If your CFO is more important than your CHRO (Chief Human Resource Officer) you're nuts!
The CEO era gave rise to the CFO (not certified flying object, as you might imagine, but chief financial officer) and, most recently, the CIO, chief investment officer, a nice boost for the bookkeeper you can't afford to give a raise . . .
The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.
Because we weren't having success finding a CEO, our investors insisted that we hire these managers a temporary CEO and CFO. That didn't go great.
I try getting in front of as many opportunities as possible, but in the late '90s, I had no idea that I'd end up being CFO of a technology company. I'd no idea what venture capital was.
