We all know by now that the finance chief’s role has evolved from a tactical numbers cruncher to a strategic-thinking executive. A key part of the CFO’s expanding remit is juicing company strategy and growth.
CFO Brew recently spoke with a pair of freshly appointed finance executives who took on the role in part to help guide their respective organizations through the next stages of growth.
Tony Jarjoura’s promotion to CFO of cloud security company Gigamon came amid rising demand for its deep observability pipeline product, according to a company announcement. And Smarsh, a communications recording and archiving company, noted in a news release that its new CFO, David Brolsma, will “help guide the company through its next stage of growth.”
Eyes on the prize. Each company has a strategic vision for growth, and their CFOs have a role to play in achieving them.
Smarsh, which has been in growth mode for awhile, plans to continue its expansion in several areas, according to Brolsma.
The company currently “captures about 25% of employee communications among financial institutions,” he said, which “leaves a very large market still for us to go after within just our core products.”
The data Smarsh collects could also prove valuable to sales, marketing, and human resources teams. “There’s different business insights that we can deliver with the data that we’re capturing,” Brolsma said. “That’s not happening today.” Smarsh’s recent acquisitions of TeleMessage and CallCabinet will help it grow its international presence, he added.
Over at Gigamon, the company is focused on remaining a market leader in deep observability, a technique that goes “beyond traditional approaches” to provide “real-time visibility into network traffic,” according to a Frost & Sullivan report that the consulting firm compiled for Gigamon. The report predicted that the market for deep observability will grow from $570 million in 2024 to $2.1 billion in 2028.
Jarjoura told us that the deep-observability market is growing as more organizations realize they need greater insight into their networks that cloud services alone do not provide.
“Continuing the effort on our cloud solution is critical,” he said. “We’re constantly evaluating M&A opportunities for technologies that help support and are supplemental or complementary to the offerings that we have.”
The skills they bring. Both companies noted that their new CFOs’ experiences and skill sets would be instrumental in enabling growth.
Jarjoura joined Gigamon in 2020, and held VP roles in revenue operations and controllership, plus a stint as interim CFO before taking over full time. He “brings a unique combination of operational insight, financial acumen, and leadership to the CFO role, with a deep understanding of our business, technology, and channel strategy,” Gigamon CEO Shane Buckley said in a statement.
News built for finance pros
CFO Brew helps finance pros navigate their roles with insights into risk management, compliance, and strategy through our newsletter, virtual events, and digital guides.
A CFO with intimate operational knowledge can work better across company functions and also understand “at an elevated level” where they can make improvements, Jarjoura said.
“A lot of folks in this role, they might have super strong technical experience…but going a few clicks past the financial statements into the actual operations of how things work before they get into a general ledger…is critical,” he said, “because it doesn’t take much to have a couple of missteps and you end up in the wrong direction and not getting the desired outcome that you want.”
Next steps. Brolsma has experience in M&A, IPOs, and business operations, according to Smarsh. Brolsma didn’t say whether Smarsh has immediate plans to go public; instead he said the company is focused on “driving sustainable growth, delivering excellence for our customers, [and] building a company that’s built to last for the long term.”
He said “operational excellence is at the core” of companies that are preparing for an IPO, with “controls and processes, and running a business at a different level.” This is where operational knowledge comes in handy for a CFO.
Jarjoura said he sees his role at Gigamon as “ensuring that we’re able to monitor, track, [and] justify all the coin that’s going out, and understand all the coin that’s coming in.” He said he also has “significant involvement” in the M&A process in examining target companies’ business models and “how they would supplement Gigamon’s vision and growth.”
“Historically, the role of the CFO has been to track the numbers and report on it,” Jarjoura said. But the role has expanded, and “now that model is thrown out the window…You still have to report, you still have to get it right and make sure the auditors are happy and all that good jazz. But the focus is understanding, ‘How are we managing that? What are the outcomes that we want to have? What’s our goal?’ And being involved in the active management before the numbers even turn into something in our ERP system or turn into something in your financials.”