Making Yourself Irrelevant as CFO

About this episode

“You want to set up in a way where you’re almost irrelevant.” That’s how this CFO got the Chief Revenue Officer job.Mike Ammendolia told me that this week on The CFO Track.Mike is the CFO and Chief Revenue Officer at Prezzee, a global digital gift card company across seven markets.He's originally from Canada and moved to Australia 11 years ago. He loved it so much that he never left.At the start of his career, he got rejected from every Big 4 internship.But instead, he hustled his way into Deloitte by DJing at a university entrepreneurship conference.His professors gave him one piece of advice: just be useful.He took that literally and built a fintech audit portfolio and helped IPO companies like Zip.Then got sent halfway across the world on empty Qantas flights during COVID to check on businesses they’d acquired entirely over Zoom.When he got to Prezzee, month end was 3-4 months behind.He was told to fix it, offshore what he could and get them ready to list someday.He took the company to profitability in his first year and with 54% percent growth.Then he did something most CFOs would never consider. He made himself unnecessary.“If I didn’t think in that mindset, I wouldn’t be given the opportunity to now do revenue work or go to the US and be the acting president.”He rebuilt the sales governance the same way he’d rebuilt finance.Processes, controls and confidence levels.He’s not a salesperson, but a CFO who understands where the growth was already sitting.Reinvention from the inside.Highlights:How he got rejected from every Big Four internship and DJed his way into DeloitteWhy lateral moves through fintech audit built the foundation for his CFO careerWhat it was like flying on empty Qantas 737s during COVID to check on acquisitions done over ZoomHow he took Prezzee to profitability in his first year with fifty-four percent growthThe philosophy of making yourself “almost irrelevant” as a CFO and why it opens doorsWhy he reframed the CFO role from “no” to “what would need to be true for me to say yes”How he transitioned from CFO to Chief Revenue Officer without being a salespersonHis advice on using AI to differentiate as a finance leader rather than just cutting costs Tom Hunter, Story Recruitment - first-CFO and first-finance-hire search for Australian tech, fintech and deeptech startups. Host of the CFO Track Podcast. Storyrecruitment.com.au