From Welsh Farm To Silicon Valley: Simon Edwards’ Journey To CFO At Conga

In this episode, Jack McCullough sits down with Simon Edwards, CFO of Conga, to discuss the dynamic role of the CFO in today’s business environment. Edwards shares how he leverages his background in technology and engineering to drive financial strategy and growth at Conga, a leader in revenue lifecycle management. Tune in to discover insights on career development, operational efficiency and the critical relationship between the CEO and CFO in steering company success.

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Introduction To Simon Edwards And Conga

Everybody, welcome to the show. You can follow us online at RockStarCFOs.com. We have a great guest. I’ve been looking forward to talking to Simon for a while. We’re going to get into it. Simon Edwards is the CFO of a hot startup known as Conga. Simon, welcome to the show.

Jack, thanks for having me. It’s good to see you again.

Thanks. Good to see you, too. I’ve been following Conga since you joined. Let’s give it a year, but it’s not exactly a household name yet. For our listeners who may not be familiar with it, can you give us a 10,000-foot view of the company?

Conga is a B2B SaaS provider. We’re the architects and leaders of revenue lifecycle management. When you think about ERP, we, the CFOs, spend most of our time, and the go-to-market team spends a lot of their time in CRM. There’s a very fragmented systems landscape between those two applications. Conga’s design and delivery for a lot of our customers are based on this notion of revenue lifecycle management. The unification of a lot of those systems that sit between those two applications helps customers deliver on the revenue advantage. They optimize a lot of their processes.

That’s fantastic and we’ll get into it later, but it must be good to work for a company where you are the target customer, right?

That’s exactly right. As I was thinking about my next role, I faced a lot of pain points that Conga actually solved. It’s great to be a champion of those internal solutions within Conga. I also talked to a lot of my peers out in the industry about personal anecdotes and benefits I’ve received from using these systems.

You’re so credible in sales calls. I’d love to talk a little about your early years before we get into that. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a small farm town in Wales, so outside of England. I didn’t see myself living in the Bay Area at a tech company. I had cows outside my window and spent a lot of time playing in the fields.

I’ll go on a limb and say you’re the only one from your high school graduating class living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Is that a safe assumption?

There aren’t many of us, yeah. I’m also the first person in my family to graduate high school. There was a low bar in my family.

I’ve had guests who’ve shared that they’re the first to graduate college. You’re the first person who is the first to graduate high school. I had a cousin two years older than me. She beat all of us to be the first to graduate college. The first generation in my family, but not the first individual. So, when you were young, as you said, you couldn’t have envisioned the journey that you’d end up on in the San Francisco Bay area, but you did start your career in business. I’m curious, what was appealing about a potential career in business to the 17-year-old version of Simon Edwards?

I actually started my career as a software engineer. My undergraduate degree was very technical, computing for real-time systems around embedded systems, networking and application design. A lot of foundations of what we think about are IoT and distributed networks. After graduating from that undergraduate program, I joined GE to work in their aerospace division on avionics equipment. I was excited about the idea that the software that I was developing or contributing to would ultimately help keep planes in the air. That was my first job. GE obviously has a ton of opportunities, it was a Fortune 10 company when I joined, and it afforded me a lot of opportunity then to move and grow my career into more of a finance and business track.

GE, historically, has always been synonymous with finance. It’s an interesting thing because in my generation, most CFOs were CPAs. That was probably 90 percent. Right now, there are so many different paths to becoming a CFO. A surprising number of former engineers are CFOs. They bring a lot of the skills that the modern CFO needs, like the analytical mindset and the focus on problem-solving. It isn’t all about the debits and credits anymore. Do you think starting off in a scientific type of field and then going over to finance, is something you’d recommend?

The first thing I tell people is follow your passion. Always take the jobs that are going to excite you. You think you’re going to learn, you think you’re going to grow and you can add value to it. I think that’s first and foremost. I think your ability to connect what’s happening in the financial statements to what’s happening within the company’s operations is of the utmost importance. I think that’s what truly differentiates a CFO from their peers and business leaders in terms of becoming a strong operational partner. To the extent you can do that through a technical track, sales track and marketing track, I think I’m somewhat agnostic there, but I do think having that operational bias can differentiate a CFO in this climate.

I mean, there are so many different types of CFOs. There’s the strategic one, there’s the finance one, there’s the operational one. It’s a matter of finding the company that values the particular skill set that you bring to it because there are companies out there that still want it. I don’t mean this to be derogatory about myself, but I’m the old school CFO. The person who’s good with numbers and financial reporting and whatnot. There are others who value the skill set that you bring. It’s all about the fit, I think, in the modern financial world.

Are you saying I’m not good with numbers, Jack?

As an engineer, I assume you’re terrible with numbers. No, obviously, you’d be pretty good with numbers, but it’s a remarkable thing. Even how many Wall Street people make phenomenal CFOs when they make that type of switch, even though it’s a completely different type of finance. It’s horses for courses, as the saying goes.

I think that’s right.

You had a 10-year run at GE, which, again, is one of the premier companies. It’s as iconic a company as it can be. It’s Apple Computer, Disney and GE. At one point, they were probably the three best-known companies in the world, but what was that like? How did you grow professionally? Was there a light bulb moment where you said, I want to switch a little bit and be more on the financial side of the house?

Learning From GE And Mentorship

I think for me it was, I enjoyed my engineering roles. I was fortunate to support a lot of business development and go-to-market activities in that capacity. One thing I was amazed by was the strength of the business leaders that I was exposed to. As I started learning about their tracks, I noticed that a lot of them had an engineering background but were able to speak the language of GE, which was finance. For me it was with those role models in mind, how could I progress my career such that I was capable of becoming a business leader?

That was, I think, the impetus for me to look at the opportunities that I could see within GE. At the time, there was a program called the Corporate Audit Staff that was able to take individuals from any business, any geography and any functional background, throw them into an audit context that was heavily business problem-solving driven and then rotate us through various GE businesses and different problem sets with different teams. I think that exposure for me was foundational in terms of defining me as a leader.

That makes sense. GE is known, it’s known for a lot of things, but one thing they’re known for is their mentorship capabilities. It’s baked in that the veterans are going to teach the less experienced employees how to excel and grow and thrive. Do any particular professionals who were mentors to you during that career path stand out?

I’ve been very fortunate. I think I had tough clients who taught me a lot and pushed me to be better. Jamey Mock, who’s now the CFO of Moderna, comes to mind there. He pushed us to not only identify problems in the audit capacity but also help inform him and his team on options for driving process improvements. I think that was a foundational lesson for me. Khozema Shipchandler, who’s now the CEO of Twilio.

A great mentor and friend to me and pushed me to push myself and my teams to continuously move the ball forward in terms of driving process improvements. Dan Simo, who is now an executive within Expedia, always taught me that teams were the foundation for my career and that I should play it forward. Not only was I able to benefit from great mentors, but have hopefully become a good mentor and coach to a lot of my teams and help them in their career as well. I think those are the types of lessons that I was able to learn from great leaders.

That’s interesting. Jamey is actually going to be a guest on a future episode. I’ll have to ask him about you. You had a great 10-year run at GE, and then you went over to ServiceMax, a great company but one that was very different from GE. What was that like for you?

It was a great experience. I think within GE, you have an infrastructure around you where it’s very difficult to fail. When I moved into ServiceMax, my team size was less than 10 when I joined, and there it was, “Roll your sleeves up.” You can immediately see the impact of the decisions and the actions you can take on the actual overall business performance. We were able to successfully scale that organization. Building a team around us was something we spent time on, but I think it opened my eyes to the impact that you can have within a role in a small company. I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Joining Conga And Decision Process

So then you went to another great company, Conga, and I’m curious what the decision process there was like.

I’m excited to be here at Conga, and I spent a lot of time thinking about what the right next opportunity would be for me. If I think about the decision criteria, as I look at it all, number one, do I believe in the product? As we talked a little bit about earlier, the problems that Conga solves are direct problems that I faced in prior roles.

I see the need for business-critical systems that can truly digitize and transform the enterprise. I see that in Conga. The second thing for me is scale. As I think about ServiceMax being a lot smaller than GE, Conga was about three times the size of ServiceMax when I left. I am constantly looking for what’s the next set of problems that I can encounter in my own career such that I can continue to grow. I think part of that comes with scale, building teams and increasing levels of scale.

Then the third is team and culture. I have a great CEO, look up to him and enjoy working for him. My peer group is second to none. I have a great network around me that I can lean on. The organization, the culture with which the team shows up are very focused on customers, very focused on collaboration and winning together. I think those are ingredients that can stand any macroeconomic backdrop and enable the company to be successful.

Importance Of CEO-CFO Relationship

I want to touch upon something you said, which is your relationship with the CEO, Noel Goggin. There’s been a lot of talk that the CEO-CFO relationship has actually become the most critical relationship. By the way, it’s the CEOs who are saying that, not the CFOs themselves. They view the CFO as the strategic partner and the most trusted advisor. The person that they talk to most. I’m curious about the dynamic between you and Noel.

Noel grew up in Ireland and I grew up in Wales and he likes to say that the only thing difference between an Irishman and a Welshman is that the Irish can swim. We have a very similar cultural background there. One thing that he and I talk a lot about is what does that partnership looks like. Where does he spike? Where do I spike? How do we ultimately complement each other?

I think a sign of a good meeting is only one of us is in there at the time because we’re filling in the other’s gaps or capacity. I think we have that. He’s also an engineer by background and helped define the category that Conga sits in, revenue lifecycle management. To the extent that I can take things off his plate, I think it’s well received.

I want to chat a little about Conga. A fascinating company, but I think you’re probably at a pivotal stage of growth as a leader in the revenue lifecycle management game. What are your top priorities for driving the company’s financial strategy and supporting its expansion and growth in the coming years?

I’ll talk a little bit about what we’re driving in the operations more broadly and then in finance specifically. I think that is how I think about it. Number one, as I think about the financial framework, they’re really good about the operating model for organically accelerating top-line growth. We’ve got best-in-class EBITDA margins. We spent a lot of time thinking through where we make targeted investments to continue the momentum we have in the business.

Whether that’s entering new markets through the deployment of the sales teams or partnerships or investing in organic R&D and new product introduction, I think we spend a lot of time there, and there’s also an inorganic component to that. I spend a lot of time working with my peers and my team to ensure that we’re continuously updating that operating model and that time is well spent. The second is how we help inform the operations of the business. You mentioned that’s my bias and background here.

Again, it’s double-clicking now. It’s great to say that pipeline growth is X, but what does that mean? How do we continue to think about the conversion rates of that pipeline? Where are we winning? Where are we losing? How can we double down some of our bets? Having the finance team integrated into some of those operating processes and cadences enables us to be strong business partners.

Building out that business partnership group is super important to me. The third, I would say, is to improve the back-office operations of the business. My agreement spans legal, FP&A and then also accounting. We’re very focused on attracting, developing and retaining great talent, digitizing processes wherever we can. With that great talent that we have within the organization, freeing up their capacity through digitized processes that enable them to focus on one or two.

Retaining And Developing Talent

You mentioned you’re good at attracting, retaining and developing. That’s a challenge for all CFOs, particularly the retention story, but probably no more so than in the space that you are in geographically in the industry. What’s the secret sauce to keeping, retaining and motivating a great team?

It’s a great question and something I spend a lot of time thinking about. I think, again, number one is culture. They want to work with a team and a collaborative environment where they can grow their career. I think creating a culture where that’s a foundational tenant is important. Second, I think, is having the ability to grow your career at Conga. We have people on the FP&A team that came out of our accounting department. We’re constantly thinking about how we rotate folks through different roles and open them up to different challenges.

At a smaller scale than I experienced at GE, but definitely there, I think the third thing is good talent. It tracks good talent, making sure that we’re able to deliver on our commitments to our team and have them be our best references as we go out to hire new folks. I always welcome anyone that we’re bringing into the organization to talk to people who have worked with me in the past, whether it’s at the current company or prior companies, and let those references speak for themselves.

I think, finally, Jack, I like to think of me as a rung on a much larger ladder for all the people working for me. Whether they’re able to continue their career at Conga or go on to continue to do great things at other companies, I think that’s all part of the implicit contract that we have with them. Being very open to how we help each of those individuals continue their career, whether it’s at my current company or a company in the future, I think is something I take a lot of time and effort around.

The Conga Way And Leadership

I noticed the website referred to something as the Conga Way, and it was all about entrepreneurial spirit, collaboration and customer focus at all costs. With the Conga Way, how does that affect you as a leader? My sense is they’re not words on paper. That’s something that Conga generally believes in. How does that affect how you perform as a leader and your approach to decision-making as well?

I’d say it’s at the heart of everything we do. When we think about championing the customer, we’re able to point to that as one of our core tenets within the Conga Way and ensure that all the decisions we’re making reinforce that. It’s easy to make short-term decisions that have financial benefits, maybe to the detriment of our customers. We’re very focused on building a company that will be an enduring company, that will have longevity, things like the Conga Way.

It’s embracing an entrepreneurial spirit, achieving together and championing the customer. Those are at the core of the decisions we make. We do a detailed, full company talent review twice a year, where we look in the context of a nine blocker at all the employees in the organization and make sure that not only we are on track with our expectations, but also the “how” and we make real talent decisions based on the “how” as much as the “what.”

Every great CFO has a digital strategy. In the old days, it was approving the budget and whatnot and they were focused only on finance and accounting type of stuff. What are the things that you as a CFO and that other CFOs ought to be thinking of in terms of keeping up with key emerging technologies and both internally, how you use it in your team, but also how you use technologies to give yourself a competitive advantage in the marketplace? Let’s face it. It’s a competitive world right now.

I totally agree. Look, I think in the way that I think about digital transformation. For me, it comes down to simplifying your system’s landscape and unifying around to the extent possible as few vendors as possible and as integrated systems as possible. That then gives you a much cleaner data architecture that underpins your entire infrastructure. On top of that, it makes analysis a lot easier to repeat and continue to move the ball forward.

I think a lot about that as being very foundational to how we’re driving technology strategy within Conga. I’d say, look, we eat our dog food or drink our champagne, depending on the analogy you want to use, but we are very focused on being customer zero for our own applications. As I think about what our applications are able to do, I think we all faced a very challenging inflationary environment over the past several years.

Being able to query our contract library to understand where we have price increase caps that are prohibitive, have that flow then directly into our CPQ and create line items automatically into renewal sales orders with our customers, and then have a document-generation process that enables a much more seamless approval of those types of clauses.

All within a single system and platform gives us a competitive differentiation as it relates to moving quickly and connecting business decisions with how we’re driving our commercial strategy. I think that’s the foundation of why we think we can win. We’re leveraging our own technology that we sell to customers to deliver that across.

I think that with your background, education and early career experiences, you will probably bring a real strategic focus to technology in a way that some other CFOs don’t. Do you think that your early career experiences have made you more effective?

At least in terms of solving these problems. I think I bring my technology background with me to the way I look at problems. I think that has worked well for me.

We’re in a complex economic time, more so than at any point in our careers. A volatile economic environment creates both challenges and opportunities. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ll be facing in the next few years? I think volatility is now a way of life. I don’t think it’s a short-term thing. What are some of the challenges and opportunities that it might be creating, if any?

I 100 percent agree that volatility is here to stay and the types of challenges that we will encounter, we may not have encountered in the past. Being adaptable is at the core of how we need to now operate. I think, one, having a growth mindset. We talk about not the problems that we’re facing but instead where the opportunities we have are. How do we overcome those opportunities to continue to move the ball forward? I think having that mindset is so important. It’s easy to point to what’s not working and it’s a lot more productive to focus on how you can continue to make more things work, which is an important distinction.

I think, look, no one knows what the future will hold. I do want to come back to this idea of having an operating model that’s also resilient. We talked about profitability being the focus historically in tech, at least it was growth at all costs. I think having an operating model that has that right balance and can allow you to move the dials in small increments either way is important. I think that allows you then to not subject the organization to wild swings as well, which can be difficult to overcome.

Balancing Work And Personal Life

I want to switch gears a little bit because I understand there’s been a recent addition to Team Edwards.

Speaking of volatility in business. We’ve had some volatility in our personal life as well. We have a baby, Olivia Rose Edwards, who joined us last October 2023. We actually used an app to figure out which name would be compatible with both of us. Similar to Tinder, we used an app called Kinder that allowed us to swipe left and right and find something that worked for both of us. My work also works in finance, so it’s very analytical. Olivia has been a blessing for us.

How finance people name their children, that’s crazy. My kids were obviously a little older than yours, maybe more than a little older than yours, but there were name books you could buy. The first one we had, it had like say, 2,800 boys’ names. Nope, didn’t find one we liked, we had to buy another one.

The app probably would have made our lives a little bit easier. That’s fantastic, though, because that’s always a big issue. Being a CFO is an inherently demanding job. You have a lot of things going on as well. What are some of the tricks you have to achieve that work-life balance, such as being a great CFO, being a great business person generally and then being a great dad and husband?

I had a great mentor who told me that I could do five things very well in life. I spend a lot of time thinking about the five roles that I have in my life. One is my job. The second is being a great husband. Third is being a great dad and then making trade-offs. I think if you try and do too much, sometimes you don’t do anything well. I’m very focused on the things that I want to spend my time on. What am I not going to spend my time on? I make sure that I’m all in on those priorities and giving it my all. Right now, being a great dad is top of that list.

Simon, one of the favorite questions I like to ask my guests on this show, and it’s because I’m trying to change the stereotype of financial people as less than interesting. I like to ask people if they have a go-to joke, a fun fact or maybe a hobby that is surprising to them.

That’s a great question. I don’t know if it’s going to change the perception of CFOs here, but I’ll give you a tidbit, Jack. I’ve torn my ACL twice. Once on a skateboard and the other time on a golf course. The full story is for another time here, but I’ll leave you with that little tidbit.

Was it the same ACL?

It was the same ACL.

I’m not a golfer, but I’m trying to imagine that, hopefully, the skateboard one must have been first, right?

It was.

It’s an interesting fact. I wouldn’t call that a fun fact that you’ve dealt with two major injuries, but no, that’s great. I also like to conclude, Simon, do you have any advice for the next generation of CFOs? What are some things that they can think about, whether they’re in their first ever CFO job or if they think that they’re on a path to becoming a CFO?

Advice For Future CFOs

My broad advice is to play to your strengths, don’t over-index on your weaknesses or opportunities, and then spend time with the team. I think that has been the most rewarding part of my career. I think it’s easily overlooked as you’re trying to accomplish your own successes in your career. I think the more people I talk to, the more they look back on developing the next generation of leaders as being something that they’re most proud of.

That’s some great advice. Simon, this has been a lot of fun. It’s always good to catch up with you. I know you have a lot going on. Congratulations on the new edition. I wasn’t aware of that until recently but congratulations on that. I want to give you the final word, if there’s anything you’d like to conclude with.

No, appreciate you having me here, Jack. I think you spending time to expose a broader community to great CFOs, something that I’ve appreciated, and I’m grateful to have been included in this.

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Thanks again to Pahawk and Plankford for their support of the show. Rock on.

Important Links

• Simon Edwards
• Conga