Catherine Birkett's guest appearances

Catherine Birkett

CFO THOUGHT LEADER

Notion Capital - enterprise tech startups

The CFO Playbook

Chitra Balasubramanian

Chris Roling

Anders Liu-Lindberg

Nitesh Sharan

Ken Goldman

Anup Singh

Virpy Richter

Tom Fencl

Ross Tennenbaum

Darrell Cox

Kevin Jacobson

Talita Ferreira

Erik Ostrowski

Roy Austin

Scot Parnell

OwlTail

GoCardless

Catherine Birkett’s career as a CFO started in 2004, when she was promoted into the position at the telecommunications company Interoute. Looking back, she says she sometimes had to struggle to keep her head above water while addressing the large challenges the company was facing. But Catherine pushed forward, and she now attributes her success as a CFO to these experiences. She sees past mistakes and hardships as ultimately putting her on a path to growth. After becoming intimately familiar with her own strengths and weaknesses, Catherine now feels comfortable leading a finance team through tough spots and helping other people grow. At GoCardless, where she has worked as the CFO since January 2019, she was able to take the reins during the COVID-19 pandemic and keep the business-to-business banking service on a growth trajectory as its scope expands. In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Catherine details how she grew from tough experiences early in her CFO career, how she maintained control of GoCardless’ financial growth during a global pandemic and recession and how to balance risk taking and flexibility with keeping your company in line to achieve its ultimate vision.Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn.Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn.If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout Soldo.com.

Catherine Birkett’s career as a CFO started in 2004, when she was promoted into the position at the telecommunications company Interoute. Looking back, she says she sometimes had to struggle to keep her head above water while addressing the large challenges the company was facing. But Catherine pushed forward, and she now attributes her success as a CFO to these experiences. She sees past mistakes and hardships as ultimately putting her on a path to growth. After becoming intimately familiar with her own strengths and weaknesses, Catherine now feels comfortable leading a finance team through tough spots and helping other people grow. At GoCardless, where she has worked as the CFO since January 2019, she was able to take the reins during the COVID-19 pandemic and keep the business-to-business banking service on a growth trajectory as its scope expands. In this episode of The CFO Playbook, Catherine details how she grew from tough experiences early in her CFO career, how she maintained control of GoCardless’ financial growth during a global pandemic and recession and how to balance risk taking and flexibility with keeping your company in line to achieve its ultimate vision.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-birkett-b897b812/?originalSubdomain=uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Connect with Catherine on LinkedIn</a>.<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossamackay/?originalSubdomain=uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Connect with our host Ross on LinkedIn. </a> If you want a better way to track and control your team’s spend, checkout <a href="http://www.soldo.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Soldo.com</a>.

GoCardless | With Catherine Birkett, CFO

Back in the early 2000s, Catherine Birkett found herself being pulled into confidential meetings where her company’s senior management was discussing restructuring plans with the company’s largest investor. The company—a fiber optics telecom firm known as Interoute—was not yet 6 years old, but its days appeared to be numbered as the company sought to weather the telecom industry’s historic collapse.   As Interoute’s top FP&amp;A executive, Birkett knew from the ongoing business plan’s numbers that massive changes were urgently needed, and she as well as others were not optimistic about the restructuring options available to the company. In fact, Birkett recalls, she and many executives had to tamp down the feeling that “this was not going to end well.” From a career perspective, Birkett arguably had less at risk than the other more senior executives sitting ringside during the restructuring discussions. Not yet 30 years of age, she joined the discussions knowing perhaps that other more gainful career opportunities were available to her outside Interoute’s four walls. Nonetheless, she had been given a seat at the meetings out of recognition of not just her ability to recite numbers but also her grasp of the intellectual property that governed the numbers.  “I owned the business plan,” Birkett explains.   In the end, the company’s multiyear restructuring allowed Interoute to find a new path to growth while operating under a new management team—one that included the 32-year-old Birkett as CFO. “I was thrown into the deep end as a finance leader—I basically had to learn on the job,” recalls Birkett, who entered Interoute’s CFO office in 2003 and went on to serve in the role for the next 15 years.   “We managed to transform the company,” says Birkett. Along the way, Interoute marched in step with a new private equity firm owner and closed a string acquisitions. Ultimately, the company was sold to GTT Communications in 2018 for $2.3 billion. “Being promoted so young, I definitely made mistakes,” admits Birkett, who credits her CEO and other members of senior management for standing behind her as she ran at breakneck speed to acquire the skills necessary to manage a quickly expanding finance team. –Jack Sweeney

Back in the early 2000s, Catherine Birkett found herself being pulled into confidential meetings where her company’s senior management was discussing restructuring plans with the company’s largest investor. The company—a fiber optics telecom firm known as Interoute—was not yet 6 years old, but its days appeared to be numbered as the company sought to weather the telecom industry’s historic collapse.   As Interoute’s top FP&amp;A executive, Birkett knew from the ongoing business plan’s numbers that massive changes were urgently needed, and she as well as others were not optimistic about the restructuring options available to the company. In fact, Birkett recalls, she and many executives had to tamp down the feeling that “this was not going to end well.” From a career perspective, Birkett arguably had less at risk than the other more senior executives sitting ringside during the restructuring discussions. Not yet 30 years of age, she joined the discussions knowing perhaps that other more gainful career opportunities were available to her outside Interoute’s four walls. Nonetheless, she had been given a seat at the meetings out of recognition of not just her ability to recite numbers but also her grasp of the intellectual property that governed the numbers.  “I owned the business plan,” Birkett explains.   In the end, the company’s multiyear restructuring allowed Interoute to find a new path to growth while operating under a new management team—one that included the 32-year-old Birkett as CFO. “I was thrown into the deep end as a finance leader—I basically had to learn on the job,” recalls Birkett, who entered Interoute’s CFO office in 2003 and went on to serve in the role for the next 15 years.   “We managed to transform the company,” says Birkett. Along the way, Interoute marched in step with a new private equity firm owner and closed a string acquisitions. Ultimately, the company was sold to GTT Communications in 2018 for $2.3 billion. “Being promoted so young, I definitely made mistakes,” admits Birkett, who credits her CEO and other members of senior management for standing behind her as she ran at breakneck speed to acquire the skills necessary to manage a quickly expanding finance team. –Jack Sweeney

639:  Thriving at the Deep End | Catherine Birkett, CFO, GoCardless

Build a business to be proud of, with Catherine Birkett, CFO, Gocardless. The path to achieving a successful exit is to build a business to be proud of, while keeping an eye on the end game. Highlights:  Achieving an exit starts with building a business to be proud of Think about how the business will endure and scale past the exit or IPO Get your house in order and use failed sales attempts to prepare yourselves 

Build a business to be proud of, with Catherine Birkett, CFO, Gocardless. The path to achieving a successful exit is to build a business to be proud of, while keeping an eye on the end game. Highlights: <ul> <li>Achieving an exit starts with building a business to be proud of</li> <li>Think about how the business will endure and scale past the exit or IPO</li> <li>Get your house in order and use failed sales attempts to prepare yourselves</li> </ul>

P310 - Build a business to be proud of, with Catherine Birkett, CFO, Gocardless