Scroll any industry leaderboard and you’ll find founders and CTOs soaking up the glory. Yet venture-capital veterans know that flashy demos and big personalities alone rarely turn a start-up into a scale-up. Lurking just outside the camera frame sit the chief financial officer who protects cashflow, and the chief human resources officer, who safeguards culture. When these two minds sync, they create a feedback loop of prudent spending and purposeful hiring that keeps momentum steady long after the hype fades. Ignore them, and even the brightest idea can run out of money, morale, or both.
The CFO and CHRO often receive just a fraction of the spotlight enjoyed by their customer-facing colleagues and yet their partnership is the quiet engine that transforms raw promise into lasting performance. Treat them as cost centres and you court stagnation; empower them as co-pilots and you invite resilience, credibility, and genuine growth.
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Numbers meet nerve: How CFOs power innovation
For decades the CFO’s desk has been caricatured as the place where good ideas go to die – the proverbial “no” department. Yes, they tighten purse strings, but they also plot cashflow against ambition so the company can take bold bets without breaching runway. In reality, the modern fintech CFO is equal parts guardian and galvaniser.
Having a CFO that can strike a fine balance between caution and bold decision-making is crucial to any organisation that wants to drive genuine growth and achieve long-term success. It’s a real skill to be able to carefully align financial strategies with business objectives, ensuring that resources are effectively allocated to support new ideas and aid market expansion. The right kind of CFO brings endless value and plays a critical role in innovation through their ability as a leader to prudently evaluate financial risks while also being nimble enough to jump on opportunities.
The CFO’s multifaceted role goes way beyond crunching numbers; they’re strategic visionaries with an acute understanding of financial stewardship. CFOs don’t just guard the coffers; they identify and champion investments that propel companies forward.
Creating cultures that scale: Inside the CHRO toolkit
If cash is a fintech’s lifeblood, culture is its heartbeat. The CHRO’s remit therefore goes far beyond payroll and policy paperwork. In a talent market where seasoned engineers are wooed daily, attracting and retaining the best minds hinges on a workplace that feels both stretching and supportive. The strategic CHRO designs that environment.
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By GlobalDataThe ability to be agile and scale rapidly is key to fintech success in today’s world, and a CHRO who is skilled in attracting top digital talent, fostering a culture of continuous learning and implementing people-centric policies that support both growth and compliance is worth their weight in gold.
Good talent is the backbone of all successful fintechs, and a good HR Chief knows that culture is about actions, not catchy slogans and PowerPoint slides presented in an eye-catching pitch deck. The CHRO will implement strategies that hard-bake the company’s values into the day-to-day, ensuring that culture becomes a lived experience for all. They’ll encourage professional development, work-life balance initiatives and commit to diversity, equality and inclusion to help to drive real growth.
In my experience, great fintech CHROs are unsung heroes of business, working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure their organisations remain dynamic, competitive and an employer of choice in a fast-evolving space.
Bridging the gap between launch and longevity
Over my 25 years in the business I’ve noticed that three-quarters of venture-backed fintech start-ups fail before reaching meaningful scale. The leap from agile experimenter to sustainable enterprise is therefore a crucible few survive. Early funding stages reward hustle, but Series B and beyond demand proof that hustle can mature into repeatable profit. Here the CFO-CHRO alliance becomes mission-critical.
As your company evolves through different funding stages, so do its challenges: in the early days, agility and innovation account for so much. During the startup stages, a great CFO will ensure that financial strategies are put in place that can fuel rapid experimentation and product development, while a strong CHRO can build a resilient, adaptable team culture that thrives in uncertainty.
Yet once an organisation hits Series B and C funding, the goalposts change and the focus has to shift to sustainable growth. A strong CFO can ensure the right resources are allocated in the right way, while a forward-focused CHRO will develop leadership pipelines, refine company culture and ensure the organisation’s people are ready to embrace the next stage of expansion.
At every step, hiring strategically, onboarding talent with potential and sometimes making tough calls on letting go of misaligned team members is key. Business is business, and not every decision that has to be made will be an easy and popular one: the team that got you from A to B may not be the same team that will get you from B to C, and that’s just a reality. Those fintechs that successfully grow from headline-grabbing startups to scaleups that make a meaningful impact and profit are the ones who have their eyes focused on the bigger picture.
When market conditions tighten and talent costs climb, fintechs that thrive are those that let the CFO and CHRO steer alongside the headline act. Their joint discipline turns bold experiments into bankable earnings, while their shared foresight stops cultural cracks before they widen. Give them a seat at every strategic table. Put finance and people strategy on equal footing and watch sustainable growth become the norm.
Elliott Limb is CEO and co-founder of fintech advisory and venture building firm, Cubed
