growth journey to find out. Gosia Madalińska-Piętka is CFO and board member at Netguru. Gosia joined as Head of Finance in 2016, having previously served in senior accounting and controlling roles at Tech Data and Hewlett-Packard. Netguru provides consulting services in product development, software solutions, and product design. Since being founded in 2008, it has completed more than 600 projects for clients including Volkswagen and IKEA, and has more than 850 employees all over the world.

Full transcript

46 min

Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.

Speaker A: Oh yeah. How does that fit in to a cohesive, larger vision?

Speaker B: We will always have enough cash around Strictly business business.

Speaker A: Your new favorite finance podcast. I'm Patrick and I speak with finance leaders in some of the world's fastest growing companies. Today I'm speaking with Gosia Matilinska Pietka, CFO and board member at NetGuru. Gosia joined as head of finance in 2016, having previously served in senior accounting and controlling roles at Tech Data and Hewlett Packard. Netguru provides consulting services in product development, software solutions and product design. Since being founded in 2008, it's completed more than 600 projects for clients including Volkswagen and Ikea, and has more than 850 employees all over the world. We spoke about what makes Netguru one of the fastest growing companies in Europe, Goja's work to modernize its finance processes and the focus on culture and community for a largely remote team. Today's episode is brought to you by Spendesk, the all in one spending solution that puts finance teams in control with 100% visibility into company spend. And by CFO Connect, a global community for finance leaders. Join us@cfoconnect.com and you can email podcastfoconnect.com with any questions or feedback. Gozia, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker B: Hi Patrick. So glad to be here. Thank you so much for bringing us all together on CFO Connect. Uh, I really enjoy the community.

Speaker A: Wonderful. Our pleasure. Hopefully, uh, we'll dive a bit more into that shortly. Um, but as always, we really love to start just by getting to know you a bit better. Please tell us, um, your background and sort of what brought you to becoming CFO at NetGuru.

Speaker B: So my name is Gosia Mandalinska Pienka and I am CFO and board member at NetGuru. Uh, so when it comes to my background in education, of course it is finance, but right now I'm responsible. Responsible for so much more than finance. We're probably going to talk about this later on. Uh, and I started my career in consulting. Then I joined internal audit with hp and it was definitely the job that influenced my career the most. Then I had different, uh, jobs in accounting, controllership, but they were never the standard jobs. Uh, so I was moving shared services between countries. I worked with restatements, uh, on the stock exchange in the us cleaning after bed management. Uh, I established new units in the organizations. So I always tried to look for roles with challenges to build from scratch or to reorganize. And that was also the case with NetGuru because when I joined it was an organization of 170 people, so really small. And uh, uh, of course uh, our founders, they were looking for a person who would help to control the growth and to make it sustainable. And that was my role. I found it really attractive, ah, after the, ah, huge corporations, um, and that's how I got here.

Speaker A: I think a lot of our listeners would hear 170 people as a really small company and think, oh my God, that's uh, you know, three, four times bigger than my company at the moment. What was it like stepping into netguru with so much growth? What did you have to do to control that?

Speaker B: Wow, uh, that's a difficult question. So let's go back to 2016. Um, first of all we did not have an accounting system so I could not see exactly where my numbers were coming from. So the most important thing was to hire very good accountants. Uh, so maybe in some countries it is not so vital to start with the taxation and accounting. For me it was important, uh, I wanted my books to reconcile to the bank account first of all. And since I got control, uh, over that I could build and create reporting and budgeting. So after about three months, uh, when I managed to understand the numbers really well, uh, the company was already operating for about eight years when I joined. So uh, eight years of looking back in the numbers. It is a lot of data. So I had to, to see what I have on the balance sheet, whether there is something that we forgot about. And uh, then I started building my budgets, uh, understanding the business models, building the business models together with uh, the whole management team, um, looking at the uh, cash forecast. So these uh, were my main duties, uh, to start with. What made it more difficult is that after the first week, uh, I joined, we had uh, a tax audit. So uh, we had to show all our books. I had to travel throughout Poland to collect all the paperwork and such. So uh, probably for the first two months there was a lot of work, uh, because of that, uh, and I was taken out from the business side for a moment.

Speaker A: You had to physically travel to collect paperwork?

Speaker B: Yes, because, uh, we had uh, some accounting services in different cities. I had to collect all the invoices, uh, show it to the tax offices. So it was uh, I think it was also a very challenging task when I said that I had to hire accountants and move everything to one spot where I felt comfortable that uh, it is under control. This was, it was the most important task I had to do.

Speaker A: I think people will be really interested in that we discuss this a lot in the CFO Connect community. That idea of, um, outsourcing accountancy and when is the right time to bring it in house for you, that was essentially the number one um, job. The day that you arrived, you knew that you needed that accounting to come in house as much as possible and as soon as possible.

Speaker B: Correct. Uh, but this is also specific, uh, to our country. So in case probably, uh, France is also quite rigid with taxation. So I heard. Um, for me, it is very important to, um, I have this mission and vision of the finance department that I wrote down probably within first months when I joined NetGuru. And it was that I wanted to have everything ready for any third party, uh, when they come in and they want to review our financials, it is there to hand in. And I believe that it gives every cfo, but also founders and management team this peace of mind that this is sorted. This is like basics, right? So I want all of our financials to be ready in case anyone comes for a review. Whether it is, uh, a vc, if we need funding, whether it is a bank, whether it is a tax audit, a state audit, that it is there ready and that we have all the mechanisms and controls in place to make sure that we have it under control.

Speaker A: What are the biggest changes that you need to make to get to that position?

Speaker B: I think one of the things that I didn't realize when, uh, I became the senior management role, um, is that there's so much work concerned with recruitment. Um, I didn't understand that in my previous roles when I was just like a manager role, a leader role. But right now I understand how crucial recruitment is, that you have the right people in the right spot. And probably when you are in your CFO roles, you understand what I'm, uh, talking about right now. So I spent so much time recruiting, so much time talking to people. And I remember that Viktor, one of our founders, he would have this, um, uh, he would have this really big network. And a lot of emails were coming through to him, uh, asking whether we have jobs, whether we have, uh, something interesting, someone has a wife, someone has, uh, see some opportunities in other companies. They have these profiles. And I would take each such profile, even if I was not looking for that particular role, and I would go and speak to that person just to understand what they do, why they want to change. And my best managers today and people who I grew the company with are from such network. These were my really good recruitments.

Speaker A: So all of that extra time and energy you would have had to spend has paid off

Speaker B: 100%. And if someone sends me an interesting profile today, uh, I would go and have coffee with that person, have a call with that person to understand the ambitions, the reason for changes and uh, what they want to achieve. You know, in the fast growing environment. Finding a person who has got a drive, initiative and wants to jump on that fast train, it's so hard to find. So you could always go and outsource uh, some um, specialist knowledge, expert knowledge, but you can't really uh, outsource the drive, uh, you can't outsource that personality. Uh, and I love being connected and having these people on my team because I know that because of that we drive really fast on that train and they help me to keep that direction and the uh, expert knowledge. You can always have the big four. You have so many experts

Speaker C: think you have company cash under control. You may have a process to pay people back, but company spending is so much more than expense claims. Spendesk gives you one system to replace your old fashioned company cards, track online payments easily and process supplier invoices faster than ever. Whether you're a growing startup or you've been doing this for decades, it's never too late to upgrade. Graduate from basic expenses to spend management. Today try Spendesk.

Speaker A: I think we actually got a little bit ahead of ourselves which was wonderful. Why don't you tell us a bit more about what Netguru is and what you do as a company.

Speaker B: Sure. So um, Netguru is a uh, consultancy, uh, product design, software development company, uh founded in 2008. We built digital products um, that let people do things differently. Uh, we offer consulting, uh, tools, resources to uh, companies of all shapes and sizes, ah so that they can make a beautifully designed digital product. So um, imagine that uh, you are this digital innovator with a great idea. Uh, what we like to do is to accompany you throughout this um, whole digital journey. Uh, from um, ideation through uh, design development to launch and even growth of your product. So we became one of the fastest growing companies in the eu. We have been recognized by Financial Times, Deloitte, uh, Forbes. But um, the most important is that we are recognized by our clients who stick with us uh, throughout their journeys. We have both scale up startups, big corporations in our portfolio. Um, what I would like to tell you as well is that we are uh, certified as a B Corp. Uh, we are a great place to work. It is also a certification, uh, we pride ourselves on transparency, inclusivity, diversity. Um, so um, you know also ah, we just launched an amazing, um, case study with Zhabka. Ah, Zhabka is um, one of the largest convenience store, uh, chains in Europe. Uh, and there is some really big story behind it. So, uh, just watch our profile and take a look at it. It's a great story.

Speaker A: And as you said, you joined the company in 2016. There were 170 employees. Now there are more than 850. Um, what do you think is the sort of secret behind that growth?

Speaker B: We have a saying in Poland that it's luck, but you have to help the luck. And what helps the luck is the team. So I told you that I like to um, uh, be on that fast train together with a great team of people. And this is what we managed to uh, build a great team. First of all, uh, what also helped is the initiative drive. So we look for great personalities. We are very customer centric, people centric. Uh, we are process oriented. And uh, what I discovered when I joined NetGuru is also the mindset of the founders was so vital to the growth of the company because 170 people is not really a big company to set up a CFO role, head of people role. Viktor and Kuba, they always jumped ahead. Uh, they were always preparing. They kind of built ahead of the curve instead of behind the curve. Right. So in finance I was always uh, prepared that you have to be, um, really, uh, out of resources to get another one. And what Cuba and Viktor, um, um, how they built the company was that they saw a role. Uh, they are these visionaries really. And they thought that we want to be a company where people want to grow, where people want to work, where people have fun. They had this saying that when I sit at the uh, Christmas dinner with my uh, grandma and she asked me what I do, I want to be proud to share all the stories from my companies. And they wanted, um, the whole company and all the net girls to be at that Christmas, uh, table with the family and be so proud of telling about their jobs. And with that um, mindset, they were setting up roles ahead of the curve basically. So, um, I thought that I get this question a lot when I give some speeches or trainings to startups. Uh, when should we have a cfo? You know, you can't really name the scale, uh, but it helps when, when there is a mindset. When you want to grow, you have to do it fast because then the founders or the business people deal with invoicing, deal with things that defocuses them. They don't focus on growing the business, they focus on invoicing the clients, whether they invoiced everything on MSAs, on things they shouldn't deal with. So I would say as fast as you can afford it, just, uh, hire the people, hire the leadership that you need in order to get where you want to get. And for that you also need to have your plan. You need to understand who you want to be in the future.

Speaker A: And who does netguru m want to be in the future.

Speaker B: Right now we want to be the biggest consulting company in the world that accompanies the clients with digital journeys. And right now, because so many companies help with, um, uh, digital transformation, we are not really in the digital transformation anymore because what we need to do is to make sure that you implement digital really fast. So we call it digital acceleration. Uh, this is what is important at the moment because most of the businesses have transformed to digital. And what we need to make sure is that we do it fast enough and that we accelerate that digitalization. This is what we want to do. We want to also have a great influence on people's lives. That's why, uh, it was very important for us to be certified as B Corp. We are also running some other certification at the moment. So we want to be a company that, uh, is associated with good products, with products that uh, help people to live, uh, help people to grow businesses. Um, so with all the good stuff, it makes us feel proud.

Speaker A: And what are the key financial challenges for you at the moment, for you and your team?

Speaker B: There's, uh, one thing is that we are going through a lot of tax changes in Poland right now. So this definitely takes, uh, some focus, uh, away from, uh, the business side, but it's only like 10% because the rest is on the business. I would say that at the moment, uh, I'm, um, doing a lot of modeling around the scenarios, uh, when it comes to, uh, all the crisis. Right. So we are talking a lot about, um, uh, that there might be crisis. Where is that crisis? Are you going through crisis? Um, can you see any slowdown in your business? So for that reason, uh, I need to make sure that our business is prepared not only, uh, for challenges, but that we understand the challenges of our clients and that we do anything we can to help them, uh, secure their growth.

Speaker A: Do you feel this might be a hard question to answer, but do you feel that you, do you feel confident in your modeling at the moment, or is it a hard time to model effectively? Because it does feel like so many

Speaker B: things change, it is hard to model, uh, it's harder than it used to be last uh, couple of months or years. Because when we talk to our clients they say well there is uncertainty uh, on the market. So um, they can't plan so much ahead either. So we need to be so much more agile and work closely together in order to make sure that uh, uh, we are in sync. Right. So um, maybe our uh, forecasting uh, is much more important at the moment. Previously it was so much more certain. Now I need to pay closer attention. So uh, I was asking on CFO Connect if uh, any of the businesses can see that crisis already, uh, because we can see um, what we can read about is of course the uh, valuations um, on the stock exchange, but you know, discount rates. So I was wondering whether other companies could see anything down the line.

Speaker C: If you're enjoying this conversation then you've got to check out CFO Connect, the global community for modern finance leaders like the ones on this podcast. We host monthly events and workshops, have a private slack group for CFOs and a one on one member matching program. CFO Connect membership is free but reserved for experienced finance leaders. So if that's you head over to CFOConnect EU and apply to join us.

Speaker A: For a consultancy or any kind of service business, do you is part of the concern that client budgets will just shrink in anticipation of issues. And so whether or not you're actually in real world terms affected by the crisis, in terms of how much money companies uh, are bringing in, if they're choosing to spend less, that then has a flow on effect to services businesses like yours.

Speaker B: This is what we are looking at. So at the moment we can't see a uh, huge uh, dependency there because some of the companies uh, will switch to agencies, uh, to uh, external support like us, uh, because they can't hire internally. Right. So it is a huge opportunity for us. At the moment we can't see that in the tech market there is no need for uh, tech skills or tech talent. So I would say we uh, are in a lucky spot, uh, most of us, especially those in tech, uh, because we live in a kind of a bubble. So when I hear about this is like 2008 or uh, this is like a dot com crisis, I'm not sure because I would be worried if we were maybe uh, selling houses. We're in real estate and we're selling houses to families and the interest rates are so high credits got slashed. So I would be worried then. But because we are in the tech industries, there are companies that make our Lives cheaper. Um, they connect, uh, different services. Um, I believe there will be only more, uh, and more work for us. So I think it is a huge opportunity. Um, we had this uncertainty with COVID as well. Uh, everyone was scared. But then, uh, you know, there was business as usual as well. And everyone needed to buy online, Everyone needed to fix the, uh, laundry machine and find, uh, this person, uh, online. Um, you know, businesses had to have budgeting tools, uh, e commerce tools. So at the moment, I could say that, uh, there's no other place I'd rather be at than in tech.

Speaker A: Um, you're clearly very proud and,

Speaker B: um,

Speaker A: keen on the company culture. And so I'm interested in knowing what you do or what you can do as the CFO to promote that company culture and to maintain it and help develop it internally. What's your role?

Speaker B: I think all of us have got the same role. So, um, we built the company on, um, seven values. Uh, I'm not going to talk about all of them right now, but, uh, maybe I will mention three that are really close to me and they resonate with me. Um, so one is, uh, act in a way that makes all of us proud. How does this contribute to, uh, any of the finance division guys? So when we get a request, um, when we build our processes, when we answer to our colleagues, we need to make sure that we do our job in this way. Right? That it makes all of us proud that we are inclusive, diversified teams, that everything is client centric. Um, another thing is that we build inclusive, transparent, socially responsible culture. This is another value. So, um, socially responsible means that we don't source from companies that are known for devastating environment. Right. We would pay an extra, uh, I don't know, 10% to the vendor that promotes the socially responsible culture, promotes environmental friendliness. Uh, we changed, uh, for example, we had this, uh, lunches that arrived at our offices every day, or, uh, breakfast. We would change the vendor or force the vendor to change from plastic to paper wrapping. Right? And we said we'll pay a bit extra, uh, or let's negotiate how we can make it possible for you. But we prefer, uh, paper wrapping, uh, or, um, I don't know, glass jars instead of plastic. So this is on the vendor management side. On procurement side, uh, transparency. Transparency is about building processes that are fair. And, um, we have this culture that, um, you can ask anything, basically. So you can ask, uh, how much tax did you pay last year? And I will answer, uh, or how much did we spend on salaries? How much did we spend on, uh, I don't know, marketing. And we will report it to the employees. As long as they are interested, we show them the numbers. Um, so when I think about Headline Test, I don't want anything in this company that I would be ashamed if it leaked out. Right. Uh, and this is also very nice value to have. It's difficult because there are also difficult topics that you have to address transparently. But this is something I really enjoy and love. And the third one I wanted to tell you about is, uh, be ambitious and grow yourself and people around you. So I, uh, had good managers and bad managers. What I learned from great managers was that, um, uh, you need to grow your people and let them go. Sometimes you have to let them go and they become your customers, they become your vendors, they become. They become your, um, network. Right? So if you don't grow your people and you don't, uh, educate the best, uh, people and you don't get the best potential out of them, your network is weak. Uh, and I love that, that I can offer, uh, all the knowledge I have and that all the leadership team is like this. All our teams are like this. That we don't hide this knowledge. If someone wants to grow, we give them any opportunity we can. Uh, we provide them with the trainings, we provide them with our knowledge. We have this great initiative called Donut. This is a, um, matching, uh, 15 or 30 minutes of, uh, talks each Wednesday. There is, uh, this lottery. And, you know, a machine basically, um, takes two and we somehow get matched. And, uh, we get to speak to anyone in the company. Uh, so this is how we also get to know the team, because we're a huge remote team. M. We don't get to see each other every day. And this way I know most of the company.

Speaker A: And is that those donuts, is that something that you and the other leaders really encourage and participate in yourselves? Because I've seen that in other companies. But, um, it's often, you know, it dies away quickly. People are interested for a month, and then after that, oh, I've done my donuts for the year. I don't want to do anymore. Um, how do you keep people engaged and interested?

Speaker B: It's a difficult question, and I don't have an answer to this. Uh, I've been in this Donut initiative since the beginning. It's been probably, I don't know, two or three years right now. Um, I don't really understand how you can be in the leadership role and don't have the courage and you don't have this Urge to meet the people you work with. This is uh, they built this company with you for you. Uh, I don't see how the leadership team can avoid meeting uh, the team. And I don't see how a company can be successful. Not binding together, not going there, you know, and being uh, open to meeting the whole company.

Speaker A: So it's really an attitude that comes clearly from yourself, but from the other, the leaders in the company.

Speaker B: Definitely. And when I think about such initiatives. So in my previous companies we had um, um, they were both huge American corporations, right. So there were these open door policies and uh, you could schedule a call with anyone within the company from the leadership. They had these uh, slots available. And um, I was surprised that uh, not many people use this because um, maybe this initiative is weaker when uh, you have so many junior people within the company, right? And then they have to be proactive and reach out to the senior people. Um, maybe this is something that uh, gives you certain constraints. Whereas this initiative that we have, you know, there is a machine, a bot that matches the two persons together and uh, you know, it basically um, you are not waiting there with your open door for someone to apply for a visit. Right. Maybe this is what helps.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. That and potentially uh, if you make it clear that this is part of the job, you know, your part of your job, your daily job is actually being in a company and getting to meet other people and learning about them rather than this is something you do on top of your job. And actually all your real work gets in the way of these moments.

Speaker B: Yes, you're right. Um, so we also have other uh, initiatives like um, we promote uh, feedback a lot. Um, and I know many companies say that, uh, but we have these um, two ways of even three ways of gathering feedback. One is the annual, you know, feedback for the whole company. Then uh, every time you have a meeting with your leader, uh, you can send the feedback to the leadership team through some form. Uh, and we read it. This is something that is very important for us, uh, that we read all the feedbacks uh, from M, the company. You know, these people every day are there working in the field, right? Uh, battling with uh, processes with uh, customers, with vendors. And if you don't listen to the people who are uh, closest to these processes, you don't know anything about your company. You only have a, ah, vision or you only have um, you know, it's only your imagination. But then when you listen to the feedback, you have a person that you can go and talk to. Um, uh, it's great because uh, you basically sense the pulse of the whole company. And another one, we host Amazon, at least I would say quarterly, uh, if, if not more regularly. Um, and Ask Me Anything session is with the whole core team. Uh, and through slido we ask um, questions. And these questions are really difficult. Sometimes they're really tough. Uh, but they are fair. Uh, you can upvote down vote. Uh, and we try to answer all of them. Uh, it's not like we can choose which questions we get to answer, uh, because they go in the voting. Uh, uh, so they go through voting and we have to answer those, uh, that got voted up.

Speaker A: Another thing that you do that I thought was very interesting, I saw it on LinkedIn. Um, you were at a workation hub, I think last week. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker B: Yes, we have so this year, um, because m, we saw that people do not come to offices ah so much anymore. Um, which is a pity because we built really beautiful offices for people. Um, but uh, we can also see that uh, you know, we want to build communities and we came up with a workation, uh, hub idea. So we rented uh, two huge houses. Uh, they are secluded. One is in the forest, uh, the other one is in another part of Poland. And this is uh, by the lakes. Uh, I went uh, last week with my son to a workation hub. We had two nannies looking after our kids. Uh, and you know, I got to meet people. Uh, some of them I haven't seen before, some of them I have, uh, but it was, you know, great to cook with them, eat with them, uh, have coffees, uh, go for a walk. Our kids play together. And you know, I'm a mother of a two year old. Last week, I don't know about France, but in Poland we recorded like major uh, hit. Ah, I live in the city center. Living in a city center with a two year old. Uh, really painful when you can't go outside because it's really hot. Um. M. I heard that in some countries they close down schools because of the heat. So you know, this initiative that they could take the kid, they were out, uh, playing in the woods. Uh, they were close to the nature of. And we were sitting uh, in a beautiful, uh, forest. What can you dream about? Uh, it's a dream come true to have such an initiative. Uh, there are things that we need to work on as well because uh, what is also important is that I managed to um, experience this initiative. So I know that we can make it even, um, more exciting, uh, more comfortable for the Parents more comfortable for anyone that comes to work there. Uh, and I think it's also uh, a great way of building your company that when there are processes, uh, that sometimes you try to use them yourself or when there is an initiative, you go there and experience whether it works. Uh, so that was also part of it.

Speaker A: Very nice. I have one more business question for you and then we'll wrap up with some quick questions. Um, NetGuru acquired Pilot 44, uh, I think earlier this year. Um, and it was, I'm getting this from your LinkedIn, but uh, it was the first acquisition of a whole business and the first U.S. investment. So how was that process for you?

Speaker B: It was uh, a very long process uh, because it takes time for companies to match. Uh, we talked a lot, uh, for quite some time. I think it took us over a year to, from the day we met to the closing date, it was over a year because at the beginning you get to know the other party. It's like a marriage. You need to make sure you want to work together. Uh, you need to think uh, of the synergies you have of the uh. Also what we loved about the guys from Pilot44 is that they have the same vision of the tech world and the world in the future. Right? So we have the same mindset. They are coming to see us uh, in two weeks because we have this um, burning mind conference. Um, so you know, once you get the perfect match it is easy because you want to go into, into that relationship, uh, and you want to make it happen. So from that part when you are sure, um, you know it goes quite, quite well. We used uh, for me it was really, really interesting because we used to uh, different uh, sources of financing, something we didn't do before. So technically, you know, for a finance person it's just exciting. Um, a lot of legal work, a lot of documentation of course also for the banks, uh, for the external parties, uh, in a month or two we are looking for the uh, ways to consolidate our numbers. How we want to show uh, you know, our results at the year end as a group. So this is another exciting finance uh, thing that uh, I will be involved with.

Speaker A: Well, we're going to finish now with our usual quick fire questions. Um, and so the first of these is what is one finance tool you couldn't live without? And please don't say Excel, I know

Speaker B: you don't want to hear that. And it's not Excel anymore, it's Google Sheets now.

Speaker A: And why Google Sheets? Just because it's more shareable.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Because uh, as I said our teams are very remote so we don't see each other every day. Uh, I uh, need to make sure that I have uh, the best collaboration tools possible and I know that Google Sheets, maybe this is not a sophisticated tool. Maybe you know you uh, could build more things in Excel. But Google Sheets are just enough to uh, grow because it is flexible and it's very easy and it is just you know uh, it updates automatically. So that's great.

Speaker A: If there was one part of your day to day you could outsource computer completely and forget about, what would it be?

Speaker B: Collections. The key pain is that uh, it doesn't build. So whenever a uh, finance person is uh, involved with collections it means that there is an issue. So there is uh, it's kind of going backwards and fighting fires instead of building something new. Um, it's not something that I love to do because it usually involves you know, chasing someone, uh, sometimes going through legal proceedings. I just don't think it is necessary, uh, especially after you had some good collaboration.

Speaker A: What's the best advice you've ever received?

Speaker B: Uh, so I have two uh, one is that you should choose the boss and leader that you want to work for and that uh, you should pay attention to the values of the company that you work for. I know when you are really young you think that this is uh, some weird mantra that uh, older people get to talk about but uh, I understand. It is so true. And another thing that um, I remember I received when I was ah, a junior in audit was that um, if you want to have a career in management rather than being a specialist, that you should rotate in finance functions quite a lot and not stick around when you get comfortable. You should change your jobs uh and do as many projects uh as possible. So you have to experience as many tasks, as many different scenarios as possible.

Speaker A: And finally which other finance leaders do you talk to or learn from regularly?

Speaker B: So I'm very lucky because right now I have a very strong management team and I can learn from that. Uh, um also uh, CFO is so much more than numbers, right? It's not just financial functions. Uh probably many of you had legal functions, compliance, procurement, maybe some pricing divisions. So uh, you know it's you learn from experts as you grow your team, you learn from people who are um, closer to uh, those areas. So this is my one source that I work with great people and um, another support that I get and uh, I'm lucky with that is that we have ah, an X EY partner on our supervisory board and, uh, you know, his experience, um, his network. It's so great to pick his brains. You know, it's so valuable m all of our supervisory board. This is something that we had to establish, uh, because we're a joint stock company. But we, uh, established it, uh, with great people, uh, who we can reach out to and, uh, get advice.

Speaker A: Gozia, thank you so much for joining us on CFO Year.

Speaker B: Thanks so much, Patrick, for having me. And I wish everyone a great day.

Speaker A: CFO Year is brought to you by CFO Connect, the fastest growing global community for finance leaders. Join us for webinars and workshops, get our expert resources, and be a part of an exclusive Slack group just for CFOs. Join the community and exchange ideas with CFOs from the most exciting companies in the world. Just visit CFOConnect EU.

Speaker B: Sa.

Related episodes across the Index

Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.

  • Episode 839 | The Journey Growing Help Scout to $35M ARRStartups For the Rest of Us · on B Corp certification83 / 100
  • C-Suite Secrets for Remote Work Success with Sara DawLong-Distance Worklife · on Remote team culture77 / 100
  • Loss as a catalyst for change: Betterfly CEO Eduardo della Maggiora discusses his journey to disrupting the delivery of both physical and financial wellbeing at scaleFintech Thought Leaders · on B Corp certification77 / 100
  • Powering ambitious female leadership with Medik8Inflexion Point · on B Corp certification76 / 100
  • Ep 51: Opella's Alberto Hernandez on the commercial payback from curiosity, courage and purposeWFA's Better Marketing Pod with David Wheldon · on B Corp certification75 / 100
  • Be Yoda, Not Luke: How to Use Story, Data & Advocacy to Win Hearts (Not Just Clicks)Growth Leap · on B Corp certification67 / 100

More from CFO Yeah!

All episodes →
  • #37 From Tech CFO to SaaS Founder with Rose Punkunus of Sudozi
  • #36 Creating Employee Value with Rob Whalen of PTO Exchange
  • #35 Empathetic Accounting & Why Finance Leaders Should Learn to Code with Dave Sellick
  • #34 The 90-Day CFO Launch Plan with Dr. Veronika von Heise-Rotenburg of everphone
  • #33 The Future of Financial Data with Joe Garafalo of Mosaic
Explore the best B2B Finance podcasts →
All CFO Yeah! episodes →