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Creating a Better Internet with Mozilla CFO Eric Muhlheim

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เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย Nth Round เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดหาให้โดยตรงจาก Nth Round หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์ของพวกเขา หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่แสดงไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal

"Am I continuing to learn? Am I continuing to create value?”

These questions act as pillars for Eric Muhlheim, propelling his expansive career from studying mathematics to leading finance teams at one of the most dynamic tech organizations today.

In our first episode of 2024, Eric and host of The Modern CFO, Andrew Seski, explore Eric's formative experiences at Morgan Stanley, his impactful tenure at Disney, and his transition into the world of tech leading him to his current role at Mozilla. Eric shares insights into Mozilla's unique corporate structure, its mission-driven approach, and the challenges and opportunities presented by the AI revolution.

Listen in as Eric and Andrew discuss the importance of strategic implementation, the critical role of maintaining a strong, mission-aligned balance sheet, and Eric's personal approaches to leadership and relationship-building in the corporate world.

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เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย Nth Round เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดหาให้โดยตรงจาก Nth Round หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์ของพวกเขา หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่แสดงไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal

"Am I continuing to learn? Am I continuing to create value?”

These questions act as pillars for Eric Muhlheim, propelling his expansive career from studying mathematics to leading finance teams at one of the most dynamic tech organizations today.

In our first episode of 2024, Eric and host of The Modern CFO, Andrew Seski, explore Eric's formative experiences at Morgan Stanley, his impactful tenure at Disney, and his transition into the world of tech leading him to his current role at Mozilla. Eric shares insights into Mozilla's unique corporate structure, its mission-driven approach, and the challenges and opportunities presented by the AI revolution.

Listen in as Eric and Andrew discuss the importance of strategic implementation, the critical role of maintaining a strong, mission-aligned balance sheet, and Eric's personal approaches to leadership and relationship-building in the corporate world.

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From the vital role of athletics in shaping their work ethic to the crucial balance between work and personal life, gain valuable insights into what it takes to excel in the competitive world of CFOs. Show Links Check out Townsend Search Group Follow Townsend Search Group on LinkedIn Connect with Dan Ellis on LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Seski on LinkedIn Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another exciting episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, we're joined by Dan Ellis, managing director of Townsend Search Group, a search group based in Michigan, my home state. And for just over a decade, Dan shared his career experience in public accounting and consulting and today is connecting private equity groups or portfolio companies with the best talent there is. Dan, thank you so much for joining us today. [00:00:35] Dan Ellis: Andrew, thank you. Happy to be here and excited to chat about some topics about the modern CFO. [00:00:43] Andrew Seski: So one of the reasons I'm so excited that you're on the podcast is that we get all of these incredible insights from CFOs in their fields. And while they're all diverse, I think your perspective should be really unique and valuable to them. It's a somewhat opaque world and I know that market dynamics have severely shifted in the last few years and even last few months. Before we dive into the whole world of CFO placements and Townsend as a search group, I'd love to go back in time and learn a little bit about how you initially became interested in accounting and maybe even earlier days outside of undergrad. [00:01:20] Dan Ellis: Yeah, sure. I appreciate that. I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. My father and grandfather purchased a manufacturing company that they grew and successfully operated. So I always wanted to be a business owner and I saw accounting as a path into that. So went to Western Michigan University, got my accounting degree. After that, spent eight years in public accounting and consulting as a CPA. Towards the tail end of that, I got into M&A advisory, due diligence, transaction support. And really liked that environment, but didn't see myself being a partner in a public accounting firm. I wanted to do something more entrepreneurial where you could eat what you kill. And so I was introduced to my colleague and partner Peter Bridges at Townsend Search Group. And just came into the executive search and recruiting world with a network previously in private equity and consulting and was able to learn the operations and the process of executive recruiting and eventually become very good at executing searches, which ultimately led into more to business development and opportunities like this to meet you. [00:02:31] So our specialty at Townsend has really become working with middle-market companies, lower middle-market companies that are privately owned, most often private equity sponsored. So we do a lot of work in the private equity community, not only at the firm level or within the funds and working with the investment teams, the operating teams. We spend a significant amount of our time working within the portfolio companies, placing accounting, finance, operational executives, and leaders. So I think today, we'll spend most of the time on CFOs. And just to set the context, a lot of our focus is in the middle market with privately owned businesses. [00:03:13] Andrew Seski: Yeah, that's really helpful. Thanks for that. Yeah, I think in my mind when you're going out and engaging with a search firm maybe for the first time, you may have some hesitations and I'm curious as to when and how maybe CFO should begin the process of engaging with the search firm. I feel like the marketplace, maybe the tenure has shortened a bit in a typical amount of turnover in the C-suite in general right now. I'm curious as to when it would be most strategic to engage with search firms, understand the marketplace better, or if you should essentially always have a good pulse on the market. [00:03:51] Dan Ellis: I think it's always important to have a good pulse on the market. And this comes into a little bit of how do you develop into a CFO. And I think earlier in a career as a candidate, as an aspiring CFO, being in contact with the recruiter can really help you be more strategic with developing your skill set to be a CFO. So we can understand your background and experiences and where you want to get and try to align your interests with companies or CFOs that are looking to hire someone in those functional areas. So making sure that you're deliberate and strategic with your career development is something that a recruiter can help counsel or advise. We can give you data points on what the market holds in terms of compensation and really just help make sure that you're aware of what's out there in the market. [00:04:45] Now, if you're a sitting CFO and you're building a team, being in contact with us is very valuable because we're constantly in the market talking with folks. We know what they're making. We know what they're looking for. If we can understand the vision that a CFO is trying to drive in a business, the strategy they're trying to execute, we can find candidates or we may know candidates that align with that strategy and that vision, and therefore it creates a win-win in the fact that we're getting the candidate the technical and the experiences that they need to develop their skillset to be a CFO, but we're also helping that sitting CFO build out their team and drive what they're looking for. So hopefully, that's helpful. [00:05:34] Andrew Seski: Definitely. I mean, so you've been with Townsend for about a decade now. And the world has changed a lot and we've been through a number of economic market cycles and then the last few years have been extremely interesting. I'm curious as to how that impacts — maybe equity becomes more important in a cash-restricted business that needs to ramp up and scale. I'm curious what a search firm market environment is, like what the cycles are in the marketplace for you, maybe what the lag is, and then what it is like in our curre...…
 
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Show Links Check out Customer.io Follow Customer.io on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Instagram Connect with Zhi Li on LinkedIn Connect with Andrew Seski on LinkedIn Transcript Please note that the transcript is AI-generated and may contain errors. The content in the podcast is not intended as investment advice, and is meant for informational and entertainment purposes only. [00:00:00] Andrew Seski: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Modern CFO Podcast. As always, I'm your host, Andrew Seski. Today, I'm joined by Zhi Li, CFO of Customer.io. Zhi, thank you so much for being here today. [00:00:21] Zhi Li: Thanks for having me. [00:00:23] Andrew Seski: So I'd love to talk about your career progression, the route to the CFO role, your first time as a CFO in earlier companies. But before we do so, I'd love to hear a little bit of background as to what you were interested even in undergrad and some of the first roles that you had, you know, right out of Penn. [00:00:41] Zhi Li: Yeah, yeah. So maybe just a little bit of myself and then we can probably launch into different topics that would go in there. But so I was born in China and then grew up in the Bay Area and then went to Penn. You and I just chatted about like Philly, which is the city that I really love. But after Penn, I actually started my career in Canada. So I was in finance at a wireless division of a large telco called Bell Canada. And then after that, I moved back to the US. So I worked in investment banking in New York in the tech group of Credit Suisse. So if you follow banking, you know, Credit Suisse might be called UBS or First Boston later on or something like that. So that's the some of the new dynamic there. But I learned a lot during that time in banking. Worked a lot as well but, you know, on many tech M&A and IP financing deals there and also get to interact with a ton of smart, hard-working, talented people. And then after that, I actually moved to Seattle cold turkey. And the backstory to that was my wife and I were both actually in grad school in LA. When I took the job to move to New York, I made a deal with her and say, Hey, you know, we need to transfer your grad school. She's got two more years. You know, whenever you are ready to leave, I'll hold up by end of the bargain. So no questions asked. When you're ready to leave New York, then I'll go. So the time came. This is probably like seven years ago. She says she wants to move to Seattle closer to her family. And then, I picked up and go. I did not know anybody in Seattle going in. But Seattle, I — now, like it's home for me. So I love it. It reminds me of maybe the Bay Area when I was, you know, many, many years ago, you know, back in high school when I kind of grew up in the Bay Area. So but yeah. So now, I'm in Seattle. I focus on helping fast-growing SaaS companies, helping them scale. So, you know, the one of the company was Skytap, which is a Seattle-based enterprise SaaS company. And we did a number of transactions, including a Series E Round led by Goldman Sachs. And then after that, I was with MedBridge. So it was a growth P/E-backed company, and we sold the company from one growth P/E to another growth P/E. And now, I'm at Customer.io. So very happy at the momentum and everything that we have here at the company. So just really, I think, very fortunate to be part of this growing story with Customer.io. Yeah, so that's generally the work background. [00:03:07] Outside of work, I also, you know, spend time doing the alumni interview for the Penn undergrad admission, which I always find super refreshing to see the fresh applicants every year. And I've always been amazed with the quality of the applicants. And then also, I'm on the board of an organization called LCYC — Legal Counsel for Youth and Children. So we're focused on advancing the rights of our youth and children so. [00:03:35] Andrew Seski: That's a pretty incredible resume. I want to — we're gonna pick it all apart, but let's start right at your last and current role right now, Customer.io. And I'm curious to know first, what attracted you to the firm, the leadership, maybe some of the cultural ways that the firm's been building out over the last decade, and also maybe the value add of working together. I know there are a million SaaS solutions out on the marketplace today. The venture world has been in flux over the last few years. So I'd love to learn a little bit more about the firm, how you're delivering value to clients, and what got you most excited. And you've been there for about two years now, so, you know, maybe bring us back two-ish years. [00:04:19] Zhi Li: Yeah, yeah. So just a little bit about Customer.io. So we're a leading multi-product, customer engagement platform. I think today, it's actually super exciting day 'cause we have our new launch of customer data pipeline that we launched today for early access. So, you know, throughout the last 10 years or so, our core product has been the Customer Engagement Platform, where we allow tech-savvy marketers to engage with their customers through emails, SMS, and push notifications, and also in-app messaging. And now, we also allow a new product called the Data Pipelines, so we can leverage first-party data to create more unified view for our customer records. So super exciting. [00:05:00] And I think what really attracted me — with my background, I've looked at a ton of software SaaS companies and looking at like their value and their potential. I was really attracted to number one, it's founder-led. So Colin, our CEO, has been there from day one. He's got this really long-term vision, and I really kind of feel aligned with that vision. And also, we are very horizontal in terms of like our approach to our customers. So we want to partner with early tech companies. So if you're like a VC-backed early company, we want to be partnered with you early on and grow with you, and then just try to be, you know, as you kind of advance and mature as a company, we will be part of that. And so throughout that journey, we were able to provide a lot of value for you to engage with your customer. The company's also fully remote, which I find super refreshing as well. When I joined, it was just right around the COVID time, so people are like definitely warming up to that remote idea. But the company...…
 
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