We’ve spent the last year and a half profiling inspiring finance professionals for our Next Gen Finance Leaders series, and it felt like the right moment to step back and pull together what we’ve learned.
The career paths and roles featured have been remarkably diverse, but one thing keeps showing up: self-determination and a drive to keep improving. That says a lot about finance as an industry; there’s real room to grow and no shortage of new ground to break.
Key Takeaways
- Finance careers rarely follow a straight line. Many leaders profiled entered the field by chance or after starting out elsewhere, then relied on self-determination and continuous learning to move up.
- Taking on new challenges and building a strong network opens doors. Leaders who embraced mentorship, took career risks, or spotted a gap in their own operations went on to bigger roles or started their own ventures.
- Automation and AI have moved from nice-to-have to necessity. Finance leaders are using both to compress reporting timelines and unlock capacity that used to go into manual work.
There’s No Set Path Into Finance
There’s no single route into finance. Many arrive by chance, some recognize it early as a solid, stable choice, and others discover it after a stint somewhere else.
Robert Collings, Founder of Flexal, an AI-native accounting practice, knew from a young age that he wanted to start a business and was drawn to an accounting apprenticeship because it would give him the experience he needed faster than going to college.
I thought it sounded interesting, as accounting gives you pretty good fundamentals to start a business, and with the apprenticeship, you get paid as well as being trained.
Robert Collings, Founder, Flexal
Angela Brown, Founder and CEO of FinFlare, a boutique organization that provides fractional CFO services, started her career as a scientist, but found the work lacked stability. A friend working as a financial controller pointed her toward finance instead.
Despite going down the scientist route, I really disliked it immensely. I decided to train as a chartered accountant in Edinburgh. I had a really good friend who told me how interesting [finance] was and how being a finance partner allowed you to grow businesses by demonstrating commerciality.
Angela Brown, Founder & CEO, FinFlare
New Challenges Can Accelerate Your Career
The willingness to take a leap, whether that means a new role, a new company, or a new country, can open doors you didn’t know existed.
Joseph Falcao, CFO and Managing Director at Falcon Pax, an advisory firm, grew up in Brazil and started his career there before applying for a role at a Boston-based chemicals company. That first move set the tone for a career built on taking on new challenges. He credits an early mentor for encouraging that mindset.
The CFO who hired me had a real vision for developing people. He told me I could end up running that company one day or another one because he’d help train me either way. That set the tone for the rest of my career: different companies, different models, different geographies.
Joseph Falcao, CFO & Managing Director, Falcon Pax
Lisa Vokes-Pierre, a Finance Director at a private family office, backpacked through Southeast Asia before moving to London with no network or jobs lined up. Shortly after, UBS hired her. She spent more than 15 years taking on roles across the UK and US, then eventually moved back to Iceland, where that international background opened doors she wasn’t expecting.
Having international experience got me through the door at an international company here in Iceland when I came back after not having a career here. The network of both personal and professional connections is precious.
Lisa Vokes-Pierre, Finance Director, European Family Office
Finance Can Fast Track You Into Entrepreneurship
Finance can also be a launchpad into entrepreneurship, whether that’s spotting a gap in the market from your day job or taking your skillset into an entirely new sector.
Howard Thompson, Founder of GATHER.nexus, a cloud platform that makes it easier to manage multi-entity businesses, identified this need while working as a CFO at a technology-led global supply chain platform.
GATHER.nexus is absolutely inspired by my experience of building a complex finance department from scratch for a growing company. As soon as you move into a multi-entity environment, which most companies do as they expand, you need to have something that’s going to help you out for multi-entity tasks.
Howard Thompson, Founder, GATHER.nexus
Laura Beales, CFO & Co-Founder of Tally Workspace, an online service helping growing businesses access office and co-working spaces, was inspired to start the business with her friend when COVID struck.
With my background in finance, [I was mindful] that we were paying lots of money for an office space nobody was using. We both came from the mindset that there must be a better way to do this.
Laura Beales, CFO & Co-Founder, Tally Workspace
Automation Isn’t Optional Anymore
Using automation to streamline and speed up core processes isn’t optional anymore; it’s essential, given the growing need to deliver fast, accurate reports in today’s uncertain times.
Akshay Shrimanker, Founder of ShayCPA, a New York-based public firm specializing in venture-backed startups, has significantly sped up the month-end close by using a tool that sits on top of core ERPs to identify and spread out prepaid expenses.
In the past, something that would have taken 30 days is now almost in real-time. It speeds up reporting for VC-backed companies, giving them a level of transparency that business owners of the past never had.
Akshay Shrimanker, Founder, ShayCPA
Bobby Lane, CEO and Founder of Factotum, a multidisciplinary outsourcing practice, regularly implements automated accounts payable for clients who are held back by manual processes, often missing paperwork with no audit trail of authorizations.
Automation makes it easier to raise POs, match them, and get multi-level authorizations. It gives clients more control over budgets and who is approving invoices.
Bobby Lane, CEO & Founder, Factotum
AI Is Unlocking Finance’s Full Potential
The biggest shift lately has been the mass adoption of AI in finance, whether as standalone tools or built directly into the products finance leaders already use. It’s already boosting productivity, but the real efficiency gains are still ahead.
Christian Sanford, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at QuantFi, an AI-enabled full-stack finance agency, is already ahead of the curve, running AI-enabled finance-departments-as-a-service.
We operate on two tracks with AI. The first is embedding AI directly into our existing and new client engagements, and the second track is building custom software and AI agents for clients with specific finance and accounting operational problems.
Christian Sanford, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, QuantFi
Anthony Latino, CFO at VaynerX, a global company that combines creative, media, consulting, commerce, and production to deliver a modern marketing approach, is preparing to leverage AI’s full potential by encouraging his team to adopt new tools and pursue ongoing training to build their skills.
We are investing in AI at an enterprise level, but we are also being deliberate about how we deploy our licenses and plan our projects. This approach allows us to build a lot of internal training and comms, while still encouraging our employees to attend external network events and learning opportunities. As a modern CFO, I’m excited to put technology to work for our organization.
Anthony Latino, CFO, VaynerX
A Few Things We’ve Learned
In talking with all of these finance leaders, a few things are clear. There’s no single path into finance; some found it through school, others by chance, others after years in a different industry entirely. What they share is a refusal to stand still, whether that meant taking on a new challenge, building something new, or putting automation and AI to work early.
The finance industry keeps changing, and there’s always another journey worth sharing.
